Praying For A Way For The Music To Be Again Heard

Picking up from yesterday:

The Pink Floyds and other members of rock’s mostly retired royalty have no great concerns about their catalog being unavailable.  If anything, it’s too available, with so many re-releases of the same album out there even the most devoted fan grows either tired of repurchasing the same music time and again or confused as to the difference between versions.  Down popularity’s perceived pecking order ’tis a whole another story.  A given artist’s catalog will have gaps with the most popular album or handful of albums readily available, often in more than one version, while other albums will either be available only as a cheaply thrown together bargain bin disc in dire need of remastering or unavailable altogether.  Worse yet, the artist’s catalog will be distilled to a “best of” release which manages to miss at minimum a third of said artist’s most popular songs.  Oh, you wanted those, and maybe some favorite album tracks as well?  Go buy a turntable with a USB output and hope there’s still life left in your played so often the grooves have been worn down vinyl.  If you still own it or can find a copy.

While obviously there’s no need to press a CD of every record ever recorded, in our present digital age there’s no excuse for any record company not making everything in their vaults available as MP3s or variations thereof.  Taking this one step further, given the ever-growing availability of broadband the argument that online music must be offered in the slimmest file format (i.e. worst sounding) possible has been rendered moot.  Yes, when you’re cramming tunes onto an iPod having the songs Smurf size helps, especially given how eleven out of ten times you’ll be listening to said device in a less than optimum acoustic environment.  This translates into subtle nuances being a mystery from the get-go as they are swallowed by background noise, rendering whether they’re present in the first place mooter than moot.  However, once in the domicile’s concert hall where the only limit on sound is your neighbor’s understanding, having that album near and dear to your heart in CD quality would be nice.  Or for that matter, having it period.

And here it gets personal.

Had I the necessary capital, I would immediately set about expanding the ministry to which I have been called, namely reminding and/or informing everyone I come across about my beloved and by God’s grace befriended artists who blazed the trail for today’s Christian alternative rock scene.  I’d do this by buying up, begging, borrowing, and where need be stealing back what was stolen from them in the first place every album I could.  I’d hunt down the master tapes for every single one until they were either physically in my hands or I had irrefutable proof they sadly no longer exist.  Where the latter is the case, I’ll politely inform all parties responsible that when it comes time for an accounting I wouldn’t want to be them trying to explain why they disrespected God’s messengers, language and ministry on His behalf in such a fashion.  I’d hire the best magnetic tape repair and restore people available and tell them to have at it.  I’d hire top-flight engineers and have them make each album sound the best it can.  And I’d set up a nice little online shop so people could buy the albums in either portable player or CD quality, their choice.  Oh yes — I’d pay the artists what they’re owed.

It has ticked me off, currently ticks me off, and always will tick me off how insult is being added to injury by the shoddy treatment these artist’s catalogs have received from the still existing record companies for which they created music.  The music is almost universally unavailable in any format.  That’s more than wrong.  That’s sin.  Not some flippant calling something a sin.  Real, genuine, it is enthusiastically suggested you repent sin.  While I didn’t start this particular fire, I’d love nothing better than to put it out.  There are lives to be reclaimed to Christ as well as claimed in the first place.  The music facilitates this.  My longing is to facilitate making the music available.  Period.

Rock royalty is well served in the world of re-releases.  It’s time for Christ the King’s rockers to receive the same treatment.