This is a lesson about cultural expression nowadays that hasapplications to everybody. This is part of living in theInformation Society. Here we are in the 90s, we have thesetremendous information-handling, information-producingtechnologies. We think it's really great that we can have groovyunleashed access to all these different kinds of data, we canown books, we can own movies on tape, we can access databanks,we can buy computer-games, records, music, art.... A lot of ourart aspires to the condition of software, our art today wants tobe digital... But our riches of information are in some deep andperverse sense a terrible burden to us. They're like a cognitiveload. As a digitized information-rich culture nowadays, we haveto artificially invent ways to forget stuff. I think this is thereal explanation for the triumph of compact disks.
Compact disks aren't really all that much better than vinylrecords. What they make up in fidelity they lose in groovy coverart. What they gain in playability they lose in presentation.The real advantage of CDs is that they allow you to forget allyour vinyl records. You think you love this record collectionthat you've amassed over the years. But really the sheer choice,the volume, the load of memory there is secretly weighing youdown. You're never going to play those Alice Cooper albumsagain, but you can't just throw them away, because you're aculture nut.
But if you buy a CD player you can bundle up all those recordsand put them in attic boxes without so much guilt. You canpretend that you've stepped up a level, that now you're evenmore intensely into music than you ever were; but on a practicallevel what you're really doing is weeding this junk out of your