Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 156: Has Music Become Too Disposable? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 156

Episode Date: August 13, 2018

Rhett and Link look back on the origin of their love of analog music, how streaming services have changed their listening habits, and Link's experience as a fly on the wall as his cousin recorded his... album on this week's episode of Ear Biscuits. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This, this, this, this is Mythical. Today's episode is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Vitamin Water. Woo woo! Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're going to be exploring the question,
Starting point is 00:00:22 has music become too disposable? Yeah, I mean with the, I think there's gonna be some looking backwards to our experience with music, listening to music, and how, I mean that- What else, eating music? Well, I still listen to it, but I do it so differently than I used to. I mean, it streams now.
Starting point is 00:00:47 And streaming has changed everything in terms of, even how you view music and is it devalued in my own mind because of how readily available it is via streaming? Or is it not? Or is it not? And what have we gained? What have we lost? So maybe we'll even look to the future.
Starting point is 00:01:09 Maybe we'll even look to the past. Well I already said we're gonna. Yeah, I'm just trying to make it dramatic. Look to the present and the past. Looking forward to that discussion. We do wanna let you know that starting with next week's episode of Ear Biscuits, the video version is going to be available on Sunday
Starting point is 00:01:29 on the Good Mythical Morning channel, not Saturday, because what do we got on Saturday now? Let's talk about that. Yes, it's a shoe new show. It's a shoe new show called Let's Talk About That. No, we've done the shoe thing before. We're not doing it again right now, at least. Nope.
Starting point is 00:01:44 So the new show, the new Saturday show, let's talk about that on Saturdays, followed by the all new video version of Ear Biscuits on Sundays. There's a video, there's a freaking video every day on the channel. There is. But right now we're coming into your ear holes.
Starting point is 00:01:59 Maybe your eye holes too. I mean, it's your prerogative. But before we get into the whole music thing, it's been a while but I haven't had an opportunity to give you or you, ear biscuetteer, just the download of my experience at hanging out with my friend Alicia Keys while my cousin recorded his album and stayed at my home.
Starting point is 00:02:29 And then the album was recorded at a very rich man's private recording facility and it was just, it was a nutso experience. Now do you have, I mean, are you at liberty to speak of this? I didn't, I knew that, well, there were people who showed up at this recording studio and they had to sign NDAs, which stands for
Starting point is 00:02:55 not this a-hole. Now I didn't, that's not what it stands for? It stands for non-disclosure agreement. Now, I, now do you ask, did I sign an NDA? The answer is not this a-hole! Yeah, you know what? That way you ended up telling that joke was great. Actually, you know what, in some weird way,
Starting point is 00:03:25 I think that setting it up, It wasn't a planned joke. And then doing it as a throwback was even better. When I play jokes, it doesn't usually go well. Right, right, right, right. I've observed that. Hey, screw you, man. No, no, no, I'm just saying I was agreeing with you.
Starting point is 00:03:41 Yeah, yeah, don't! Not this a-hole! Would never say that. So yeah, I'm free to talk about this. There's not any problems here. You're not giving any secrets. My boy Britton, my cousin, Britton Buchanan, follow him on the stuff.
Starting point is 00:03:59 Again, I'm living vicariously through, in the wake of coming in second on The Voice where Alicia Keys was his coach, she really believes, as do I, and many tasteful purveyors of musical talent, that he's got what it takes, man. He's a songwriter. He had a whole bevy of songs,
Starting point is 00:04:21 and then he met with Alicia in New York, and they went through and they picked out the ones they were gonna do for his album and it's like a very quick and dirty thing where it's like over this weekend that I'm referring to, he went into the studio. Can I just say before you explain the story. To record his album. You know, I told you this while you were gone.
Starting point is 00:04:44 Yeah. And Britton was in town. Britton came and had dinner with my family. And just a side note, because I also haven't said this, the reason Britton came into town, he was gonna hang out with us for the week. And that's the weekend that, that's the week that my papa passed away and I went home for the funeral.
Starting point is 00:05:02 And I just wanna say, because I haven't said it on here, thank you all so much for your outpouring of love and support and encouragement that you've been posting everywhere ever since we posted that, the dealing with imminent loss episode of Ear Biscuits. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And it was very much a sense of closure
Starting point is 00:05:29 going back home for the funeral. But byproduct was he had- While he was here, you were gone. Yeah, he was gone. I was gone for most of it. Except the weekend. So he was kind of house sitting for me and waiting to record. I got back just in time to have the experience
Starting point is 00:05:41 that I'll tell you about. And so we had him over for dinner and I had my sister-in-law and nieces. Thank you for that, by the way. And I was glad to, you know, but it was mostly like, okay, this guy is, he's in Los Angeles, he doesn't know anybody, he's Link's cousin, he's, you know, a mile away from my house,
Starting point is 00:06:03 I should have a Mover for Dinner. You had a deep sense of obligation. But let me tell you a little something, which I already told you this. I mean, I texted you and Christy this. Yeah, I think you just texted her actually. No. And she told me, okay.
Starting point is 00:06:17 You weren't very responsive while you were traveling, which is okay. I mean, I'm not gonna hold it against you. What did you say though? I said that Britton is our new favorite person. I mean like, he is an incredible guy. He's super cool, isn't he? I mean, it's not just that he's cool, I mean.
Starting point is 00:06:33 He's genuine. He's actually not cool in the right way that you shouldn't be cool. He's not too cool for school. It's not. 18 years old. It's the fact that he's 18 years old and he's so, first of all, he's woke.
Starting point is 00:06:47 He's woke. I don't like to use the word, but he's incredibly woke, he's incredibly smart. He's incredibly observant. I mean, I remember. You made some false assumptions, being that he's from this podunk, he's from Sanford. No, I didn't make any assumptions at all.
Starting point is 00:07:01 I just came in. I can say podunk because my dad lives there. I came in with no expectations at all, but I definitely did not come in expecting him to be, because I remember being 18 years old. I remember the way that I thought about things at 18 years old. Or lack of thought about things.
Starting point is 00:07:17 And the way that I engaged with other adults who are not 18 years old. Right. And this guy is, he's something special. Now, set aside. Well I don't think he considers you an adult. Let's just put that on the table. Set aside the fact that he is incredibly talented,
Starting point is 00:07:32 incredible voice, great songwriter, all those things which are true and you'll get into that. He's a really good, good guy. In fact, so he talked about so many things. He stayed over into our house until it was like 11.30 at night night and then he leaves and the first thing that my oldest son, Locke, says is like, and this is a 14 year old, 14 year olds don't issue
Starting point is 00:07:53 these kinds of things. Yeah. He walks out the door, the door closes and he's like, that is a great guy. Really? He really is. And he is, he's just like a genuinely great guy. He should've won.
Starting point is 00:08:07 I mean, how did all the greatness get on that side of the family? That is also my side of the family. So if you're trying to cut on me, it actually became a compliment. So thank you. No, that part of the family tree, just that branch. I mean, it was very concentrated.
