Every Breath You Take

I was just watching an episode from the second series of Love My Way; it’s the one where Tom (Brendan Cowell) has a go at his brother Charlie (Dan Wyllie) for owning a Sting CD. To paraphrase, Tom states the obvious – Sting in the Police equals cool, Sting solo, uh, not so cool. Charlie bites back, arguing that the album in question is Sting’s first outside of the Police. Tom argues that it doesn’t matter; the CD would not have been around at the time, it clearly would have been vinyl. This, he contends, settles the issue, and he threatens to throw the offending piece out the window.

There’s something in this exchange that really emphasises, for me, the dynamic relationship between music and technology. This blog was established for my Technology, Media, and Culture class at university on the basis that it would provide a web log of my thoughts and experiences on an aspect of culture and its connections with technology. That I chose to focus on music looks, in retrospect, to be a bit of a cop-out. As a heavy peruser of blogs, music ones especially, I am aware of what is already out there and, while I have felt an urge to join the Mp3 revolution, for the benefit of my course I have attempted to avoid this line of posting (not to say it won’t happen in the future!). So far as technology goes, I have attempted to showcase the human aspect; in particular, the ways in which advancements frame our listening and consumption habits. How important is it to stay on top of things? At what point does society (or at least e-society) deem something uncool or outdated? Who exactly dictates these trends? When does borrowing become stealing and how does technology facilitate such acts? Questions no-one can answer, true, but they sure make for interesting discussion.

Class is winding up for the year and this is my summarising comment. What’s ‘round the corner? You'll have to wait and see.