Letters: "Microchip Spirituality"

Ahhh. Thank you for that.

That was a really really terrific article, as was your original one.

I'm a teenager - apparently a member of a hopelessly self-entitled and over-privileged generation - whose sole income comes from working in an icecream shop twice a week. Beyond that I don't have any honest justification for the amount of music I download (or 'freeload', as you call it). I'm really conflicted about it - like, I know I should be a vegetarian, but meat tastes SO FUCKING GOOD. Those hundreds of dollars I've handed over to independent stores and labels and bands this year doesn't mean much after I senselessly download 30 albums in one day. I try, I do try to buy! But it's almost always out of guilt. Vinyl sounds better, but it ends up sitting on my shelf while I listen to it on my iPod.

There's very little incentive to spend money on music beyond guilt or object fetishism. Both work on me, but I think artists ought to capitalize more on the latter. Like Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping multimedia packaging extravaganza, or the intricately illustrated spinny wheel on the cover of Menomena's Friend or Foe. Even the cheap cutout fold-up paper tent thing that came with Bromst. Or even the essays accompanying various compilations or Sufjan Stevens symphonic road tributes. Can you think of other recent examples? They're convincing enough for me, and maybe even for someone who hasn't given the issue any thought.

In regards to your hate mail - what sort of person actually takes time out of their day to email someone who disagrees with them unless it actually affected them in some way? I'd say that's a positive reaction. If it gets under their skin, your argument may eventually dissolve into their, uh, blood stream and into their.. wallets?

Anyway. Sorry if this is riddled with errors and/or long-winded, I'm a bit drunk right now (was just out Supporting Local Music! yeah!). My point is: that was great, thank you, the end.