Starting point is 00:08:22 Did any of the greatness make it to my branch? He's a great guy. Not, okay, I won't's very concentrated. Did any of the greats make it to my branch? He's a great guy. Not, okay I won't do that again. Because he didn't win, he's got a little bit more freedom to then cut this album, work with Alicia on it. And I was like, oh I wanna get to meet, of course I wanna go with you to this studio. I wanna see what it's like. I love watching music documentaries. I wanna get to meet, of course I wanna go with you to this studio. I wanna see what it's like.
Starting point is 00:08:45 I love watching music documentaries. I love talking about the type of music stuff we're gonna talk about today. I just love being on a fly on the wall in that world. That's why those documentaries are so much fun for me to watch. But being there in a recording studio environment for the first time that was like legit was amazing.
Starting point is 00:09:04 And it turns out that this was like, everyone there was in awe of this place that we ended up going. And I'm like, at some point, I'll get to meet Alicia, which will be freaking awesome. Right. Because she seems like an amazing person. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:21 And Britton said that she was. It was, and let me, I gotta read about him here a little bit to get this stuff straight, but they somehow worked it out to get an invitation to record his album at Paul Allen's house. Paul Allen is the co-founder of Microsoft along with Bill Gates. He has a little bit of money.
Starting point is 00:09:45 According to his Wiki, he is the 43rd richest person in the world. Oh, only 43rd? Net worth 25 billion. He also owns the 14th biggest yacht on the planet. How big is that? Oh, it's 95 feet. 414 feet.
Starting point is 00:10:03 It's called Octopus. Okay, my yacht knowledge is incredibly lacking. As of 2013, it is the 14th in the list of motor yachts by length. Good gracious. It is equipped with two helicopters, a submarine, a swimming pool, a music studio. A spare helicopter?
Starting point is 00:10:21 It has a spare helicopter. And a basketball court. He's got a helicopter to get to the helicopter. That's how big the yacht is. 400 feet, man. He's gotta take a helicopter from one end of the yacht to the other end to get on the other helicopter because that gas is burned out
Starting point is 00:10:36 to then go to like an island or something. Yeah, right. I will say that I did not meet this man. He was not there. Of course he wasn't. But there were keepers of the place. Their full-time jobs were just to keep the place. The first one was a security guard who grilled me
Starting point is 00:10:49 before I was allowed through the gate. Okay. And I get inside and I'm a little self-conscious because I just feel like a hanger-on. Well. You know, it's like, oh there's an artist and there's like, That's kind of what you were. His cousin.
Starting point is 00:11:01 I'm the cousin slash chauffeur slash guy whose house he's staying at. Everybody brings their cousin to the recording sesh. It's my cousin. By the way, the octopus yacht was not parked outside of his mansion, which the recording studio was this huge building and then up the hill from it was the rest of his mansion, like multiple buildings.
Starting point is 00:11:30 And it was Rock Hudson's mansion. Oh. So Marilyn Monroe swimming around in Rock Hudson's pool, there's probably pictures of that everywhere. At least that's what Chris, the keeper of the studio, told me. I mean, you go outside of the studio and it's like, it looks like a resort, but it's just this private home.
Starting point is 00:11:54 And I look around the corner, I'm like snooping around because I'm not doing anything. Yeah, you're not in any danger. And I look up the hill at the mansion and then lo and behold, there's a big thing coming down the hill, there's like a, what's a, it's on a track and it's like a, I wanna say. A gondola?
Starting point is 00:12:15 It's like a gondola except it's on a track. A tracked gondola. It's like an elevator, a huge train elevator that connects the studio to his house. That's freaking crazy, man. So I- This is what happens when you- The studio-
Starting point is 00:12:32 Are looking for ways to spend money. The studio itself is over 10 years old. It all looks brand new and it's a three story building that the whole facade overlooking Beverly Hills is just glass walls. And the only, you can find footage of it by searching for U2's live performance of Songs of Innocence, I think their latest album.
Starting point is 00:12:56 If you search that on YouTube, there's some live performances that they recorded in this studio. They recorded a lot of that album there. There was, you go into the booth, or you go into the engineer console, whatever that thing's called, and there's a big signed thing
Starting point is 00:13:13 that has everybody from U2 signed it. He's got memorabilia hanging everywhere because Paul Allen's a huge rock and roll nut. He's like a big Jimi Hendrix fan. He owns, he's got a warehouse, Britton told me that they told him, a warehouse full of like all the guitars he's collected. If you can name like a really famous guitar,
Starting point is 00:13:34 he probably owns it and just has it in a warehouse, including the guitar that Jimi Hendrix set on fire, you know, on stage. So anyway, I go in, this place is just, it's state of the art amazing because he just threw so much money at this thing. And then all these vintage guitars they're just bringing out for the band to play
Starting point is 00:13:57 that he just has there. I'm really self conscious. I meet the first guy, he comes around, he says, hey, how are you today? I'm like, I'm really self-conscious. I meet the first guy, he comes around, he says, "'Hey, how are you today?' I'm like, "'I'm great,' he says. "'Hey, Grant, nice to meet you.'" And I'm like, oh, that was just not, I was like, actually, I just said I'm great.
Starting point is 00:14:14 Heretofore known as Grant. But my name is Link. And he's like, "'I'm Chris, nice to meet you.'" I'm like, oh gosh, I've already screwed up. Yeah, yeah, you never recover with that guy. I try to be really quiet and not say a lot. That's Grant over there. Just hang out.
Starting point is 00:14:28 Grant's the quiet one, the cousin. But the place was just crazy. And then finally, I mean, it was three different days that I took him there and I was hanging out over that weekend. And the second day, Alicia shows up in the middle of him recording. And the second day, Alicia shows up in the middle of him recording and you know, she's simultaneously stunning.
Starting point is 00:14:51 Just, I mean, she's beautiful and then she exudes, she's got this like, she's got more positivity than anybody I've ever experienced, the way it just like radiates off of her. More than me? Even more than you, Rhett. That's surprising. It's great to have an idea of a celebrity
Starting point is 00:15:11 and then meet them and it just delivers. Right. She delivered like nine months of pregnancy, bam. The bar is really high and she just floats right over it. Yeah, I'm a big fan now, she's great. Super nice. She likes Grant. She, yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:30 She's a big fan of Grant. I met her husband, Swiss Beats. Swiss Beats. Famous rap producer. Heard the name. Jay-Z, DMX. You met Jay-Z and DMX? No, he produced songs and albums.
Starting point is 00:15:46 I was like whoa, this party got crazy. Winning Grammys and whatnot. Super cool guy, we talked about eating hot peppers. I gave a little plug to our channel. Oh man. But then instead of going to our channel, he pulled up his phone and he started searching. I thought he, I was like he's gonna go to my channel.
Starting point is 00:16:03 I was like I'm gonna feel awkward, but I'm secretly gonna be happy that he's watching my stuff. But instead he pulled up those freaking hot chip videos. Oh gosh. Like the ones we didn't do, you know? Yeah. I was like, well, I eat a whole hot pepper, Swiss Beets. Can you please look at my channel?
Starting point is 00:16:22 He's like, but Grant, did you eat a chip? Because if you did not, I'm not interested. Met their kids, Egypt and Genesis. Wow, throwback. And I'm bored a little bit later, I'm scrolling on Reddit, you know, because I'm trying to stay out of the way, what am I gonna do?
