Mark Likes Music

One-time journeyman basketballer Paul Shirley recently posted a tribute to Amoeba music on his ESPN.com blog.  A nostalgic ode to record-buying by a guy who's clearly a huge music fan, Shirley's piece inadvertently addresses two important reasons for the downfall of major labels and the CD format they held onto for so long.   For Shirley, shopping in Amoeba took him back to a time in his life when a record store was about discovery, a visceral experience that brought him closer to the world of music.   I remembered why I like to do my music shopping like a bipedal organism.  It's fun to be at record stores.  I like the posters.  I like the clacking sound the CDs make as people bang them together.  I like watching the nerdy girl's eyes light up when she finds an old PJ Harvey album.  It's all tangible; it's real reality, as opposed to the virtual kind offered up by a computer, a mouse and a credit card.  We hear and read a lot about how the music industry aliena...

As a kid, I first came across classical music in a commercial that ran on TV for one of those compilations that promised to send you on a journey to an enchanted land filled with enduring musical wonders.  Most of the music came off to me as pretty well all the same, but there was one piece that stuck out from the rest.   The opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, with the pianist pounding out the beat behind the thick syrup-pour of strings, seemed at once completely out of place with the other "relaxing classics" and their epitome.  While other pieces whispered apologetically, Tchaikovsky's concerto yelled, You are going to listen to some beautiful classical music now!  It was unashamedly, flamboyantly, cheesy music.  It's a staple of the repertoire today--a favorite piece of classical-music cheese--but when Tchaikovsky's concerto premiered in Boston back in 1875, reviewers were, at their most forgiving, skeptical of its staying power and, at their mo...

The popular online classical-music CD retailer Arkivmusic.com announced last week that it is now offering music downloads in MP3 format , beginning with five new releases from the budget-price label Naxos.  The company promises to expand its offerings in the future.   Arkivmusic.com, founded in 2002, has built a loyal following of classical-music aficianados who see the site as an independent, well-stocked alternative to Amazon.com and other online retailers.  In particular, the site has earned kudos from the hard-core for offering on-demand CD reissues of out-of-print material from major labels , a program that has been active since March 2005.  For years, people within classical music have held that the internet--and music downloading in particular--is an energizing force for their part of the music industry.  Alex Ross, in a New Yorker article from October 2007 , sees interest in the genre growing as listeners sample new classical music through iTunes and as a classical music cultur...