Various: The Wire Tapper 12

I'm caught on the hop here. I thought today's entry was going to be about Robert Schröder's Floating Music, but then, just as I'd nearly finished writing the entry, I discovered I'd already done that. So this double CD has been bumped forward.

It's one of the few I burnt onto iTunes in the early days of iPod ownership — back when I could get my whole library onto my iPod — Wire Tapper 11 being another example. And, as with that example, iTunes tells me I've hardly listened to any of the tracks since May 2005 (the exceptions are possibly down to the odd rogue shuffle selection).

All of which makes me think it might be fun to plot the distribution of number of plays of all the 7,500+ items in my iTunes library. But I'm too lazy to do it properly, so let's just give you these figures:

• Number of plays at 25th percentile: 1
• Median number of plays: 3
• Number of plays at 75th percentile: 6
• Number of plays at 90th percentile: 8 or 9
• Number of plays at 99th percentile: 17

One conclusion I can surely draw from that is that, I don't need to own at least half of my library. Anything that's listened to less than five times in as many years doesn't warrant "ownership", but some form of on-demand access. Arguably that might apply to about 80-90% of the library.

Just catching up with the tracks on the two CDs now, I can see why they didn't get played a lot on my first iPod. Tracks like those by Matthew Burtner and Stéphane Rives are not the kind of thing you want playing in your head when you're making your way home through the Blackfriars pedestrian underpass after dark.

Buy via Discogs.com

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Some metadata about disc 1 at Last.fm, disc 2

Comments

[Fred Stagg]

It seems to me that you have made your own (and quite compelling argument) for digital music archiveing. I know that there is plenty of talk about compression, etc., but I'm of the mind set that there is nothing wrong with the quality, not to mention the longevity. Those tracks that are only seeing the light of day on an annual basis may actually be reviewed more often thanks to features like shuffle. Better yet, smart playlists. I suppose it then becomes a question of whether or not the ipod is used for listening during those times when it's not plugged into one's ears.

[David]

Hi Fred, I think I follow your case, but my question would be why it makes sense for me and millions of others to pay for and store our individual copies (with varying degrees of compression, quality etc). Surely it would be much better -- in terms of quality, cost and comprehensiveness -- for us all to chip in to keeping an archive of everything in the cloud? We could still build our individual playlists and smart playlists on top of that resource.

[Fred Stagg]

Well David, you have touched upon my "nerve of paranoia". The cloud concept is by far the most economic and prolific means of storage. However, for me the thought of being somehow severved from my music or regulated in some fashion chills me to the bone. Like a junkie who needs his fix, I go through a painful (if only temporary) withdrawal) when things like ipods go on the fritz. It may be digital, but the collector's instict still kicks in.

[Fred Stagg]

P.S. Unpon further consideration, I think what I'm really driving at is, by embracing the current technology, one can have it all. Mega storage, easy access, quality sound and an interactive element that allows for a listening experience that is highly customised. Suits me just fine.

[David]

Fred, you should read the second edition of Evan Eisenberg's The Recording Angel. It has a postscript to the original edition (which is mainly a hymn to vinyl collectors, and very worthwhile in its own right) which will feed exactly the paranoia you speak of. It's several years since I read it, but the premise is a future scenario where the copyright police have closed down all the cloud services, and the only way to hear vast swathes of recorded music is via an underground network of hard disk swappers.

So, the cloud is no panacea. But in these cash-strapped times, anything that costs me less with no immediate loss in quality or convenience is worth looking into.

And I'm hanging on to my vinyl, in case not just the net but the grid closes down. Then we'll all have pedal power home generators to get just enough electricity to listen to a couple of sides.

[Fred Stagg]

Amen, brother.