Starting point is 00:16:42 I'm gonna thumb through Reddit. And Egypt, who's like, I don't know, because I'm trying to stay out of the way, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna thumb through Reddit. And Egypt, who's like, I don't know, nine or 10, sits down next to me and starts scrolling my phone for me. Of course he does. And then he's like, I don't know how, but he had like a pickpocket. Next thing I knew he had my phone and he's watching all of, like a montage of all of the deaths
Starting point is 00:17:06 in Jurassic Park. Oh. And I'm like, and I look at him, like as if to say, how did you get my phone? I was literally on it and you have it. And he looked at me and he kinda went back to it and I was like, I can't see. And then he like turned it and for the next 15 minutes
Starting point is 00:17:26 we watched all the deaths in Jurassic Park together. You and Egypt had a moment. Yeah, and then five hours later when we leave the recording studio, Britton and I are driving home and you know, my phone at like a poignant point in our debrief conversation connected via Bluetooth to my speakers in my computer, I mean in my car,
Starting point is 00:17:46 and it just started playing the audio of all of the deaths from Jurassic Park. Which is like. That's a little distracting to drive to. It was kind of, it was a good button on the end of an amazing experience of being a fly on the wall of watching amazing musicians collaborate with Britain to make this album in record time.
Starting point is 00:18:08 It was the band From The Voice. They had just listened to the demo versions of the songs and then they would come in and Brittain would play it live once and then they would be like, all right, let's go. It was amazing how great they are. And the best in the world at that. They play thousands of songs live because of being on The Voice for all these years.
Starting point is 00:18:33 And it was super cool to just be sitting in the control booth just watching them through this panoramic view of this glassed in thing that's probably unmatched by any other studio except the one on the same guy's yacht. So I mean it's, it was just crazy to be along for the ride and then to cap it off with hearing every person scream bloody murder death at the hands of raptors and other dinos.
Starting point is 00:19:04 And so we don't know exactly when this album is coming out, but sometime in the fall, hopefully. They recorded all the music tracks, but then he's gonna go to Alicia's studio in New York and track his vocals, because they didn't have time for that. Maybe I can go up there and- Lay down some tracks?
Starting point is 00:19:21 No, just watch silently. Backup vocals by Grant and Alicia. So that's how I'm enjoying music now. You know, I mean, my new standard is I've gotta be in the room with the masters of their craft. And when you're not doing that, you're enjoying music digitally, mostly, as I do. We used to enjoy it analogically.
Starting point is 00:19:44 So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk all about that, but first, Ear Biscuits is supported by Mattress Firm. You know, there are a number of reasons that you could have for not being able to get a good night's sleep. Right, I could think of some. You might, you've got like a wild animal
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Starting point is 00:21:47 that we have created and released via our Mythical newsletter. Over the summer, we did a Yacht Rock playlist. So you can listen to that on Spotify, and you can listen to every episode of this show. Yes, right there in the same app, that same app that has all those millions of songs also has thousands of podcasts,
Starting point is 00:22:05 including Ear Biscuits. To subscribe to us, search for Ear Biscuits, tap follow and get every new episode delivered to you. Podcasts on Spotify, they're streaming right now and now and now and now and now. You get the idea. Now on with the biscuit. Okay, so I do think about this question a lot.
Starting point is 00:22:29 What, because the way we listen to music has changed so much, how has it changed my relationship with music? Has it devalued what music is to me? I mean, do our kids view music differently than we did because they're starting from a place of having arguably free in their experience access to any and everything at any moment they want it,
Starting point is 00:23:01 anywhere they are via phones and streaming. And I guess I get concerned, but maybe I should just be nostalgic. Maybe there's just as good as bad. I'm just raising all the questions. Well, let's start, why don't we? We're just talking about when we were kids, the experience with the way
Starting point is 00:23:28 that we would experience new music. And this is gonna be true for many of you who are listening because many of you like us have kind of lived through this digital revolution. And I think sometimes we underestimate because you forget, you so quickly, just even, I think about like literally like two or three years ago.
Starting point is 00:23:54 Yeah. Before I finally like went and paid for music streaming because I was still just buying albums. You know, things change so quickly but if you go all the way back to the beginning, like do you remember? Well, because even before we go back, yeah, because even just like my, not Apple Music,
Starting point is 00:24:14 but I had this Apple Match subscription, and that's when you pay, Apple came out with this thing, and it still exists, but my subscription was up, and I'm like, I ain't paying for this, but a year ago, I'm like was up and I'm like, I ain't paying for this. But a year ago, I'm like, you know me, I would never pay for anything. And I actually paid to have Apple match everything
Starting point is 00:24:32 that I already owned in their cloud. And there was a handful of things they didn't already have in their cloud that I owned that as a part of the match process was uploaded to their servers and kept. I'm talking like demo recordings and stuff like that, which is now occurring to me, I may have lost. But in general, it was the fact that I'm now
Starting point is 00:24:57 like a year later, I'm like, why would I wanna keep my music in a cloud when I have access via streaming to all music everywhere. And again, that was just a year ago that I was paying for that. But like you said, if you go all the way back. Yeah, so we tell the story often about the first time we bought our own music.
Starting point is 00:25:20 I wanna go back even before that to the very first time I consumed music kind of on my own. And for me, that was with a record player in my bedroom. A record player? A record player. So before, because I remember getting my first, you know, we called it a jam box. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:42 Boom box is usually what they refer to as, but, and then we would get the ones that had like two cassette players and the record player on top. But I'm talking before that it was just a record player. And my collection of music was just my parents old records. And it was, I remember some very specific things like the Four Seasons, like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Starting point is 00:26:02 Mm-hmm. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley. I mean, there was only, there was about 12 albums that they had just, for some reason, ended up in my room. So I would listen to those same albums over and over again. And then there was also, what is the smaller record? Is it 45, is that what it is? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:25 And you have to change the speed for that. Right. There was the official song, like theme song of the Georgia Bulldogs. Really? And the center sticker on the record had like a Georgia Bulldog Ugga, they called it. I don't even remember the song at this point,
Starting point is 00:26:42 but I'm sure that it's still, it's not the fight song. It's like this Bulldogs song. And that was it, I just played that stuff over and over again and of course listened to the radio. But that was the first time that I took albums and listened to them and I would put those albums on and pick something up in my room and- Lip sync it?
Starting point is 00:27:07 And walk around the room singing, love me tender. You know, and sometimes I would like slick my hair back. Go full Elvis? And do it. Dang. Yeah, and this was just an experience that I was having to myself.
Starting point is 00:27:23 I had a similar experience. We had, in the house with Jimmy, we had that guest room in the front that eventually had the Nintendo. Well, it had a record player and like the two tower speakers like most houses had the room where you had that. Or if you got even older, like my Nana and Papa, they had like the big piece of furniture
Starting point is 00:27:46 that had the record player in it and the speakers coming out the front, which you can buy at like vintage stores now, big hawking piece of furniture. But my mom had a record, like a little 45 single of The Name Game. The Name Game. The name game. Banana, Fana, Fofana, Fee-fi, Mo-mana, Anna.
