Physical Media and Dopamine

[richardfinegold]

Streaming is displacing all other forms of listening, for a variety of reasons. Many have remarked that they miss the feel of a CD, or the lp preparation ritual, or what not. I haven’t bought a new CD for a few months now, but due to the vagaries of the supply chain and the U.S. Postal Service one that I did order last January, and that I had completely forgotten ordering, arrived a few days ago. It made me happy to see and feel the little container. I then reflected that for the greater part of my life my weekly ritual of going to the record store, later replaced by ordering from the Internet, was a real high point for me, frequently little pick me up during a difficult stretch.
Streaming offers an incredible feast, at your fingers in an instant, but it can’t replace that little dopamine release, and even choosing the same recording from a streaming service doesn’t quite provide the same residual pleasure as grabbing the disc, or lp, and putting it on the disc spinner.

[oddoneout]

Rituals can be an important and enhancing part of any activity. I suppose the extreme example would be the Japanese tea ceremony - the journey being at least as important as the destination. The deliberate physical actions of choosing and loading the CD help to focus the mind on what is about to happen.
A simple convenience meal such as baked beans or tinned soup can be greatly improved by a table setting rather than being ingested as an adjunct to another activity - slumped on the settee watching a film, or hunched over a laptop.

[gradus]

I too loved visiting record shops and when I worked in London I spent countless hours in all of the well-known ones. In that respect too, streaming doesn't compete.

[Bryn]

I too loved visiting record shops and when I worked in London I spent countless hours in all of the well-known ones. In that respect too, streaming doesn't compete.

Indeed not. It's so much quicker and easier finding streaming options.

[Joseph K]

Streaming offers an incredible feast, at your fingers in an instant, but it can’t replace that little dopamine release, and even choosing the same recording from a streaming service doesn’t quite provide the same residual pleasure as grabbing the disc, or lp, and putting it on the disc spinner.

Agreed. I mean, the physical reality of the CD-skyscrapers that occupy my room is imposing enough to demand I give at least one a listen each day. In any case I don't have a streaming service and I haven't got round to getting an ad-blocker for youtube (which in any case I'm perhaps irrational in my suspicion that such a thing would be too good to be true...)

Also while I have downloaded a fair amount of music now, I still don't know how to make one track automatically go onto the next - let alone have the succession of one track to the next be seamless, so I would never download an opera.

[Serial_Apologist]

Rituals can be an important and enhancing part of any activity. I suppose the extreme example would be the Japanese tea ceremony - the journey being at least as important as the destination. The deliberate physical actions of choosing and loading the CD help to focus the mind on what is about to happen.
A simple convenience meal such as baked beans or tinned soup can be greatly improved by a table setting rather than being ingested as an adjunct to another activity - slumped on the settee watching a film, or hunched over a laptop.

It's possibly this aspect of ritual that sustains an interest and attraction for religions for many people - including those not centred on the notion of a central deity, such as Tibetan Buddhism. The appeal and sense of spiritual fulfilment are intrinsic to and in the ritual, and its capacity for centreing on the passing present as the means of transcendance, rather than pointing to some presumed higher supernatural authority. It's instructive I think that the later post-Reformation forms of Protestanism, great importance is invested in "the truth" only being found in the written, namely "the word of God", thereby circumventing any appeal to the instinctual or to intuition, considered as suspect, in need of suppression, and an aspect of "our baser nature".

Hence my joke about studying semiology!

[jayne lee wilson]

AS I've often said, I see all these as complementary rather than competing pleasures. Streaming via Qobuz has become the way to find and explore new music and try new releases, usually each Friday when Qobuz display the latest batch. (Also as a personal Radio Station and perfect after a BaL).

But I still buy CDs regularly of music that is, or becomes, important to me; partly for the pleasure of the physical object, but even more for the sound quality, which here is still a bit more realistic, solid and tangible off of the physical media. But this is all down to the hardware of course. I put a lot of effort and time into finding and choosing those CD/SACD transports, both built like battleships, and it is always feels great to use them and listen to them.

Come up and see me, make me smile!

But Qobuz Discover every Friday has become an enduring thrill.....

[Bryn]

Agreed. I mean, the physical reality of the CD-skyscrapers that occupy my room is imposing enough to demand I give at least one a listen each day. In any case I don't have a streaming service and I haven't got round to getting an ad-blocker for youtube (which in any case I'm perhaps irrational in my suspicion that such a thing would be too good to be true...)

Also while I have downloaded a fair amount of music now, I still don't know how to make one track automatically go onto the next - let alone have the succession of one track to the next be seamless, so I would never download an opera.

Depending on the playback system you use, you might have to compile "playlists" of the files you want to run sequentially.

[Joseph K]

Depending on the playback system you use, you might have to compile "playlists" of the files you want to run sequentially.

Believe me, I've tried.

[richardfinegold]

AS I've often said, I see all these as complementary rather than competing pleasures. Streaming via Qobuz has become the way to find and explore new music and try new releases, usually each Friday when Qobuz display the latest batch. (Also as a personal Radio Station and perfect after a BaL).

But I still buy CDs regularly of music that is, or becomes, important to me; partly for the pleasure of the physical object, but even more for the sound quality, which here is still a bit more realistic, solid and tangible off of the physical media. But this is all down to the hardware of course. I put a lot of effort and time into finding and choosing those CD/SACD transports, both built like battleships, and it is always feels great to use them and listen to them.

Come up and see me, make me smile!

But Qobuz Discover every Friday has become an enduring thrill.....

I wasn’t trying to make it sound like a binary choice. As you say, physical media and streaming are complimentary. It is great to have all that music at your fingertips. It has also dramatically reduced impulse purchases. I have found myself buying some of the music that I have really enjoyed, for fear that when it stops being issued as a Physical Product it may also disappear from the streaming site, which is an illogical phenomenon but one that I have seen occur with a few albums. However, it just doesn’t replace that little bit of excitement that comes from a new purchase. This is surely an extra musical phenomenon, but one that Will miss if I have to sacrifice entirely. I also find that streaming leads to less serious musical listening. It is just so tempting to grab the tablet and change the music and skip around. Having to change the physical product spinning away is more difficult, and therefore I tend to listen more completely to longer and challenging works, and therefore learn them better