Ed Hahn says:
Dear Brian,
While reading the latest issue of Buzz, I noticed that you commented again on the editorial (“iPolitics”) that I wrote for the Daily Illini a couple months ago (10/18/07 issue). (Maybe it wasn’t my editorial that you were clearly alluding to in your articles, but I’m going to playfully embrace my ego and assume that it was). Although I welcome the critical interpretation of my argument, I would like to clarify a few of the ideas that I was trying to convey. When I suggested that people should consider minimizing their public iPod/mp3 player (or cell phone) usage, I did not do so with the hippy-esque hope that everyone would talk to each other on the bus or smile ridiculously at each other on the sidewalk—I wrote with the hope that people might reassess the value of the other “songs” and “rhythms” that can be heard as they walk or ride the bus around campus. As a fellow musician and—I’m just guessing here—a fellow songwriter, don’t you agree that the rhythms of the everyday life—which exist on streets and in buses—shape the music that we create? Speaking as a fellow musician and lover of music, wouldn’t you also agree that something as holy as good songs/albums deserve to be listened to in an environment in which you can give the music your full attention—an environment in which you can interact with the music and critically think about it, playing along with it mentally (imagining the mood) or physically (strumming the chords). It’s not that I see the iPod so much as a commodity that completely isolates the listener from his/her environment, but also as a commodity that makes the listening of music a more passive activity. Think about the stories that your parents or relatives might have told you about their listening experiences: stories that involve going to the store to buy the album, sitting around a record player with their friends, listening to every pop and crackle, and feeling your mind react to every chord. I’m sure that you yourself do these activities and actively interact with the music you listen to at home—you probably own a vinyl collection. The MP3 player is probably superfluous to your appreciation of music.
I’m not criticizing the people that listen to iPods, I’m only suggesting that iPods subtly muffle their listeners’ ability to actively interpret the metaphorical “rhythms” around them on “the street” while—at the same time—limiting their ability to actively interact with the literal “songs” they are listening to as they walk down that same busy street. And I would also argue that the way we listen to music on the street affects—in varying degrees—how we listen to music in other environments. Similarly, the way we actively hear and interpret the socioeconomic “rhythms” of “the street” affects—to varying degrees—the way we interact with and interpret the socioeconomic “rhythms” of campus, or our friends, or the nation. Although my arguments might not apply to everyone, I think that your going overboard when you call them idiotic—the insults certainly disrupt your attempts to balance your subtle pretentiousness with your cutesy goofiness. I never thought that there was anything especially “profound” about my arguments; I just wrote about my own experience in 300-words-or-less, which appeared beneath an article about surgery and cake (wtf?). iPods are a part of our society, and—in some way—they affect every other part of our society. As a music critic, wouldn’t you agree that analyzing the affects of such pieces of our society is not only fun, but also significant in so many indescribable ways? If so, patiently read on.
In your first response to my editorial (10/25), you argued that MP3 players are not changing the way we listen to music, but actually encouraging the mass production of a new type of music: short, addictive, highly-sellable and relatively uninventive pop-songs that both feed America’s A.D.D. rattled youth and foreshadow the decline of the album. While there are some merits to this argument, you also have to remember that “rock n’ roll” was practically breast-fed on short, addictive, verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus pop songs—people bought piles of singles long before albums came along. I agree that the iPod is changing the type of music that the majority of people listen to, but the style of music that it encourages artists to produce is nothing new. And while I agree that the “shuffle” feature certainly seems to lie in conflict with the appreciation of an album, I can’t help but recall Stephen Malkmus’s comment about Pavement’s 1995 album Wowee Zowee. He said that he didn’t want people to listen to it straight through; he wanted them to press the “shuffle” button on their C.D. players before hitting “play”. Like so many other corporations, Apple erroneously presents the its produce as being something completely new and inventive.
In your second article (1/3/08) that alluded to my editorial, you discuss how the iPod—like rock n’ roll—challenges gender boundaries, and, when you later discuss at-length your own acquisition of an iPod, you seem to suggest that it crosses socio-economic boundaries too. While I somewhat agree with both statements, I think that size—when it comes to personal electronic devices—tends to work in the opposite direction of commodities such cars, especially with regards to American gender/power ideologies. While the Hummer—and I think you would agree here—is a large, expensive, and environmentally dangerous phallic symbol that represents conspicuous consumption, wealth, power, and masculinity, smaller electronic devices tend to be similarly more expensive and more associated with middle/upper-class economic power and masculinity than larger electronic devices. Think about cell phones, laptop computers, and PDA’s. Although advertising agencies sometimes show women-in-business-suits using these devices, they know that (due to centuries of misogyny) men constitute the majority of their business consumer-group—and they tend to advertise accordingly. The smaller the iPod, the less shackled the listener appears to be—a freedom for which the consumer pays for—the small the device, the higher the price. Although some people win free iPods (and some people steal them), the reality of the economic situation is closer to your own assessment: iPods tend to go to “suburban dick[s]” whose families “shell out $400 for a piece of plastic.” Notice how you—perhaps unconsciously—said “dicks” instead of an equally offensive reference to women. Indeed, like other portable electronic devices, iPods continue the tradition of linking wealth/power with “dicks.” Of course, they don’t do it as potently or as obviously as Hummers; and they certainly don’t come anywhere near challenging gender ideologies the way that rock n’ roll did.
I really don’t know why you felt the need to publicly justify the fact that you own an iPod. If you don’t want it, sell it on eBay and buy that amp you need. I own an iPod; I said it in my editorial; I use it to make jogging a little less boring and to distract me from all the other “dicks” at IMPE or CRCE. And although I taught drum lessons and worked in a stockroom (and was born in suburbia, in a town a little northeast of Naperville) in order to save up enough money to buy it, I still felt the need to confront what the iPod was doing to my own appreciation of music and my own appreciation of everyday life. Like most people who love music, you and I might not think that the iPod is negatively affecting the way we appreciate music, but—for me personally—my iPod was changing the way that I appreciated the world around me, which affected my attitude towards many thing, including music. Other people I’ve talked to agree, saying that they too have a love/hate relationship with their MP3 players and/or cell phone. On the other hand, I like the fact that you—like many others—disagree with my arguments, but I don’t think that you needed to be such a—to use your words again—“suburban dick” about it. -- E.H.

Jeff Brandt says:
I don't feel like MP3 players emasculate people. I feel like a man when I whip out my brown Zune. I also feel like less of a tool since I don't buy trendy Apple products.

I also disagree that Daft Punk is undudely. Maybe it's not what your mullet-sportin tobacco-chewin hardworkin blue collar would listen to, but I don't base my model for manhood on them.