Starting point is 00:28:12 I would play that and I would dance around and we had the Pac-Man theme song. Get a lot of mileage out of that. Yeah, we had that and we had Freddie Feelgood, let's see what, Ray Stevens. Oh, Ray Stevens. The country music comedy music guy, which is kinda crazy that one of the first things
Starting point is 00:28:33 I listened to was a comedy, a musical comedy record from Ray Stevens. Yeah, my parents loved Ray Stevens. But Freddie Feelgood, it actually wasn't that funny, but he played all the instruments of the Freddie Feelgood's it actually wasn't that funny, but he played all the instruments of the Freddie Feelgood's band with his mouth. He was like Bobby McFerrin. And you know what?
Starting point is 00:28:51 I still have those records. I have them in the console at the house right now and I played them for the kids. They thought it was crazy. Because once I got a record player, you know, for my birthday and I'm like teaching Lando how to play it. But yeah, you would listen to the record, and I'm reminded now that I finally have a record player now
Starting point is 00:29:11 that it's almost a, it's a focused experience. You put this disc on there, and then it plays for a certain amount of time, and you kind of have to be there for it, because the speakers are only there. You can't walk anywhere you want. And then you would flip it over and you would listen to the other side.
Starting point is 00:29:30 And while you're doing that, I mean, you think about how intimately familiar you were with not only the music itself, but the device, the actual medium, the record itself, and then the sleeve. I would sit there, the album cover itself, I would hold it, and I remember seeing that Four Seasons, that Four Seasons album, of course they dressed, they all wore the same exact thing.
Starting point is 00:29:57 You notice new things, because you've looked at, you've done this 100 times. And you just sat there and looked at it, made observations about like, oh, look at how Frankie Valli's like sitting over there. He's like obviously a little bit different. They're all together but he's kinda out in front and a little bit to the side.
Starting point is 00:30:12 And you just made observations about their hair and their clothes and then you read everything on the back. It was just a totally different relationship. And then it was, like I said, for me, it wasn't this endless supply of records. That was it. And it wasn't being added to. It was like it wasn't this endless supply of records. That was it. And it wasn't being added to, it was like, we just had that handful of records
Starting point is 00:30:28 that I listened to all the time and it was either that or the radio until I was given the opportunity to buy my first album. But it was just a familiarity with that. Which was a tape, right? Which was a cassette, yeah, it was a cassette. It was Weird Al in 3D. Yeah, mine was Weird Al even worse.
Starting point is 00:30:46 I didn't buy music until later. Your mom had more music available than my parents did, I think. Yeah. Because I don't remember, they were buying things. Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Al Green, that's what my mom got me into. She had those records.
Starting point is 00:31:08 But as far as tapes, the second tape I bought was the Fat Boys. I had the Fat Boys, well my brother had the Fat Boys. If my brother had it, it was technically available to be listened to. And that's the other part of it. Music was so much about if you had that physical thing and if or somebody gave it to you, or if your brother had it, you know?
Starting point is 00:31:28 I mean, getting into rap music was because your brother was into it and his friends. So Cole and Oliver would listen to rap music on their tapes and when I come over to your house, I knew you had tapes, but if your brother had the tape, it automatically became more cool. So I remember I would go in his room and I'd like see, oh, he's got Cool Mo D.
Starting point is 00:31:54 Cool Mo D, I specifically remember being introduced to Cool Mo D. He's got EPMD. Yeah. He's got. NWA. Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is like you got these, and this is something that was-
Starting point is 00:32:09 Straight out of Compton. This is true, this was true all over the nation, but you got these little redneck white boys in middle of nowhere in North Carolina who are buying NWA, having no idea what any of this is about, but just being absolutely mesmerized. And it was a thing.
Starting point is 00:32:28 It wasn't, it was like, oh, you've got the thing. I mean, it was an illicit object that you would insert into a thing and then music would come out. You know, it wasn't something that just- It was contraband. Was in your pocket and it was everywhere, it was contraband, it was secret and it was,
Starting point is 00:32:50 you could touch it and you could feel it and you could feel guilty about it. And you remember Jeremy Fisher, who lived down the street. Yeah. Because there was so much profanity in this music and our parents were upset that we were listening to it but they never really heard it directly because you knew when they were coming up the stairs
Starting point is 00:33:05 to cut it off. What he did, he was like, well, I've got a solution. He was like, you take a couple of pieces of toilet paper and you put it into the top. Your ears and you won't hear it. You put it into the top of the cassette and wait until it gets to that point on the tape where there's a curse word.
Starting point is 00:33:22 Hit pause and then hit record and then hit unpause and go beep and he would literally record his own beeps over the curse words. He was the neighborhood censor. Which made NWA very difficult to listen to. A little bit distracting because everything would drop out except Jeremy Fisher's beep and he provided this as a service.
Starting point is 00:33:41 He was like, I'll take your tape and do that for, and that happened one time and I never let it happen again. Talk about a dead career path. But the other thing I remember from that era was the way that the process of being introduced to new music from someone else was, hey, listen to this. I remember being over at the Hetrick's house new music from someone else was, hey, listen to this. I remember being over at the Hetrick's house. And you know, Mark was like a year older than Paul was,
Starting point is 00:34:13 I think Cole's age. Yeah. So a few years older. And we sat down in Paul's bedroom and he was like, have you guys heard Metallica? Oh snap. And I was like, what's Metallica? And I had been listening to, you know,
Starting point is 00:34:29 when I wasn't listening to Frankie Valli, I was listening to Weird Al. So the transition into, and I'd done a little bit of rap, but this is actually probably before Cole got into rap. He turns on, he had like a big stereo, like the speakers were separate. it wasn't all one thing. And I'm sitting on the bed and he turns on, I don't even remember what song it was.
Starting point is 00:34:54 Master of Puppets? I just remember thinking, this is amazing and probably evil. You know, it was like so, it was so- Aggressive. It made me think that, it made me think differently about Paul Hetrick. I just remember thinking, this guy,
Starting point is 00:35:10 he must be into some weird stuff because my point of reference, but I just remember thinking, it wasn't like, I mean, just the other day I had somebody send me an album by just sending me a link on my phone. And then it was just like, I'll get to that when I want to. No, no, that wasn't how it worked back then. It was like, come into my bedroom, sit down.
Starting point is 00:35:28 Yeah, it was like inner sanctum. And I'm going to control the volume. I'm going to look at you as you're experiencing this. I'm gonna check in with you and see how you're processing this. And it's this moment that I remember in a way that I just question whether or not you have the ability to have that level of experience
Starting point is 00:35:46 when somebody just sends you a link to a song. I mean, you know why artists have listening parties, you know, they work so hard to make this thing and you wanna have this communal experience of just listening to it. This is different from a concert, you know, it's like, and I do feel like we used to have that. It makes you cry when you think about it.
Starting point is 00:36:06 I'm getting so choked up. I mean, yeah, the thing about Discovery, it was come into my room, I'm gonna play it for you, or I'm gonna loan you this object, you're gonna dub it and then give it back to me. And while you're listening to it, I can't listen to it. Unless it comes on the radio. Or you go to the store and you buy it.
