Quote of the Day

Look, CDs will never be as sexy as vinyl albums.  I get that.  They never even got a groovy nickname, like how record fiends talk about "platters" and "white labels" and "stacks of wax."  If you're merely looking for fan merch to display on your shelf, a 12-inch LP sleeve has more style.  Really, there's only one thing CDs have ever done right, which is make music.  They get the job done, which is why they're still around -- the Hyman Roth of audio formats.  And that's why, for some of us, the CD has a special 70-minute place in our heart that nothing else can fill.

-- Rob Sheffield, "Jewel-Box Heroes: Why the CD Revival Is Finally Here"

Quote of the Day

Like the physical book, the physical [compact] disc just transports you deeper into the story.

-- Rob Sheffield, "Jewel-Box Heroes: Why the CD Revival Is Finally Here"

Quote of the Day

Music these days can feel too painful to hear -- but that's all the more reason to keep listening.  The songs keep us hanging on.  The songs remind us to keep moving out of our isolation bubbles and into the future.  The songs give us life.  The songs also tear us apart.  That's what songs do.

-- Rob Sheffield, "Life Without Live"

Quote of the Day

Music keeps me feeling alive, keeps nudging me into the world.  I listen to mixtapes from old friends and playlists from newer ones.  I spent an entire week listening to nothing except a banged-up Maxell C-90 of Nikki Sudden rarities a friend made me in 1987.  (It turns out I've been underrating "Wedding Hotel" all these years.)  I listen to my scratchy old Fairport Convention vinyl and savor their Celtic doom-drone, as Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny sing "Meet on the Ledge."  (Plague, famine, pestilence -- the ambient hum of the Irish psyche.)  But when I listen to old music, new music, bad music, I'm dreaming of crowds.  Tiny crowds in sleazy bars.  Gigantic stadiums in the sun.  DIY caves.  Glittery dance floors.  Karaoke rooms.  Wherever there's a cluster of music fans who couldn't talk themselves out of showing up.

-- Rob Sheffield, "Life Without Live"

Quote of the Day

I go see bands every chance I get, and I live in New York City, where's there's plenty of chances.  Live music is how I measure out the next week, month, year of my life.  But on a bigger scale, the shows are how we measure history.  When you picture the past or the future, you imagine what musicians are doing in a room and who shows up to hear it.  You can define any point in the arc of human history by who was in Fleetwood Mac at the time.  (And whose hotel bed they were sharing.)  So what does music fandom mean at a time when we can't gather together to celebrate, discover, experiment?

-- Rob Sheffield, "Life Without Live"

Quote of the Day

One hundred percent of teenagers dream about making out, but they only dream about making out with 5 percent of other teenagers.  This means our dreams and our realities are barely on speaking terms, so we look forward to making out with people who aren't real, keeping us in a nearly universal state of teen frustration.  It screws us up for the rest of our lives, as we keep hoping for the unattainable.  It's like if you planned your whole life around meeting Garfield, the cartoon cat.  I do not know anyone who claims they want to own a cat someday, but they're holding out for Garfield.  If I met somebody who broke up with their cats every few weeks and said, "He just doesn't eat lasagna," or "I don't know, he was nice, but seldom seemed to be thinking sassy wisecracks about the slobbering dog," I would have to assume this person was an idiot.  Yet practically every teenager on earth channels their deepest sexual and romantic yearnings into fantasies.

-- Rob Sheffield, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, p. 186-187

Quote of the Day

I have built my entire life around loving music, and I surround myself with it.  I'm always racing to catch up on my next favorite song.  But I never stop playing my mixes.  Every fan makes them.  The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with -- nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape.  It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do.  Every mix tape tells a story.  Put them together, and they add up to the story of a life. 

-- Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape, p. 26