Yesterday I went to the store to buy the new album by Needtobreathe. This act of going to a store to buy an album on the first day it is available is not something that happens much with me anymore. Although I have a large CD collection, my CD buying habits have followed the trends of the rest of the world: I just can’t afford to buy a lot of new music. Plus, as a reviewer I tend to get so much music that I can’t even keep up with it.
And while I value the historical importance of an official record release day, I also see that digital sales have changed the experience. I used to get up early (whenever the store would open) or stay up late (depending on the coolness of the store), pull out my hard-earned cash money, and get my hands on a physical copy of the disc. Then I would go home and immediately rip off the cellophane wrapper and put the disc in, pouring over the lyrics and liner notes.
Now, you can just click a few buttons and the MP3 files are downloaded. No trip to the store. No cash money. No physical disc in your hands. The files can easily become lost among the limitless music on your Ipod.
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I have two vivid memories of specific release days:
The first was the day John Mayer’s Heavier Things album released. (Side note – I know it is cool to hate on Mr. Mayer now; he does come across as somewhat ridiculous in recent interviews. But there was a time when his music was my life soundtrack. Cue the sappy “aww” sound…)
I was in college and had made a late night trip to Walmart that night with my roommates at the time. We were doing what college students do in most Kansas college towns – hanging out at Walmart – and I decided to stop by the music department to see if they happened to have the new releases out since it was past midnight. Luckily, they did.
I didn’t have a chance to listen the album for the first time until the next morning walking to class. Now I am not yet 30, but this was still a time when I had a Sony Discman portable CD player. That morning there was a light rain, not enough to immediately be soaked, but substantial none the less. I strapped on my Discman, loaded up Heavier Things, and walked my way towards Kansas State University.
What occurred next was one of the many times that I have felt a surreal moment involving music: As I was walking and the first notes to “Clarity” started to play, I felt like the music I was listening to was created for that moment. I remember skipping class just to walk around in the rain and listen to the music.
To this day, when I listening to music on a rainy day, the first song on my playlist will be “Clarity” of John Mayer’s Heavier Things album.
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The second vivid memory of an album release day happened on September 11, 2001.
At the time, I was going to college in Oklahoma and had got up early to go buy a copy of the new POD album Satellite. I headed to the nearest retail outlet: K-mart. As I stepped inside, there was a eerie ghost town feeling. No cashiers could be found at the registers or customer service. No customers could be seen pushing carts around. I stepped back outside just to double check that the store was actually open.
As I reentered the store and made my way towards the electronics section, I began to notice a crowd gathered around the bank of TVs along the store’s back wall. The screens were filled with videos of a skyscraper that was on fire, but I continued on toward the music section. It was there in the aisle of the Bartlesville, OK K-Mart that I watched a plane fly into the South tower of the World Trade Center.
I honestly don’t recall when I purchased the POD album, but I know it was not that morning. I got back in my Jeep Cherokee and headed back to campus where classes were already being canceled and students were gathering around televisions to watch the news updates. I had made it back to my dorm to hear reports of an attack on the Pentagon and to see the two towers collapse.