Starting point is 00:36:27 And for me as a kid, every weekend my mom would go shopping. But I didn't have money to buy a cassette every weekend but it was a very strategic thing. Like I had to decide, okay, Rhett has the MC Hammer album. You know, what was it called? It was the one before. Too Legit to Quit was the one.
Starting point is 00:36:50 No, no, no. Please Hammer Don't Hurt Him. Please Hammer Don't Hurt Him. Yeah. Which was before the You Can't Touch This album. But Cole has this other guy, Young MC. I think You Can't Touch This was on Please Hammer Don't Hurt Him.
Starting point is 00:37:03 Did you have young MC? Yes, Cole had it. And then you had MC Hammer. And I felt like, who am I gonna side with? Because I can only buy one tape this month, basically. Or am I gonna buy something that's a little, a little more out there that nobody has so that I can like say, hey, I got something nobody's got
Starting point is 00:37:27 and it's actually good. You know, so. And at the time we had a sense. It was an investment mentality because you know, you got eight to 12 bucks you wanna spend on an album, you can't listen to it ahead of time. There were a few places eventually
Starting point is 00:37:42 where you could like listen to CDs in the store and use like dirty old headphones that everybody's been putting on. But for us it was like, you look at the cover of the cassette and you're like, all right, Cole's got an EPMD tape, but they got a new one coming out. I'm gonna be the first to get that one and I can say I got it.
Starting point is 00:38:01 Obviously there was no internet, but we didn't, it was word of mouth because we didn't subscribe to any magazines that had any of this information in it. Like, obviously there was no internet, but we didn't, it was word of mouth because we didn't subscribe to any magazines that had any of this information in it. No. It was just somebody at school would tell somebody else, and somebody somewhere had a magazine. There's no, I know that. I mean, I would just go and look at the record bar.
Starting point is 00:38:21 I would look at the cassette section, and you would see the rap section, and I would buy something. Well, you would go to the cassette section and you would see the rap section and I would buy something. Well, you would go to the ones where they had the most of that tape too. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So if they had like 30 Young MC tapes, you would know, That must be a good one.
Starting point is 00:38:35 Yeah, this is in demand. A new one. I gotta get this one. And then that would be the tape that you would listen to. And so it was a deep experience that is very difficult to achieve, but it was almost, the whole system was built for a deep experience before. Now you have to have one in spite of the system. I'll get to that, but in other words,
Starting point is 00:39:01 I'd make a calculated decision out of all the tapes that I can buy this month, this is the one I'm gonna buy. And it's the one that I'm just gonna listen to again and again. I'm gonna put the tape in and I'm gonna play it. And I didn't have a new fangled, you hit fast forward, the special fast forward button that can detect
Starting point is 00:39:19 when there's a gap in the audio and that's the next song. You just listen to it. And it was an album experience half by half, just like a record, we had to flip that tape over and you would just sit there and you would experience it in a certain order that the artist intended on both sides and then you would do it again. And you would sit there and you'd unfold those liner notes
Starting point is 00:39:47 and you would read the lyrics and you read who they were sampling. I remember when I got a Tribe Called Quest low end theory, one of the greatest rap albums of the 90s easily. I got that because Cole had the previous one. It's a long title, I'm not gonna say it here. I can't quite remember it. People's Instinctive Travels in the Paths of Rhythm.
Starting point is 00:40:22 But I would listen to Low End theory and I said, okay. Who are they, they're sampling stuff. I didn't even know that what sampling was. Right. But you read about it in the liner and it's the average white band, what is that? And then I'm like looking through my mom's record collection again and I realize
Starting point is 00:40:38 she's got average white band records. And I started bringing those into my room and listening to those and I'm like, this kinda sucks to me. Because it doesn't sound anything like the rap but somehow they found something in this except to make that. Pick up the pieces, pick up the pieces.
Starting point is 00:40:54 Oh yeah, that was immediately obvious. Okay, that's one of the best instrumentals of all time. I think it's all great now but it was like, it was a treasure hunt experience to connect dots of their creative process. It was like, my mom has this album that these guys in New York turned into this new thing that Rhett's older brother thinks is cool, you know?
Starting point is 00:41:21 Yeah. And I'm sitting here in my room by myself, reading it, just pouring over, and that was the experience. It was a forced, paced, deep experience that everything now is geared towards the opposite of that. Yeah, well, yeah, so let's, okay, so at risk of sounding like a couple old farts
Starting point is 00:41:42 who are reminiscing about how great it was when we were introduced to music. And you had to like all the songs, I'm sorry. But you, it didn't, if the song. It's not listening. I would just, you'd listen to, you'd know the songs that sucked because you'd listen to those too, right? Well, because you had invested in it.
Starting point is 00:42:02 Yeah. Because you bought it. You spent money and time. It's like, I've gotta get through this because it makes it feel like it's worth it. Now, let's contrast this with the way things are today. And I'm not going to, as I talk about this, I'm actually gonna talk about the,
Starting point is 00:42:19 I'm not judging the experience because I think there's actually something to the way things are done now. Yeah, yeah. So the way that I think there's actually something to the way things are done now. Yeah. Okay. So the way that I introduce myself, now first of all, I subscribe to, right now I have Apple Music, that's just because I have an iPhone
Starting point is 00:42:38 and so I end up doing a lot of Apple things. So that's kind of my streaming service that I use. But what I'll do in order to find new music is, in fact, the other night I did this, sitting there and I'm like, I'm gonna find something, I wanna find some like melancholy Americana. Like first of all, just the fact that I can think that.
Starting point is 00:43:01 Yeah. And not have to go to the smallest section at Sam Ash. There was never a section at Sam Goodies or which, there's a bunch of Sams. If I had gone in to- Melancholy what? Melancholy Americana, they would have been like, "'Sir, please leave." But now I have the ability to go basically
Starting point is 00:43:21 to the like Americana section. And then it's like latest releases. And I can do like, you know, top tracks or latest releases. And what I'll do is I'll play one and I make a decision sometimes two seconds in, sometimes 15 seconds in as to whether or not this is, I'm gonna continue listening. And I'll go through 10, 11, 12 different people,
Starting point is 00:43:47 most of them I haven't heard of, and then I'll land on somebody and I'll be like, oh. Something that grips you in like track one. So like for instance, I did this. And the album art does still play into that though, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because you can look at the album art and make, the combination of the album art and the title of the album,
Starting point is 00:44:05 you kind of make a decision. Right. Is this person trying to give me something that is going to work for me? So I just recently discovered, and I'd heard of this band, the Milk Carton Kids, okay? Like, it's one of those, like, oh yeah, I don't know anything about those guys,
Starting point is 00:44:21 but I've heard, they've been out for a while, they've gotten multiple albums, but when I was doing my melancholy Americana deep dive, you know, 10, 12 albums into top tracks or latest releases, whatever, I get to milk carton kids, and then I'm like, oh, hmm, oh, okay. Perking up. And I stuck with it, and I ended up listening to the entire album,
Starting point is 00:44:41 and now I consider myself a fan of these guys, who by the way, are based in Eagle Rock close by. Are they missing or what's their story? I think it's a play on that. Okay. But that's a completely- They're melancholy? But think about how many people I pass by
Starting point is 00:44:58 for different reasons before I landed on these guys. And here's the thing, is that because I could do that again tonight with any other combination of musical descriptors, and then I could do it again the next night, never repeating the rabbit hole that I'm gonna go down, don't have to go back to Melancholy Americana, I may not go back to those guys.
