Originally published by The Liverpool Echo.co.uk (part of Jade Wright’s column.)
One thing that’s been lost in the digital age, is the ability to listen to the C.D. of your choice and look at the carefully written lyrics inside the sleeve notes that the artist has thought out, sweated over and hoped that in some form or another their words might be quoted and sung by random listeners up and down the country.
The words now have to be downloaded via various websites and digested for seemingly fractions of seconds before the person gets bored with it and moves onto looking at another Wikipedia site in the hope that they will find something else to take up their time.
Whereas this might cut down on packaging and the costs invoked by the band, it somehow takes away from the listener the chance to study what hidden gems of information they could glean from the lyrics. What secrets they could work out about how the band may think of certain subjects and if there are any particular words that would help them decipher the song and make it more personal to them.
What could be worse than in 20 years time than looking back at an album having been released at the start of this decade and trying to do a close examination of the language within the lyrics and wondering why there is an advert for a product that promises to enhance your life popping up in between the third and fourth verse.
Imagine looking back now at an Icicle Works, The Zutons, Lightning Seeds or even an Amsterdam album, and downloading the lyrics and seeing them out of context with the music, not following the song in time with the line in front of you, your eyes already scanning perhaps three songs ahead of the musicians you are listening to.
Not only does music become an instant and easily got rid of commodity, it takes away the pleasure of the imagination and wondering how the artists deal with life and the stories that they can tell.
Of course progress happens and the shift away from C.D to downloading an individual track or album is as inevitable as the death of vinyl at the compact Disc hands. It just seems that somehow we would be losing something in our enjoyment of the music that’s been created.
By Ian D Hall