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Popular Culture Review
devoid of static or popping or other telltale indicators of mechanical
reproduction, that it was a revelation. The digitization of older recordings, which
we imagined would be that much better blemish-free, promised greater listening
pleasure. In truth, however, clarity quickly became commonplace, and as such it
lost most of its value.19 Abundance has a—for lack of a better word— economic
consequence.
Transcription is not a problem in digital media. To copy sound over an
analog system required reading the vibrations in the air at one location and
reproducing them at another location in enough of their minute detail to be
distinguishable. Such a transcription method is sensitive to small variations, as,
for example, a wearing-away of a groove in a vinyl disc, however small,
changes the vibration of the needle and thus the vibration of the speaker and the
resulting vibration of the air. Digital transcription, however, is nearly flawless.
A channel can be open or it can be closed—there is little ambiguity in the signal,
so that the signal can weaken significantly from its point of origin without
becoming indistinct. Also, the digital transcription can be repeated over and over
again with little or no degradation. A “ 1” does not slowly degrade into a “0”
over time, or vice versa.
Is anything lost in digitization? Audiophiles insist they can tell the
difference between digital and analog recordings, but psychophysics suggest
otherwise. We can sample a continuous stream of sound at very close intervals,
and at any given interval we migh t ask the question: is the channel that
corresponds to exactly this wavelength “open”? That is, is the air shaking, at this
very instant, in exactly the frequency that will later correspond to this channel or
set of channels? If so, this particular channel will be “on” at this moment. Other
channels will be on or off in accordance with whether their corresponding
sounds are active at the moment of sampling or not. With enough channels and
enough samples we can duplicate all the wavelengths of a symphony—or a
passenger jet—closely enough to be indistinguishable to human ears. In fact, the
human capacity is not very robust, and much of the airwave activity of an
orchestra transpires beyond a human capacity for conscious hearing. The MP3
file dispenses with these superfluous wavelengths without appreciably changing
the listener’s experience—the file is compressed. Transmission is that much
faster.
The fast download and the ease of transcription make it possible to treat
music as ephemera. Since the song is easy to get, it is easy to get again—we can
dispose of it. Now we also have downloadable books and streamable movies,
and these, too, are ephemera. This is the material state of entertainment: we have
access, at a negligible price, to almost anything we want, instantly. At one time
our access to these things was limited. Carefully defining one’s sphere of
interest was an economic priority because one could not easily afford to own
thousands of songs or books, or to go to thousands of movies in a theater. Now
we are faced with a different problem: how do we choose? We need new
institutions to filter for us, to push to us. Some of these institutions have already