Hey man, it’s me again, back to talk about music one more. Today let’s talk about my listening experience all these decades. I was born in the 90’s, so you can think of me as a typical 90’s kid but I have learnt more than just being stuck at that era, as evolution is a part of human life.
The moment I turned like 6, I was introduced to the things called Gramophone records or
vinyl records by my great grandfather in around 1997, he had some amazing records but unfortunately I was not able to give them much of a spin as his gramophone player back then turned rusty and was eventually broken.
After that I was introduced to cassettes, I still remember listening to Bhupen Hazarika, Manna Day, Mukesh, Lata Mangeshkar, Md. Rafi and the likes on cassettes, and how can I forget old songs of Bappi Lahiri and Micheal Jackson that I used to dance to. That was just crazy me that earned me the title of, “Junior Mithun”, but trust me I am a terrible dancer, still.
As I grew up even more, I discovered MTV and VCR, which helped me learn a thing or two
about musicians and bands in person. Back in like 1999 or 2000 I came through groups like Westlife, Boyzone, U2 and singers like Shakira. And by the year 2005, came the era of CDs and DVDs. I still remember ripping songs from Linkin Park and Eminem on CDs and DVDs and owning some classic rock and metal albums on pirated disk, before of course piracy laws were made strong and I learned how it is costing the artists around the world and I grew conscious.
After that came the era of USB flash drives, ipod knock offs, Memory cards, downloads and what not? around 2006. Back then to get music was easy and so cheap that we would have hundreds of songs ripped in the 50 CD’s and 10 UBS, but there was a limit over the Medias it was stored into. But at that era Bluetooth sharing and leaks was also prevailing a lot which kind of killed some of the greatest artists of that time.
But it was since 2012 that I witnessed the flavour of live music and understood the purity of
such creations that can’t be felt inside your study room over a tape recorder, Walkman, discman, radio, TV or laptop. Thanks to such local gigs, I was glad to own some physical disc by some local acts, Yes that was before this whole Spotify craze.
Talking about online streaming, I actually used to listen music on some online streaming media, maybe in 2010 or in 2012 itself I discovered the real facts of YouTube, that was video blog and music, and yes back then MySpace, Purevolume, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Hungama was a bigger thing then Spotify, Deezer, Google Play Music or any online stream media right now. Yeah, itunes still existed but it wasn’t as big as it is now. But thing is MySpace died 'cause of hacking and what happened to others not many knows or cares to know.
So, what just happened? Did music listening experience became too mechanical or digital? I
guess yes, but then also it doesn’t protect it from piracy and leaks, because there is a thing called, “leak Thursday” on the internet that is legitimate and being legalized also sometimes even a member of a particular band leaks music from their album beforehand. But whatever the case is, it also has a positive side as in online media there is no limitations, a millions of option to surf from and no one is bind by genres. An oldies fan can listen to old numbers, a metalhead can headbang to metal, a pop fan can dance to pop song, and a hip hop fan can vibe to some rap. So, yes the option is limitless. But then again, I sometimes, miss the older era of owning cassettes or CDs but maybe this is just me.
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