The day the music died! German Version
This weekend I was invited on a „birthday – relocation – party“. Yeah a „guys please help me carrying my stuff party!!!“ Not a „let’s drink all the leftovers of my old bar, before I move to my new flat – party“. Relocation party sound a bit to me like root canal treatment fete or a SPRINGcleaningBREAK. So you see it wasn’t that kind of fun! But I liked the idea, at first!
I mean you invite a lot of people that you like to your birthday and just give them a short hint that you also will remove to a new flat. I mean it sounds like fun, except that working party thing! And if you are one of his oldest and best friends… well he could understand if I couldn’t make it, but… I really could hear him thinking, if you are too lazy to help: you suck! But I also knew that if I go there, well I make myself a kind of modern slave. A classical lose/ lose situation. But the promise of the party was still in the room and so I decided to go.
I don’t want to bore you with too many details, but after transporting some books, tables, chairs and heavy wooden racks the party started.
And at the end of the (work)day my friend made an anouncement. After all that thank-you blabla he said that there is an box with old music-CDs and we can have a look and take whatever we need… for free! Otherwise he will throw them away. He really wanted to give away his CD-Collection! He didn’t make this decision because of his monkish lifestyle, which also would not be my first choice, no, he just has all his music on his I-Pod or on his external hard disk. And so he added, most of his new music, he gets by download. Wow!
You know, these CD weren’t crap or old. I mean he decided to through away classics like A-HA, Led Zepplin, Phil collins, the latest compilations and so on.
So I asked myself am I that fucking old (no I am not, I hardly scratch the big 30)? But it seems to me the area of the CD is over. And I already buried the audio and data cassette and changed my small music collection against CDs then. Chneged from satellite TV to cable and back again and now watch TV via internet, I even knew the LP! (For the younger ones: That were those funny little black frisbees that made music in the 70’s.) But now it is time to say good bye to an not so old friend the CD!
I mean this Disc is not older than me, developed in the late 70’s (remember the golden platter area), it was released on the free market in 1982. And the first commercial available CD was pressed in Hannover, containing a recording of Richard Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie. (Had a nice look at wikipedia).
So in her early 30’s she cut across her zenit! We listen to youtube and online broadcast shows, we share playlists and store our music – bought online – on a external hard disk. So it is time to say goodbye to our oldfriend the CD.
Oh, I know, I know. There are still billions of CD in and on the market(s), but answer me one question, how many CD’s did you bought last year, how many records and how often did you listen to online music, „share“ music with some friends… you see.
[Alexander Salatzkat]
