Geek Girl Navigating the World – “The Music Goes Round My Head”*

Music has always been a big part of my life.  When I was a starry-eyed little sprocket, we didn’t watch much TV, but we had a record player.  My mom had albums by John Denver and Cat Stevens and The Eagles, and my Dad had Bachman Turner Overdrive tapes. There was even a Bay City Rollers tape in there somewhere.  We listened to music while we worked around the house, and it seemed like the radio had a lot more entertainment to offer than local TV stations ever did.

In addition to that, my family tends to be very musical.  Most of them play guitars, and when we get together, usually we sing together.  I was almost sixteen years old before I realized that not every family does that.  I’m not sure why I assumed that everyone’s family had a set of songs that they’d sing together and tell stories about how they learned the song and why they all sing it now, much less the botched lyrics that get handed down as inside jokes from then on and make their way into family
legend.

I am fortunate to have had an aunt, uncle, or cousin who grew up in every era of rock & roll.  Because of that legacy, I’ve gotten to listen to albums by Elvis, The Ventures, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Donovan, Duran Duran, and Pearl Jam.  My family has eclectic tastes, to be sure.  I also had relatives who were very fond of Marty Robbins and George Jones, along with Chris LeDoux and George Strait.   Knowing that, it shouldn’t be surprising to discover that my MP3 player is host to an array of music that runs the gamut from Tchaikovsky to Frank Sinatra to Aerosmith to Kris Kristofferson and beyond.

I took piano lessons for a decade, played flute not only in a school band but in an actual band, as well, and have even won a couple of karaoke contests with one of my aunts singing Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll.”  I’m also in the process of teaching myself to play mountain dulcimer.  I had hoped to teach myself guitar on an inherited instrument, but, as it turns out, the poor guitar is in such bad shape that I’ll have to get another one instead.  I’m not sure when that will happen, though, because there’s a moped up for auction that I’ve got my eye on and am hoping will end up mine. Somewhere in all of that, however, I realized that while I love music, I am very content to sing along to my favorite songs in the privacy of my own home.  My true passion lies in writing, and pursuing anything else seems like an unnecessary diversion to what I really love.

The first album that I ever bought was The Eagles Greatest Hits: 1971-1975 on cassette tape.  It was necessary to get my own copy, because my mom and I had already worn out one record and one tape.  She could hardly say no to it; after all, I knew all of the words to “Desperado” by the time that I was five years old.  By the time I was seven, I knew all the words to Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” and knew that it was not, in fact, called “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.”  I am still doing my best to forget that I ever knew the words to “Saturday Night,” but so far have failed miserably in that endeavor.

I know that the range of my tastes has come as a shock, even to relatives who have known me all my life, especially in relation to my chosen genres for reading materials, movies, and TV shows.  It’s a thing that baffles me because they’re to blame, at least in part. There are so many good, happy memories that I associate with music.

One of my uncles used to let my cousins and me listen to his 8-track of the Ran-dell’s “Martian Hop” every Halloween (and let me tell you that it was ridiculously difficult finding that song on MP3 when I finally figured out what the name of it was) along with the song “Monster Mash.”  One of my aunts used to always listen to “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers in her car, and we’d sing along.  Another aunt, who had always desperately wished that she were as musically inclined as the rest of us, used to have us sing “Happiness Runs” by Donovan in the car on long road trips because she could never sing a round, either.  She’d get lost and start singing a different part of the song with someone else. Fortunately, she always had a good sense of humor about it when we teased her.  One of my cousins taught me all the words to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and it got added to the setlist we play when we get together.  And then, of course, there are the stories that are connected with songs my family sings because the grandparents that I never got to know loved them.  It has always fostered that sense of connection, and a sense that I have this tie to them through these songs that I know and like, too.

Music has always had emotional contexts for me.  I remember things that I was doing and where I was when I hear specific songs.  There’s a Third Eye Blind song that will forever be linked with the mountains of Northeastern Wyoming to me
because of a summer I spent there and a particular radio station.  I always listen to a certain song by The Samples on road trips because the first time I ever heard it I was in a van headed across the country for a trip in college.  Me First and the Gimme Gimmes brings to mind many peaceful, happy hours logged behind a microscope sorting foraminifera out of sediments.  There is, in fact, a soundtrack of my life, and I am geeky enough to have compiled it in MP3s stored lovingly on my computer.

The common thread, I think, that binds my music collection into a cohesive whole rather than an eclectic mess is that I do tend to prefer music that has lyrics I can hear over the melody.  I love a song that I can learn all the words to by repeated listening, rather than having to look them up somewhere.  The songs that stick in my head and just won’t let go really seem to be the ones that I continue to come back to and the ones that almost always end up on the playlists I make.

MP3s have been a boon in the respect that it’s easier than ever to find rare tracks or obscure artists, because it’s so much easier to make music accessible  to fans.  I have been able to get songs like “It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Me” by Chris Knight, which I think is, quite possibly, the most perfect existential country song ever written.  It’s also both catchy and funny.  I’d heard it played on a New Artist feature on a radio station and actually had to special order a tape through my local music store.  They tried getting me a CD first, but never managed to.  It’s also easier than ever to reissue albums, like Radney Foster’s Del Rio, Texas, 1959, which has the original release of his song “Just Call Me Lonesome,” a version I vastly prefer to the slower and less-polished version that was widely available.  I’ve also very recently been able to upgrade to digital copies of a couple of early albums from my favorite singer of all time, Todd Snider.  His music was, again, another of those things I tried to get on CD but weren’t really available in my area, so I had to get tapes.  The tapes, naturally, have long since worn out from being played.

