I own my parents record collection. They have passed (decades ago) and I really enjoy when I am going through my records and I listen to one of the records that we used to listen to together. I don’t have digital copies of any of it, nor do I feel like I need to. It wouldn’t be the same to listen to a file in this example because the experience of the music wouldn’t be the same without the connection to the “relic” that focuses the emotions.
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I understand the connection to the past, but I don’t see that as a good reason to keep buying physical media. I’m glad I can enjoy music in any shape or form. Anything that makes music more accessible - and impervious to time - is welcome.
I’ve been revisiting some old interviews with Steve Wilson regarding his relationship with physical media, and one of the things that came out was that physical media really made him able to finance a niche career. Limited edition records with lavish artwork, things that are a joy to hold that sell in quantities of 3,000-4,000 copies made it possible for him to tour, produce new records, and generally be a successful contemporary musician.
Accessibility, as he points out in other interviews, can be a trap that cheapens our musical experience and robs it of its richness. In a 2016 interview on popmatters.com he recounts the story of his discovery of the Trout Mask Replica album by Captain Beefheart. It was quite a task to locate and obtain an old vinyl copy of it at that time, and after going to a great deal of trouble he found that he positively hated it. Because of the effort invested, he came back to it again and again until he finally “got it” and it became one of his favorite albums. He fears, and I do too, that the current ease (and robotic efficiency) of algorithmic music discovery systems (like Roon) will lead to a sort of laziness about music, a lack of connection to the “quest” that has been a large part of cultivating a musical taste for many of us.
Physical media aren’t simply a sentimental connection to the past, they are an element in a larger landscape of musical discovery. It’s not just about nostalgia, it’s about connecting with music in distinctive ways-- such as the bizarre and perverse (to me at least) rediscovery of factory cassettes.
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Several interesting points that I had not taken under consideration. Thank you for the now looming rabbit hole. 
I don’t have a relationship with any physical media 
I believe that the only effort that should stand in our way of understanding music should be to actually listen. I’m sure there were critics to the printing press, with arguments along the same lines - the relationship with the book, the artwork, nostalgia about a dying craft etc. The benefits however were immense.
I personally have no use for discovery systems. But then, shouldn’t this new way of discovering music increase our interest in it? I believe this is the reason many here use Roon in the first place, and if you’re using Roon, you do care about music.
I agree with that characterization.
I do. The best example is your invocation of the book. I hold a book at a narrow range of distances, because of the length of my arms. As a photographer for most of my life, my education often came through photo books which set up a completely different relationship than, say, visiting a Richard Avedon exhibition where human figures are presented larger than life (also a formative moment for me. The physical medium matters. As for music, the best example of shifts in physicality is the invention of portable music devices (starting with the walkman). I watched a lovely interview with Todd Rundgren a while back, who pointed out that in the beginning, a person bought a record and sat down in the sweet spot and listened attentively to it in a chosen listening space. The walkman freed people to listen to music anywhere, and forever changed our relationship with music. I tend to agree that this is the beginning of the slippery slope we now find ourselves on. I’m looking at you, Roon ARC
We never simply “listen.” We have thoughts, we do research (Roon encourages that, as do album covers) and mostly we exist as bodies in space who will never encounter the same sound in the same way twice.
The printing press displaced illuminated manuscripts. Have you ever seen one? There was a major loss involved, forever changing the way we encountered poetry and ideas. Take a look at the books of William Blake (created long after the printing press) created by directly writing backwards on printing plates with acid and watercolored later to get a glimpse of “nostalgia” (as you characterize it) that moved the pursuit of human knowledge forward in ways that technology simply can’t. It’s not all benefits all the way down. It’s a matter of gains and losses.
A better example would be the advent of the e-book. I still don’t use them, because my physical relationship with them is uncomfortable. They work by transmitted rather than reflected light, and it is often of a spectrum that causes much eye strain. It’s not an apples to apples comparison. Though they contain ostensibly the same (sometimes more) information than the physical book, our relationship with them simply isn’t the same. This is easily demonstrable for a basic reason:
We are not brains in jars, we are bodies in space. Effort is not exclusively cognitive, it is also physical. Getting comfortable and being in a properly receptive mood is perhaps the most important component of “just listening.”
The ritual of cleaning, starting, and changing sides on a record makes me a more receptive listener. With careful consideration, playing from streaming sources can be rewarding as well, but just plopping down in the middle of anyone’s (roon or programmed) radio stream does not promote deep listening (for me at least).
However, that said, I also find that I frequently have insights about some music while just distractedly puttering about and a song or instrumental piece will just embed itself and send me off thinking about one part of it or another. There are many ways to “just listen.”
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E-paper displays (e.g. e-ink) are reflective. They don’t have a backlight and require an external light to be visible, just like paper. It seems to me you’re just picking on irrelevant aspects of the technology.
It’s ultimately a personal preference. I never “appreciated” the need to do work before I can listen to music. As for e-books, I’d rather have all my library in my pocket, wherever I am. Just like with music.
you find the reasons to keep a local collection at my posts…
a lot of them are not avileable anywhere
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