Give Me Music, Not an iPod (or why I listen to music without a shiny techno gadget)

Admission time: I don’t have an iPod. For someone who writes about music this might seem like the case of the jockey renouncing horses and then refusing to leave the polo grounds, bit I promise, it’s not, and I won’t. The issue has failed thus far to reach the level of overt consideration on my part, because I don’t really think mass ownership of a convenient, sleek, pathetically fetishized object with overtones of class aspiration really makes that much of a difference in how I listen to or perceive of music.

This dam of placid condescension recently burst though, and now I feel a greater need to stake out my claim in what iPod users have assured me over and over is a murky, centerless, podless wilderness. The catalyst? My dad bought my mom an iPod for Mother’s day.

Not only did it drive home my lack of gift (well played Dad!), but it gave me pause, because if [Steve Jobs] had managed to manipulate his way to the outer rings of the technoscenti, where suburban moms dwell in a state of repose and general gearphopia, clearly this phenomenon had outgrown its shadowdancing, [DRM protected](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,942369,00.asp) origins. If mom has an iPod, then why not me?

It seems another case of shiny toy-want creation outstripping any sort of necessity; coolness again harnessed as a silent tool of consumer coercion. In dear mom’s case, not just the necessity of the object is in question, but the mere utility. There is a distinct chance my mom will still be figuring out how to make a playlist on the thing when Apple is prepping the release of the iPod Brain Injectah 2K20, downloading 80 terabytes straight to your hippocampus, leaving open the hideous future risk of an L train full of Kung-Fu-less [various](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film) >Johnny Mnemonics humming The National in perfect pitch. Bonus: everyone will look insane, and for the first time the truly insane will feel normal, or at least appear normal to everyone else and not receive the proper care the McCain cyborg government won"t provide anywayâ?¦hmmmâ?¦this actually seems like another point against ipods. There are no doubt things that annoy me about the ipod, but I have the inkling that my life is less hassled, and a little safer without it. This might be a shocker, but I actually enjoy hearing the sounds of the city as I"m walking through it, because there"s always some odd someone saying something entertaining, some gutter punk quip or stroller mom sputter that can gives me a flash of community, a shudder of joyful particularity from my adopted home. Unfortunately, I also am so distracted when walking that the earbuds would only be singing a prescient elegy to my upcoming vehicular demise. The ipod cuts off the city fun. It straps its users in the blinders of an aesthetic experience, using music to build a gap between people, allowing them to revel in stylish sonic isolation, and leapfrog between the many coolnesses of which their lives seem to be composed; like the commercials. And if you want that, or if that"s part of what you want- well then that"s fine. But it doesn"t really speak to enjoying music so much as manipulating the experience of music to create a social barrier. If the environment in which you choose to live is such an affront to your senses, it"s not like you lack for alternatives of <a href=) [ stripes](http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.howvol).

The iPod can’t do anything to make you enjoy music more, all it can do is give you access to more music, and more music isn’t more better. Now, having a range of music is great and life enriching, but how many gigs do you need before you’re just choking in the maelstrom of your own choice? Before you could never listen to all of it in the space of a year, a decade, a lifetime? Before you’re MP3 ADD guy playing 30 second clips of 40 songs to your (dwindling) group of friends?

Then, it seems to me the iPod is less about music appreciation, but a lame, fruitless cultural accumulation, and I think my Mom has more important things to do. Digital baseball cards for post-adolescents! Witness the daring range, stunning historical subtley, and aching thematic continuity of my collection! Occasions don’t exist unless they can be accompanied by a playlist! All my zest for life, digitized and alphabetized! Don’t take my word for anything, take my object’s! I’ll take less, and be happy to listen to it more.