As a music fan, formats have always driven me a little bit nuts.  Tapes were just too fragile and wore out too easily.  The problem with an artist like Todd Snider is that every album he produces is so different from the last one that a person can’t easily soothe the rampant earworm niggling at your brain with something that sounds similar.  If, like me, you like to listen to certain music when you’re in a certain mood, you’re really going to need the album that fits that exact mood from an artist like him. CDs were better and hold up better, provided you’re willing to treat them decently and, quite possibly, invest in a scratch repair kit for them–as the lighter method (yeah, yeah, I was kind of a child of the 90s) is notoriously tricky and unreliable.  You most definitely don’t want to completely ruin a CD that it’s taken you a long time to find and isn’t readily available for replacement with that method.

What I have noticed, though, is that a lot of artists who recorded before the seventies seem to lose something in the conversion to digital.  I know that this isn’t remarkable news to anyone, especially people who are actually true, dedicated audiophiles (which is a form of geekery I don’t even pretend to aspire to, I’m a very dedicated bibliophile, and I’m quite happy with that, thanks), but I think it bears mentioning when even someone like me, who just likes listening to music for the sheer pleasure of belting out “Inna Godda Davida” while I’m making enchiladas, can hear the difference.  1960′s music, especially the pop and folk music of that era, tends to end up sounding a little bit tinny and tin-cannish, no matter how much you tinker with equalizer settings.  That’s a shame, because that is some of my favorite music to listen to.  A few artists sound fine, like The Rolling Stones, for instance, but try listening to The Hollies with anything else happening in the house, like, say, the heater running, and you can forget about hearing any actual lyrics.  Some remastering has helped, and I can say that it is getting better all the time, but I don’t know that I want to end up replacing my whole music collection again if they manage to get it perfected.  For that matter, I’m not entirely sure that I would be able to replace my music collection if I wanted to.

I don’t have much quibble with more current artists. There are new songs that I absolutely love that have been elevated to permanent playlist status, but I listen to singers who can actually sing.  Autotune is pretty much the bane of my existence when it comes to my little corner of the music universe.  It’s just fine when it’s a cool, kind of gimmicky sound effect used to obvious advantage by someone like, say, Cher, but when an artist has to Autotune their entire song, then it should be a sure sign that that person should not, in fact, be a recording artist.  There are plenty of singers out there who have built magnificent careers without being perfect or, really, even optimal vocal talents.  The point is that they work with what they have and use it to their advantage.  It’s amazing what they can produce by simply knowing what works for their voice.  If I want to listen to robots singing, I am pretty sure that I can find just the geeks who will point me in the right direction to find actual robots actually singing (I am also pretty certain that at least one of the songs the robots will be programmed to sing will be “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Come to think of it, I’ll also probably find a robot version of “Stairway to Heaven” with alarming ease).

There’s also that feeling that with the rise of MP3s and the ability to release singles to a much wider audience for purchase, that artists don’t really care about making real albums any more.  Fans can cherry-pick the songs that they really want, and that seems to have demotivated a lot of musicians out there.  This is another one of those things that breaks my geeky heart.  To me, the album is meant to be a package.  The artist wanted their fans to hear them bring these songs to life, and there is a point to each and every one of those songs. Not everything was meant to be a hit, but that doesn’t mean that the songs that aren’t supposed to be hits aren’t worthwhile, or that they aren’t beautiful in their own right.  The songs that go onto an album can really give fans the sense of no only how an artist wants to present their sound, but also what they feel is musically important.

Along with the demise of the album, the liner note has become an endangered animal in the music world.  Maybe it’s because I am a book lover, first and foremost, but I have always been one of those people who pulls that little booklet out of the CD or tape cover and looked at all the artwork, read through all the lyrics, and read the liner notes while I was at it.  Again, it speaks to who the artist is when that booklet gets designed.  There are considerations given to the artwork and photographs included in there, as well as the fonts used, and the statements the artists make in the thank-yous that contribute to the entire idea of the album as packaged artistic statement.  Without liner notes, it seems like fans are just losing out on one more vital way to connect with the musicians that they love on a level that goes beyond just listening to the music they make.

The trade-off is the portability.  Where once I had to carry both something to play the music on and a limited number of CDs or tapes from my music collection (which I ran the risk of damaging or losing), now my entire music collection fits into a device that I can carry in my pocket.  Not only that, I can listen to that device for hours at a stretch on a single charge, instead of having to worry about carrying enough batteries for the trip.  I have access to my music collection like never before, and because of that, if I’m telling a friend about a song that I love, it’s a simple matter of pulling out the MP3 player and letting them listen to it.

Still, I’m not entirely sure that it’s completely worth it.  The things that get sacrificed to transfer from the Album World to the Digital Age seem important to me.  The problem is, I’m not so sure that anyone else sees it the way that I do.  There are far too many of them out there, buying music, who just don’t know that there was anything else.

*Title for this article taken from the song by The Saints, which was used in the Young Einstein Soundtrack