In my endless quest to find new places to read reviews of ambient/electronic/IDM/glitch/whatever, I’ve realized something – there is a tendency to review not the music itself, but the packaging. This includes things like album art, song titles, and even quotes from the artist about their intent. I find this unspeakably odd. I was looking around for reviews of Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath – 1972 (which I do not yet own a copy of, digital or otherwise) because I’m a huge Tim Hecker fan and wanted some feedback on whether this was an album I’d be interested in, before lurking around the internet to find a copy on CD. I usually read reviews on Headphone Commute, which I adore, because they don’t do this. They tend to focus very specifically on the music itself, often on things like the weather/season the music goes well with, or the emotions and memories it evokes. This isn’t to say to say that things like song titles, album art, and intent aren’t important, but just that they’re secondary to the actual music. I would hope, anyway. To that end, my recent desire to get music on CD instead of downloading it is, granted, based partly on wanting the packaging that was intended to be released with the music. There’s something about opening a CD and looking through everything that’s included, holding it in your hands, looking at physical photographs. But in the end, the music’s really the only thing that’s important. You can have all the best intentions and marketing and design but if the music is shitty nothing is going to fix that. This is what happens when Miso wakes me up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning and I can’t fall back asleep.