Starting point is 00:45:19 Now, I actually use my recently added quite a bit because it's like, oh yeah, you remember those guys, Milk Carton Kids you found the other night? Listen to those guys again. But there's something to that. There's negative and there's positive to that. There's a tremendous positive that you can, that the mechanism for discovery and it,
Starting point is 00:45:41 I mean, as an artist, or I'm kind of projecting onto more of music artists here that I have to think that the rate of evolution of sound and of music has increased dramatically because of access. I mean, it's the same thing as just our access to information with the internet has drastically accelerated so many aspects of society. Right.
Starting point is 00:46:14 You know, I think, I believe that hip hop is still one of the fastest shifting genres. I don't know why, but I just observed it. I think it is. I could be wrong about that, but I think that has to do with being able to hear so much, like artists being able to hear and be inspired
Starting point is 00:46:38 by so many different people in anyone sitting, so to speak. So that's pretty cool. There's a value. It's so easy to accidentally bite somebody in hip hop and for your flow to sound exactly like somebody else that I think you're kind of constantly kind of moving away from that and trying to set some sort of target
Starting point is 00:46:59 where if you're doing melancholy Americana and you, oh, he sounds a little bit like so and so, it's like, that's a good thing. But if it's like, he sounds like Drake, you're like, that's not good. He needs to change, he needs to innovate in some way. But when I think about, okay, so I think about my kids and the way that, you know, you mentioned Tribe Called Quest.
Starting point is 00:47:21 So the other day, we were on a road trip and I've done this, I've done a couple of these things where I'm like, I started thinking back on some music that I got introduced to and I'm like, I'm going to listen to this and I'm gonna tell my kids what I was thinking and how I first heard this and that kind of thing and we kind of go through. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:41 And so Locke is, he's really into hip hop and he listens to, you know, like when, what's his name, Extention, I don't know, how do you say the guy's name that died recently that was a, you know, triple extension, I'm probably saying it wrong. I don't know. That's how out of the loop I am.
Starting point is 00:48:04 Extension cord. But he was, like when he, that dude died, like it was difficult for Locke for a couple of days and of course he was like all into the theory about how Drake was involved in all this. But so he was pretty well acquainted with like, you know, the cutting edge lo-fi, even some lo-fi stuff, which I'll get back to that in a second.
Starting point is 00:48:29 But so I was like, okay, I'm gonna play you some 90s hip hop. I ended up going through Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep. I started just thinking of some stuff that was performed at the talent show. Yeah. Third base. And I know I'm jumping all over the place
Starting point is 00:48:48 with like how this is held up. Tribe Called Quest has held up. Black Sheep hasn't held up quite as much. Third base doesn't hold up at all. Like you listen to third base now and you're like. I think there's some, I think there's a couple but. I think some, I think it holds up but. No like it feels like he's like getting off rhythm a bunch.
Starting point is 00:49:13 No like. Okay but what did. Pete Nice is off, he gets off rhythm. What did he think about it? What did Locke think about it? Oh then we got to the Fugees. And like. Okay well you made it, okay.
Starting point is 00:49:26 Yeah, yeah, so I'm jumping all around the 90s. But there's this like, okay, I can see, like some of it is good, but then I can start feeling some of it not really working, it seems a little bit cheesy. Right, right, right. I mean, I tried Young MC at one point, and I was like, I cannot believe.
Starting point is 00:49:44 No, no, no. I tried Young MC at one point and I was like, I cannot believe. No, no, no. I can't believe how bad this was. I mean, it was just horrible. But I mean, I think Fuji's, I hope he thought that was great. Yeah, he thought it was great. And it's less about what he thought about it. He appreciated it, he thought some of it was good,
Starting point is 00:50:02 but it was more how easily I could just think of something and introduce him to it. And I was like, getting into the question of is this disposable, it's like, this is not the same thing as if I gave him an album and he had a machine in his room and he had to take the thing and put it into the thing and spend some time with it.
Starting point is 00:50:24 There's no cost. So without doubt, an individual album or an individual song has become more disposable. But at the same time, as a family, we do things that my family never did. We play music all the time. Like when I go home tonight, music will be playing in my house.
Starting point is 00:50:50 We eat dinner half the time, music is playing. Wake up in the morning, music is playing. We've got a computer and an Alexa in the kitchen. And so- Yeah, we do the same thing. It's just, so- And you know what, I can't. Music's always playing.
Starting point is 00:51:06 I came into the kitchen the past two, a few days and the Beatles have been playing and you know, I don't play the Beatles but I mean of course I love the Beatles, you have to. But it's Lily who's somehow has gotten into the Beatles. She went to a girls rock summer camp with a friend of hers and they got her into the Beatles and but also like the White Stripes.
Starting point is 00:51:31 And so it's, you know, she's found people that she thought was cool that liked cool stuff. And now she's liking that and she's starting to, you know, to be exposed to things like the Beatles. And it's just, it's easy. It's just around. I mean, so there's such a, the deep experience we had is now the wide experience that our kids have.
Starting point is 00:51:55 You know, the widest an experience got for us back in the day was, you remember this, the BMG Music Service, and also Columbia House, it would be eight CDs for one cent or it would be an ad for 12 CDs for the price of one. And what you would do is they would send you this big envelope and you would open that up and it would have a sheet. Hundreds of albums.
Starting point is 00:52:27 It would have a sheet with like 12 blocks, 12 empty blanks and then the one that you'd pay for and it would be stamps, like lickable stickers of albums. Oh, I had one that was a check mark. It was like ordering sushi. The one, yeah, they were all different kinds and it was very like, again, it was part of the ordering process was like holding. It was tactile.
Starting point is 00:52:50 Tactile, it was a catalog and figuring this, a lot of them looked like music magazines where they would like, Columbia House, they would have articles with like weird factoids about crap in them to make you think that you're reading like a Rolling Stone type rip off. Yeah. But then you would select the album
Starting point is 00:53:07 and you would order 13 CDs, this was the age of CDs. And it wasn't easy to figure out which 13 you wanted because as people who had bought one album at a time, maybe two on a really good birthday. It was intimidating. It's like how do you get the 13? I'm throwing ACDC in there. Yes.
Starting point is 00:53:24 It's back in black which I'm really glad I did that. I mean, I first heard Bob Marley because you put that in your 12. Yeah, I did. And it was like, okay, I was on a classic rock kick and so it was just like, I just went through greatest hits, classic rock's greatest hits section and I took those stamps off.
