Levon Vincent ‎– The Medium Is The Message

"The Medium Is The Message": The phrase was introduced in Marshall McLuhan's most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.

The above was a paraphrase from the wiki entry. How true it is. Think about how different the dj community is now with the proliferation of digital music. Torrents, forums, instant messenger chats have replaced the record shop. I had a lot more fun traveling to record shops than I ever did shopping for digital music. I quickly found that shopping for digital music was an exercise in emptiness. In contrast, I can remember every record I ever bought in person at a record store. I remember getting lost on the way to Gerard Avenue in philly, and accidentally going over the Ben Franklin bridge into New Jersey, then spending 45 minutes asking Jersey locals how to turn around and go back the same way that we just came. (anyone who's ever been to Philly does this at least once, and its probably one of the most frustrating driving mistakes you can make in that city.) I can remember which friends I was with at the store. I can remember what the weather was like, what cd we listened to in the car, and where we stopped to eat on the way home. I can remember the records smelling like incense when I took them out of the sleeve and played them for the first time. All of those minutia are stored in those records that I keep on my shelf. A vinyl purchased in person, at at recore store is a time capsule that contains a momentary snapshot of the purchaser's life. The medium embeds itself into the message, in a very emotional way. So the next time the MP3 vs. Vinyl debate comes up, ask the MP3 fan where they were when they downloaded their favorite MP3. Ask them how it smelled, and how nice it felt when they first double clicked on it. Ask them what kind of snow and ice they overcame traveling from their couch to their computer chair to make the purchase. Ask them which old friends they ran into while shopping in the digital record store, and ask them which memories come to mind everytime they "look" at it.