Posted by weathermansays on 11/16/34 11:53

Gospel wrote:
> Good article; thanks for posting it.
>
> In my city, we used to have dozens of those record stores, too. There
> were always at least 3 clerks so that you could ask for certain music
> and one of them would know what wanted... talking, exchanging opinions
> and maybe concert stories, etc. Nice way to spend a couple hours.
>
> People think that "The Good Old Days" are 'back there'. They are, but
> the last of the Good Old Days are almost over. Beginning about 1982,
> the Gold Old Days stopped and now the connection between people in a
> consumer relationship is dead. Gone. Done. My generation is that last
> one that remembers or cares that you used to go to stores that were
> actually owned by the people who worked there. My first credit card
> came from a clothing shop on Main St. The people who checked at the
> local IGA were teamsters and made good wages. I could go on for hours
> but to what avail; to anyone younger than 30 I sound like I'm 90. But
> actually, it happened overnight. I step outside now and all I see are
> thousands of strangers in cars, me in mine.... all of us in a huge sea
> of vehicles, total strangers to each other. And I'm living in what
> might be considered a small town... except it's not a town. Everywhere
> in the West now .. there's no center to anywhere. Storefronts. Costco.
> Cars.
>
> Oh well, who cares. Can't change it and someday we won't even have a
> post office to go. They've already made vote-by-mail mandatory here.
> And another thing. When did we start to think that just by being in a
> crowd that it somehow conveyed "community"? 50,000 people go to a game
> and they all have this big slappy-happy way about them being with each
> other, but they're not. They are all complete strangers - never to be
> seen again. We exchanged actual community for volume.
>
> Oh well.


Interesting you cite 1982 and the year things changed -- I've always
felt that too. Maybe it was the dissemination of MTV into zillions of
homes that year (and yes I know MTV started in 1981, but most people
didn't get it till later).

By making music disposable and "compact," record companies did away
with the iconic image of vinyl records. They may have been scratchable
but they had a good physical presence. When your mom saw that Ozzy
cover she'd freak. Now mom's not gonna get scared of a Marilyn Manson
pic on a tiny CD. How intimidating is that?

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