Starting point is 00:53:45 So like Cream and Eric Clapton, The Eagles. Everybody's gotta get that Eagles greatest hits album. That's how you learn how to play guitar. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers greatest hits with Mary Jane's Last Dance on there. And things changed. I was listening to that, talk about a song. And now. That is a good
Starting point is 00:54:03 freaking song. The relationship. And then they ship you 12 CDs at once. CDs changed the relationship with music because now not only, it was still tactile, it was still an experience of owning something. That you can skip around. But, and I wasn't even, you're totally right about that. You can skip easily, so it made it a little bit easier
Starting point is 00:54:24 to dispose of, but it made it a little bit easier to dispose of, but it also was a little bit precious because especially if you were like me, I'm assuming that you didn't do this as often as I did, you leave the CD out. Scratch it? Man. No. Yes, yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:40 Can't scratch that CD, man. Well, I think I probably speak for a lot of people out there and that many of your CDs, now you think I'm bad. I remember when I first got to know Jessie and she would put one of her CDs in her car. I mean, it was like looking at, like when you got the light just right on her CD
Starting point is 00:54:57 so you could see all the scratches, it was like she let a cat get on this thing. Like she has let a cat work its feelings out on the surface of this CD. Yeah and you're listening to Hit Me Baby One More Time and it's only just hit me. And that happened, so funny thing is I have an artifact of this time in my life on that album,
Starting point is 00:55:20 on Back in Black, on Back in Black, the actual song Back in Black. Yeah. Somehow, when I transferred all my CDs over to my computer years ago, and then they were matched on iTunes, I thought it was supposed to repair if you had some issues. Yeah, it is. Something happened with Back in Black,
Starting point is 00:55:43 and it still has all the skipping from that CD intact. What if you accidentally overwrote the master in the cloud? I don't think that's possible. So like you ruined Back in Black for everybody for perpetuity. Well, first of all, I apologize if that's the case. Just a side note, when I was thinking about BMJ,
Starting point is 00:56:01 I was thinking, how do they make money? And I like did some searching about it. Well, if you didn't cancel it. If you didn't, here's what they did. They would give you the 13 CDs, you only bought one, but then every, maybe it was every month or every few weeks, they would send you, it's kinda like Netflix, they would send you another CD in the same genre
Starting point is 00:56:20 that you picked for me, classic rock, and they would charge you for it until you wrote, basically wrote them and told them that you're canceling. So they would charge you an overpriced amount. They made it very difficult to cancel. Yeah and I found, when I was looking for that, I found this documentary that I'm gonna watch. So I'm recommending something I haven't watched
Starting point is 00:56:41 except the beginning of and it was a guy, filmmaker Chris Wilcha. In 1994, the first thing that he did was he got a job after he graduated, he got a job working at Columbia House. So in the place, and he took his video camera to work every day and documented his process of working at Columbia House in 1994 and it's called The Target Shoots First. I mean this guy went on to produce a lot of other things
Starting point is 00:57:14 including the television version of This American Life when that was on Showtime. So yeah, he's like doing lots of good stuff now but that was like the first pet project. And I'll tweet out the link to the Vimeo of that like hour 20 minute documentary that he made of his like, it's almost like found footage-ish or just like very intimate footage
Starting point is 00:57:41 because I kind of skipped through it of his like taking his camcorder to work every day. And it's just like a snapshot of what the music industry was like. Well, and Columbia House is such a weird thing. Right, a weird moment. Now, another thing. But the experience was, that's as wide as it got.
Starting point is 00:58:00 And now it's infinite. So here's another just anecdote about the way things work. And just not too long ago, by the time you hear this, it will have been a few weeks, I'm sure. But I was doing some writing the other day on one of the projects that we're working on. And I like to listen to instrumental music. Instrumental music when I write
Starting point is 00:58:27 because I don't like to be manipulated. I also like to, I don't like to listen to words because I immediately, I'm writing words and then all of a sudden I start listening to words and I also don't want music that has too much of an emotional quality because I feel like it will influence when I'm writing. So I like things that are a little bit noncommittal.
Starting point is 00:58:45 And so I tweeted this out, shout out to RedMC on Twitter. If you follow me, you know that I tweeted this. If you don't follow me, you don't know, that's your loss. I tweeted, does anybody have any recommendations for instrumental music for writing? And I kind of qualified it with, I don't want it to be too emotional, whatever. Thank you for all your suggestions.
Starting point is 00:59:06 Someone, actually multiple people said, lo-fi, just search lo-fi hip hop 24 seven. Just Google that. Okay. And if you do that, a YouTube channel from Chill Hop Music comes up and it's just a live stream. There is a looped animated video of, I think now it's like a raccoon in bed
Starting point is 00:59:34 like studying or something. It's like a character like sitting there in his bedroom like chilling out, writing or typing, I can't remember what he's doing. Okay. Is that the part that matters the most? No, no. chilling out, writing or typing, I can't remember what he's doing. And then they've- Is that the part that matters the most? No, no, they play 24 seven. But what's lo-fi?
Starting point is 00:59:53 Well, lo-fi hip hop is like amateur, it's amateur made mixes, we're talking like SoundCloud type music here. But it's all about the same BPM, it's laid back and it kind of just effortlessly flows from one thing to the next. And it's actually become like my go-to writing music over the past couple of weeks.
Starting point is 01:00:15 Has it looped? Have you heard stuff again and again? No, I haven't. I don't know where the end is. And if it did loop, it's the kind of thing I probably wouldn't even notice. Well, it's a stream, it's not a video. It may not be a loop.
Starting point is 01:00:24 It's so, and again, I don't know who's making this music. I don't know how they're making money. I don't understand the business model. I mean, they've got like a link to their website in the description of the video, and I guess you can go there and do something. I don't understand the business model at all. All I know is that I'm just consuming
Starting point is 01:00:40 just high volumes of music in a way that is effortless. I'm just consuming just high volumes of music in a way that it's effortless. Ultimately what I'm getting at is whether it's walking home, walking into my house and hearing my kids stream the latest Chance the Rapper releases that he just released or listening to lo-fi hip hop, or listening to lo-fi hip hop.
Starting point is 01:01:10 I can get anywhere and I'm completely surrounded by it. So while I do think that it's become disposable, it's become so much more prolific, at least for me, but this has gotta be true of everybody. What I hear you saying is it's become, it's actually become a more valuable mainstay in your lifestyle as a whole. Like it can, it can all, because it can always be there as a constant companion.
Starting point is 01:01:34 I mean, that's valuable. So I don't, and it, but at the same time, it could make it all seem more disposable because well, it's not an object, it's not something that I gotta pour over, like the liner notes or anything like that. Well, and especially that, so, because there is something to be said for,
Starting point is 01:01:57 and this is some people's philosophy, my philosophy once I started streaming was, because I heard people say, well, I pay for streaming, but if I really like an artist, I buy their album. It's like, well, once you could just add the music locally to your devices, it just became a loyalty issue at that point. It's like, am I really gonna give this artist 12 bucks
Starting point is 01:02:20 just because I really like them? I mean, yeah, some people will do that. That's not a sustainable business model. But I think that what you could do, what a lot of people do is they say, "'Well, I do wanna buy this physical thing.'" And this is kind of like the analog revolution that's happening, right?
