Not so crazy nostalgia for obsolete objects (which, it turns out, often go to Africa).
by Steve Piccolo
I went to Bard College, New York State. The campus is on the Hudson River, surrounded by woods, and there was only one public venue that could be reached on foot, without a car, a rather run-down bar known as Adolph’s. I mention it here because Adolph’s was the place, more than any other, where I came to truly understand the virtues of a now obsolete musical playback device known as the “jukebox.” This particular box played its tunes all evening, every evening. It contained dozens of vinyl records, including quite a few songs that made people want to dance. Not all of the songs were particular favorites of the clientele; I’d say the rotation was basically a random sequence of about 25 songs, no more. As far as I can remember, new records were almost never added. Night after night, year after year, we listened to and forked out quarters for the same old tunes, over and over again. Artists like the Spinners, the O’Jays, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin. James Brown. The soul music was the best. But I also remember endless repetitions of White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. And the Doors, of course. The lack of variety seemed to have a positive, slightly mind-numbing effect, but it was the exact opposite of Satie’s furniture music. The songs did not fade into the woodwork. They asserted their presence in a cheerfully aggressive way, and the repetition only made it easier for them to trigger a conditioned and generally enjoyable response on the part of listeners.
The name “jukebox” comes from “juke joint,” previously spelled as “jook joint.” The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, 1989) traces the root back to the Gullah language, a Creole tongue from the southern United States (from juk, meaning infamous or disorderly), which in turn seems to have been inherited from the Wolof language of West Africa (jug, to lead a disorderly life), and offers the definition “roadhouse or brothel; spec. a cheap roadside establishment providing food and drinks, and music for dancing.” If we remove the brothel reference, we have a perfect description of Adolph’s. It is interesting that the name of the machine originated in Africa, because it appears that today in Africa jukeboxes containing CDs are still quite widespread (in Namibia, for example). The function of playback of musical recordings has gone through all kinds of evolutions, ever since Edison’s early cylinders, with a number of typologies that have faded from use only to return to popularity with slight adjustments made. The comeback of vinyl and the enduring fascination with the turntable as object (especially in the early evolution of hip-hop) are cases in point, certainly familiar to our readers.
But in a seemingly inimitable way, the jukebox suggests a unique model of music consumption, because of the fact that it requires a conscious decision and a small, instantaneous financial offering from consumers themselves. When I put “another nickel” (5 cents, later 25 cents in my Bard days – more or less the cost of a single local phone call) in the jukebox I was paying to hear a particular song, but I was also making a gift of that song to all the other people present in the venue. During the course of an evening spent with friends at the bar, the choices of all the different customers gave rise to a composition, a soundtrack of the time spent (actually or hopefully) on socializing. Like a sort of collective, many-headed DJ. It might be hard to find another act of commercial consumption in which the thing consumed is simply dispersed into the air and anonymously shared with friends and strangers alike, leaving the donor empty-handed but happy.
This action is very different from what is now considered the present and future of musical listening, namely the “streaming” of digital “playlists” compiled by algorithms or “artificial intelligence,” deceptively without any palpable cost for the consumer (though heavily laden with advertising in many different forms, generating large quantities of valuable data donated by hapless listeners as they are immersed in a virtually infinite and pervasively ubiquitous tunescape). The hands-on interaction between listener and jukebox suggests a desire for a less passive way of listening, adding that seemingly tiny factor – the selection, the coin, the queue of already “purchased” compositions – that actually makes all the difference.
Why is it that our user interfaces, in the matter of music, seem to go through a radical change in character when they are shifted from one technological context (“advanced”) to another (presented as “obsolete”)? When I listen to an online radio station or a podcast, I never have the sensation that I am listening to the radio, no matter how artfully that illusion has been formulated. When I buy music online, the experience is totally different from a visit to a record store, and the music I purchase in the two situations is almost never the same. Many media gurus have offered rather convincing explanations for all this, observing that specific technologies are never really replaced, surpassed or absorbed. Every interface continues to live and to evolve along its own path, and the quality of our experience continues to depend essentially on the medium utilized to make it happen (McLuhan). Perhaps we are too willing and eager to passively adapt to the limits set by new systems, which force us to sacrifice important aspects of the listening experience. (As a musician, I continue to make records, not only on vinyl but also in the form of CDs, for lack of a better “object,” although more and more often when I give someone a CD I’m told that they have no devices on which to listen to it. The “new” is embraced with impressive speed).
There is something rather defeatist about the dogma on the preeminent character intrinsic to various media. Perhaps we should be concentrating harder on salvaging certain positive aspects of the “old” systems, while still avoiding the mortal but understandable sin of nostalgia.
So let’s try a little exercise…
On your computer, listen to this Youtube recording of vinyl static
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L5KTp7gIrA
At the same time, on your telephone, play the song “Crazy” sung by Patsy Cline (and penned by the one and only Willie Nelson), said by some to be the track most often played on jukeboxes throughout their history. To sidestep the total futility of the experiment, I would recommend inviting some friends over for drinks when you try this out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKTOvHw8qFM