So I've been quietly salivating over Ry-A-Rama's new iPod for the past few days. I stare at it late at night, wanting to grab it for my 1 a.m. smoke break, but knowing that Ryan, who is not a smoker, would notice the smell of nicotine and hate me. Very much. So I don't touch it, but I admire its sleek white design. It is a sexy piece of machinery: the Stepford Phonograph, if you will.
Anyway, the Village Voice has a great article on the newest alternative to the mix tape: the iSwap. Izzy Grinspan suggests that this Valentine's Day, lovers should switch their iPods for a day, and get to know each other through music. "The iPod records what songs have been played both most recently and most often, so it quickly becomes a record of the owner's internal aural landscape. Listening to someone else's iPod is thus an intimate, almost invasive activity. On the scale of personal exposure, it's not exactly trading diaries, but it's much more revealing than a mix tape... Intentionally or not, Apple's MP3 player realizes its true potential as a personal device only when it's shared."
Happy V-Day, technophiles.
Posted by mesh at February 10, 2004 03:44 PM | TrackBackNote, of course, that you can create as many custom playlists - essentially, digital mix tapes - as you want on an iPod. I'm not sure I buy the notion that the songs listened to most often are more intimate, mainly because I will often search for one specific song on my computer fitting my current mood, blare it out at full volume, stop, and then go do something else. In other words, my most often played songs are full of the songs that I find best suited for short bursts of musical pleasure, for times when I just don't have the time or don't feel like listening to a whole playlist. A playlist or an album, on the other hand, is where I reach when I have more time.
That said, I share your envy of those with iPods, but I really just don't have the money for one.
Posted by: nougatmachine at February 14, 2004 11:08 AM