CLIT 2028 The City as Cultural Text                     Journal ONE

　

CD / MD / MP3

 

When I was small and my purchasing power was low, buying a CD was a marvelous event, a remarkable festival to be celebrated. While there were only 10 or few albums available in my home, a CD could stay for half year in my discman and I’d never get tired or bored to repeatedly listen to it. Every album marks a unique world. I used to pay attention to the subtlest details of the music; guitar, drum, bass, vocal, pulse, rhythm, and even a breath produced by the musicians.

Album drew my sense of time.

“I have spent for an Alanis Morissette traveling by MTR from Tsuen Wan to Kowloon Bay . That is, 53:41.”

 

The size of my CD kingdom grew with my increased spending power. Buying a CD was just a causal thing. When CDs accumulated to over 100, they started bothering me. I had to sit down in front of my CD shelf for a few minutes to decide which album I should choose to go to school every morning. It is a weird experience: more are the options, less are the choices. “Blasé attitude is an indifference toward the distinctions between things. (Simmel, 329)”

MD appeared. It seemed to solve my problem, but it in fact brought me another one. It would be so convenient to record the songs that I love into one MD, so I don’t need to deliberate which CD should I bring since not all songs in an album satisfy my taste. Later, I found that I would only record songs that I was familiar with, which usually the songs got promoted to public. I started ignore the other songs in the album that might need me to spend more time to dig up with. I “wasted” a lot of songs that I should pay attention to.

Then, a song, no longer an album, drew my time map.

“I have been waited for a “Saturday Night” to get into the bus. That is, 4:32.”

 

It is a disaster to use an MP3-discman. I’ve got Kazaa software that enables me to download most of the songs that I want. Buying CD becomes a history. One CD-rom has 700 MB storage that can record almost 150 songs per disc. I play my songs by random, and it becomes a game to guess which song is the next within the 150 candidates. I am addicted to this game and found that I can hardly listen to a song completely. I would just listen to the first few seconds and press the “next” bottom, and wait for another song to impress me. Later I realize that I have lost interest to music. I easily get bored to some slow and gentle songs although I used to enjoy long psychedelic pieces. I would just record the stimulating fast speed pop songs that can paralyze my sense. “Just as an immoderately sensuous life makes one blasé because it stimulates the nerves to their utmost reactivity until they finally can no longer produce any reaction at all. (Simmel, 329)”

My sense of time becomes fragmented. My MP3-discman has played more than 50 songs within my one-hour commuting to school, but I am not listening to any music.

 

SENSORY OVERLOAD !!!

 

 

Reference:

Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms. “The Metropolis and Mental Life”.