One of the Pod People
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
Today’s New York Times (and probably numerous other publications) featured a full-page ad from Apple that thanked the buying public for 100 million iPods sold. That’s a hell of a lot of portable music on the march, and some considerable profit for Steve Jobs and the Mighty Mac Attack. But I say, “Good for them.” The iPod and competing mp3 players have been a real boon to music lovers in more ways than the obvious.Case in point: I’ve been on the road a lot lately, including an Easter weekend visit with the family. As a result, I haven’t been able to MOG it up as much as usual. But, a consequence of all the traveling has been a reintroduction, via the smallest of iPods, to a lot of majorly crucial music - the cream of my catalogue - that I’ve been neglecting in favor of the freshest tracks in my files. Despite the usual bigger-is-better philosophy that governs computer drives, there is something to be said for a teeny 1-Gig Nano. When I was loading it up last year, its size forced me to focus on the music that means the most to me. I chose between one and four songs each to represent my favorite recording artists. And though I have lots of new stuff on my laptop’s hard-drive, I'm pretty judicious about doling it out to the iPod - which is usually reserved for trips outside the city where I dwell. As a result, those journeys are more than geographical. They’re expeditions to the desert island where I keep my all-times, my bestest – the soundtrack to my life.The coolest thing about what is currently on the little player is that I have yet to regret any of my song choices. Sure, I’ll be putting some Arcade Fire, Peter Bjorn and John, and Cinematics on the iPod sooner or later, but it was so amazing to be motoring down the Pacific Coast and hearing, in shuffled succession, “Playground” by XTC, Rod Stewart’s cover of Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town," The Byrds’ version of Goffin-King’s “Goin’ Back,” “Rocks Off” by the Rolling Stones, “Harmony in My Head” by the Buzzcocks, “Must Be Dreaming” by Frou Frou, “St. Elmo’s Fire” by Eno, “Ooh La La” by Goldfrapp, “Surf’s Up” by the Beach Boys, “Miranda” by Fleetwood Mac, “Everlong” by Foo Fighters, “Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and so much more.So, every time I want to sneer at Jobs and Apple for being so damn smug about their products, I have to remember how easy they’ve made for me to be serenaded by my favorite tunes. Forget that old political promise, “A chicken in every pot.” We now have a jukebox in every ear.And, to serenade you, here is a clip of The Byrds as they promo "Goin' Back" on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," back in the late '60s:
Comments (19)