Let The Music Play

www.paulcoia.com


I guess I’m feeling a bit sensitive, a bit picked on and wondering how could this happen. Part of my childhood disappeared this week in an announcement as devastating as when the school nurse told me I was colour blind and it dawned on me that I couldn’t become a Thunderbirds pilot.

I thought the moon would fall, the French become loveable and Eva Longoria grow tall enough to be allowed on a theme park ride before this would happen, but Woolworths has now announced it is no longer to stock CD singles and I am bereft. It’s not that I usually spend all my spare time in Woolworths, although a fumble in the Pick ‘n’ Mix passes a quick ten minutes or so, but I am gutted.

The store say it is because people now prefer to download singles on line rather than carry them home from the shops and, for me, it’s a soul destroying thought. I suppose I could go in to a boring, rose tinted, retro themed, lecture on the beauty of vinyl and CDs and how all digital computer music stuff is just rubbish, but I won’t. At least not until the next paragraph.

Vinyl still rocks and , of course, is being pressed today for DJs and clubs, and when I hear an old song on the radio I always remember where I bought it, the record label colour, the songwriting credits, the whole nine yards. I’ll reminisce about carrying it home proudly so everyone could see it and playing it for the first time knowing it was all mine, perhaps taking it to parties or lending it to mates, hoping I’d be able to wipe the beer off afterwards. Now I’m expected to press a button and have instant gratification. A pleasing seven incher is no longer enough as size really does matter and smaller is better.

Nowadays we’re used to computer games having hidden messages, or Easter Eggs as they’re called, but sometimes I’ll find myself thinking of the hidden messages the old 45s contained. Some subscribe to the notion that running Led Zeppelin or Ozzy Osbourne records backwards means hearing satanic messages, although one guy with too much time on his hands has found evil references even when playing Barney the Dinosaur songs the wrong way. If you don’t believe me go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC3ih0xw9ck. Want a bet he doesn’t have a girlfriend?

But the hidden messages I’m thinking about were scratched in to that bit of blank vinyl near the label where the engineers used to carve their nickname or a special message. If you get hold of some old seven inch vinyl you’ll find names like Tone or Utopia scratched in, or Porky, the alias used by the most famous of these people, George Peckham, who is currently selling off his memorabilia on eBay.

Sometimes the bands got involved too. Radiohead inscribed Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo on their famous album OK Computer, and The Rezillos hit single Top Of The Pops had How’s About That Then as the band’s tribute to the show’s host Jimmy Saville. But how many even know it’s there?

The Beatles’ singles always had the initials KT on the run off, though this was to show the type of purchase tax to be paid. A pity it’s not someone’s initials really as KT is on as many hit records as the Beatles themselves. Even when Lennon went out on his own, KT came too and Mr Ono used to add the message One World One People. Some CD singles have messages on the underside too, tho’ sometimes it’s only an advert for the EMI plant in exotic Swindon.

I find it hard to imagine I’ll be listening to the radio in twenty years time while reminiscing about the laptop I downloaded a particular song on, or the internet café where I first heard it, or how there was a cheeky hidden message telling how many bytes I’d downloaded. Do you think my pals and I will laugh over the hilarious message Download Completed?

Buying singles, for me, was special; I either saved up and went to the shop to treat myself or I asked for a particular record for my birthday and couldn’t wait for the sight and feel of the artwork, whether on vinyl or CD. Now that sensuous relationship is to be reduced to a quickie with a broadband router.

And what about the picture discs and limited edition sleeves? Will a download make me feel as good as my Apple shaped Sinatra 45 of New York New York? Or my Debbie Harry picture disc? And those framed gold and silver discs hanging on my wall and given to me over the years, will I now get a platinum USB cable instead? I love pulling out those seven inch plastic people pleasers which people have signed for me and remembering the artists as I look at the signatures. Should I now expect them to just leave an ID tag on my MP3 file instead?

Any old duff CD singles I’ve bought over the years have found their way in to the garden, tied with string and hanging from bushes to scare off the birds. Am I now expected to buy a virtual scarecrow? Direct the birds to EffOffOutMyGarden.com?

The current form of buying music on line comes at a time when we live in a Green obsessed world and some MP3 fascists would argue that getting rid of packaging has to be a good thing. I just hope, as they take their organic wine bottles to the recycling centre in their hybrid cars with their hemp seats, that they realise it’s my childhood they’re binning too.