Evidently as a direct result of my story about waiting countless agonizing days after purchasing a physical CD from Amazon before I could first listen to the contents, Amazon made good by enacting AutoRip. When I checked in on my Cloud Player I found an extra 20 records I had bought in my entire history with Amazon.com, and that includes a few I had forgotten about. That’s a really nice gesture and it may save me a step or two in the future in getting the tracks synced to my iPod. From what I have read the MP3s are 256 kbps, which is far above average. However, I’m still feeling inclined to write a letter directly to Amazon to plead for some kind of option to get albums in lossless (FLAC) format, along a pdf of the full cover art and liner notes. There’s a lot of personality and even hidden surprises tucked within the clever scribbles and cryptic notes of the little album booklet. I’d pay if they would just hold onto the physical disc so I don’t have to keep it here in a junk pile, unopened.

Music is my memory. The pseudoscience of the mind would tell us that our memories are intertwined with sentimental rhythmic pulses from life experiences. I know that certain records do better than pictures and court certified transcripts to bring back the vivid, palpable stage pieces from long past scenes in my life. Some of them well up very happy memories, like flipping a switch, and others are predictably painful. It’s as though my brain were an instrument that I could use to play out a performance in recalling a lifetime by leafing through my CD collection. These albums trigger very specific sensations from those times like sight, emotion, and even taste. These occur to me without intention and the recollection is unmistakable. Continue reading →