Digital Debris Part 3: Liner Notes
b'When you listen to music through a streaming music service, how aware are you of what you\\u2019re listening to?...sure, you can look at the screen, but what does that tell you?...the name of the artist, the name of the song, maybe the name of the album\\u2026how much time has elapsed, how much is left in the song\\u2026\\n\\nBut say you\\u2019re intrigued by what you\\u2019re hearing, and you want to know more\\u2026that means you\\u2019ve got to search the internet\\u2026Wikipedia is usually surprisingly accurate when it comes to learning more about a song or an album\\u2026who produced it, the engineer, the name of the studio, the supporting players, and so worth\\u2026\\n\\nI mean, it does the job, but it feels kinda lacking\\u2026a bit antiseptic\\u2026\\n\\nAnd then if you want lyrics, you have to search other sites\\u2026and again, these sites do a decent job, but\\u2026*sigh*\\u2026\\n\\nOkay, I\\u2019ll just say it\\u2026I miss liner notes\\u2026I miss being able to sort through all the printing in a cd booklet or on a vinyl record\\u2026there\\u2019s something mysteriously cool about learning something about the artist or the music by finding something buried in the liner notes\\u2026\\n\\nWriting and compiling this text used to be a big deal\\u2026people were paid good money and even won awards for writing liner notes\\u2026the industry has specialists for this sort of thing\\u2026\\n\\nBut as we get deeper and deeper into the digital era, liner notes are disappearing along with the concept of B-sides and bonus tracks, and album artwork\\u2026it\\u2019s all part of the evolution of music culture\\u2026\\n\\nThis is final part a series marking these changes\\u2026this is digital debris 3: liner notes\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'