IPod, youpod, we allpod

by MATT QUARTERMAINE

AS I write this I am distracted by my latest venture into the credit card void. I am listening to my iPod. Yep, I'm one of the walking dead that will back mindlessly into you in the video store, because I'm listening to Justin Timberlake tell me about his sexy back. I won't notice you because I'm wondering if his arms and legs are sexy too.

I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. I grew up listening to music in the 70s, when the only thing portable were loos. Taping music involved placing two tape decks face to face with external microphones. Noddy Holder screaming to his mum about being crazy would be interrupted by a creaking door and somebody whispering, "Is it finished?" Even when technology let me tape straight from the record, the skipping track remained with me forever. To this day I can't hear "Cold As Ice" by Foreigner without the skip in the chorus; "Cold as ice... (crunch!)... Sacrifice your love."

I'm hooked bad. It's like having your own radio station, without the knobhead breakfast crew interrupting to tell you how the cat attacked their new couch. Some use the iPod for the safety of their own classic hits station. I'm more like the insatiable plant in "little Shop of Horrors", crying out "Feed me Seymour!" I fill my iPod with the unknown and hit the shuffle button. What song is next? Who knows? I only wish radio stations were more like that.

It may not look like it on the page, but I just drifted off for three minutes and forty-four seconds while Beck gave me some information.

As a dedicated user of the television remote control it's hell on the music too. If the song hasn't got me in the first few seconds, it's gone. Next please. Give me something new. Now! Critics believe the iPod means the end of the album. I reckon it could be the end of the three minute single if musicians don't lift their game.

Anyways, I gotta go. Hot Chip is threatening to break my legs. Snap off my head...

31 October 2006

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