Starting point is 01:02:38 It's well underway, vinyl, now cassettes are coming back. And I think that's because ultimately we haven't changed, you know, physically, mentally, the hardware of humanity is the same as it has been for thousands of years. And so we're tactile beings, right? We experience things with all the senses. So the fact that while we kind of moved
Starting point is 01:02:59 into this completely digital place where you think, oh, well, just like in the dead iPod song, where we kind of talked about in the distant future, people are just gonna download songs directly into their brain. That's, I don't know, that might happen, but ultimately, unless we change significantly physically, we're not gonna lose that desire
Starting point is 01:03:21 to have a tactile experience. You're never gonna lose an appreciation for a piece of music that is on something physical. Like if I hand you, I mean, you just got a record player. If I, and I bought you a bunch of crazy albums, but if I gave you an album that you didn't have that meant something to me, your experience with that, there's nothing you can do in the digital world
Starting point is 01:03:43 that can top that. And that's why people are, that's why people are kind of rebounding back. Yeah, I'm definitely, I have a desire to the albums that have been the most important in my life. I have a desire to buy them on vinyl just to have it, just to literally have it. I don't think everybody has to do that,
Starting point is 01:04:08 but I think the other thing that I try to do that I'll go so far as to encourage people to do is to adopt the discipline of immersing yourself in music and making time, making focused time for that if you're a music lover. Don't rob yourself of the experience of going all the way. Not trying to make this sexual. But I just did.
Starting point is 01:04:39 Sometimes I'll lay in bed with my headphones on. And go all the way with your headphones on? I typically wear my AirPods when I do that. And I'll listen. I don't like to have them to be too bulky. I'll listen to music and I'll just, I'll focus on it. So it's not a companion to anything. It is the object of my affection at that moment
Starting point is 01:05:01 and my analyzation. Right. And I'll go one step further. I love doing that within the context of an album. You know, I think with this wide experience, it's a single focused as opposed to an album oriented world that we now live in. But I think there are artists who are still crafting albums
Starting point is 01:05:26 and like Kendrick Lamar. I mean, if you, you can listen, I mean, you can listen to Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe and that's a great song but if you listen to Good Kid, Mad City as a whole, then you've immersed yourself in a cinematic experience that an amazing artist crafted. He made an audio movie.
Starting point is 01:05:57 And you gotta listen to all of it to get that. And I mean, it's your loss or mine if we don't do that, but it now takes a discipline that we were trained to expect from certain artists. And we were trained to expect from more artists actually. You gotta sit here and you gotta press play and then you gotta flip it over to a certain point and you see what I'm saying.
Starting point is 01:06:29 So now we gotta actually make a decision to take time to do that. Or if you're driving in a car, still saying I'm gonna, I recognize this artist made this album as a cohesive work and so I'm actually gonna experience it that way over my next three commutes. Well, I try to do that.
Starting point is 01:06:48 I think both of us are biased against playlists. I mean, I, I, yeah, yeah. I mean, we did the mixtape thing. It was usually like mixing one artist, like we would mix Merle and you would just be like the lonesome side and the loving side or whatever. It's like I would take all the songs about being alone, which is quite a bit when you're talking about Merle Haggard
Starting point is 01:07:11 and then the other side would be all the songs about being in love and I would, Yeah. And I would, sometimes together we would just go down a country road and put that album in, put that cassette in and just sing at the top of our lungs. And sometimes I would just go by myself and think about the girl that I had a crush on and put that album in, put that cassette in and just sing at the top of our lungs. And sometimes I would just go by myself
Starting point is 01:07:27 and think about the girl that I had a crush on and was not responding to me and just listened to lonesome Merle Haggard songs. But we have kind of a- I saw her recently, by the way. No, I don't wanna go on a tangent. Really? You did though?
Starting point is 01:07:42 Yeah, in the Zaxby's. Oh, okay. Back home. We'll talk about that in a second. And of course, lots of girls didn't respond to me, so it could be one of many different women. They were all there. It's like one of my dreams. All the women that have rejected me at the Zaxby's.
Starting point is 01:08:02 That's a recurring nightmare of mine. I just wanted some chicken fingers. But the. Why don't you love me? We're both, and this is to do with our age, I'm sure, but I always, I'll put a playlist on, or like Pandora, or like a radio, like an Apple radio station, if I've got people over and I don't want it to end, you know?
Starting point is 01:08:26 But if I'm, I've never, never once played one of the Apple radio stations while in the car. I don't, it's just, I don't know. It's weird because I would listen to the radio itself, but I find an album, I find an artist, and sometimes I feel like if I listen to an artist and they have one good song, and then the rest of the album sucks,
Starting point is 01:08:49 I just write them off. I don't say, I'm gonna take that song and put it into a playlist. I say like, this album doesn't work, so this artist doesn't work. And this is just an internal bias that I have. I don't build playlists for myself because it's too much work.
Starting point is 01:09:06 But if I like an artist, like if I really like Lord Huron, I'll go to Lord Huron Radio and then it'll play other artists. I'll discover other people related by just listening to that around the house or whatever. Well, so I think for me, to answer that initial question, it's definitely become more disposable.
Starting point is 01:09:29 I mean, my relationship with music isn't anything like it was in 1982 in my bedroom. But the amount of music that is in my life in different environments, it's also, we didn't even talk about just the technology, just being able to have multiple devices all around you, being able to listen to music while you run, being able to listen to music while you're working out,
Starting point is 01:09:55 when you're in your car and you're making the choice and you're being intentional about what you're listening to. Like the combination of streaming music with the devices that are available has made music so much more prolific that I think that probably like the happy medium is somewhere kind of what you're doing, which is you've got,
Starting point is 01:10:18 cause I currently don't have any analog experience with music. I got like a record player, but we couldn't find a place to put it and then I didn't buy anything for it and then last time I tried to use it, the needle was broken and so I'm out. I don't have an analog experience at all.
Starting point is 01:10:34 And I don't listen to it that much. It takes a lot of work. You know, it's, I mean, when I'm in bed. You gotta lift that record up, you gotta work it out of the sleeve, you gotta set it on the. Is it in your bedroom? It's not in my bedroom, it's in the living room.
Starting point is 01:10:53 And it's not hooked up to the best speakers. I kinda like a headphone experience. I could hook up my headphones to it. What if you carried it around with headphones? It was like a Walkman, but it was a record player. It'd be real steady handed. I'll try, I'll try it, I'll definitely try it. Well, let's continue this conversation on the internet.
Starting point is 01:11:16 In the comments below, if you're watching this on Twitter, hashtag Ear Biscuits, we're gonna get involved in that conversation. Yeah, and if you have a music lover in your life, send them this episode. Tell them they can reminisce along with us. Maybe we'll trigger some memories from them and spark a thought of,
Starting point is 01:11:39 oh, I need to go back and listen to that album or that song, or I remember the first thing I listened to was this, or this was my favorite album when I was in middle school type thing. So thanks for sharing this episode and for talking with us like Rhett said, using hashtag Ear Biscuits.
Starting point is 01:11:56 We'll bring you another biscuit next week.

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