Bigger. Louder.
That’s the course of civilization.
Buildings used to be clay huts. Now humans live in steel behemoths
that stretch up towards the sun. Travel was once limited to the soreness one
could tolerate in one’s feet. Now we sit in metal boxes that hurtle over tarmac
at previously incomprehensible rates of speed. And things only get bigger,
louder, faster and more efficient.
Sometimes we return to simpler times. We camp in improvised
structures or we go for a hike. And it’s quaint and it makes us smile for the
weekend that we spend in the country, a weekend that we spend in the past.
Then we come back to our electric toasters and our gas stoves
and our computers and our microwaves and our indoor plumbing and our iPods.
And maybe we listen to this song.
Some genres of music have evolved with technology. Computer
technicians become master mixers and editors, piecing together the perfectly
balanced and autotuned track. Synths, drum machines, distorters were all once looked
at suspiciously. Now they have become pillars of pop music. And, for the most
part, it still sounds good, or at least as good as most pop music has ever
sounded. But it does sound, or maybe it feels, different than what people
listened to years ago.
Maybe we listen to this song. We hear a man, his guitar and
his story. And it’s as refreshing as that holiday you spent at a rustic bed and
breakfast in the Berkshires. Or maybe it’s much more important than that.
Keep it simple.
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