The Pod People

Recently, I acquired an iPod, something I swore I'd never do. I'm not sure why I felt that way, aside from the fact that I'm a Microsoft love-slave and, therefore, suspicious of all things Apple, and, of course, my natural tendency to gravitate toward the minority.

I am not, however, new to the MP3 craze. Some time ago, I discovered my phone could play music so I installed a larger memory card and rather painstakingly uploaded about 60 songs, which enabled me to wrangle with my phone's hands-free head set and play the song list in order. Not a giant leap toward musical nirvana, but it was better than listening to the ring tones. Just.

Still, this seemed satisfactory until my wife bought a real MP3 player, affording me an opportunity to covet its capacity and leading me into iPod temptation. Soon, I felt myself slipping toward the Dark Side.

I bought an iPod because of its flexibility, the virtually endless number of songs available for it and my failure to realize that listening to a static list of 60 songs is the limit of my technological ability. Having the freedom to select from thousands of songs and create play lists and sort by artist, album, genre or what drugs the performers were on when they recorded the songs hasn't enhanced my musical quality time, it just means that what little time I do have to listen to music is taken up with searching for something to listen to.

Also, I have discovered I am not someone who can gracefully multi-task. My wife listens to her MP3 player with the television on in the background while she knits and does Sudoku, but if I'm listening to music I can't even walk down a flight of stairs without putting myself in danger. (This was nearly critically demonstrated the other week while attempting to cross a road while talking on my phone.)

But when the mood strikes, and if my to-do list allows for a few guilt-free minutes of sitting and doing nothing else but listening to music, the iPod is amazing. Perhaps too amazing.

Through the iPod and the iTunes Store, I now have easy access to all those brilliant songs from my youth, the ones I listened to endlessly, after having camped for hours by the radio with a tape recorder and my finger hovering over the Record button in case they came on. Then, of course, there was the art of hitting the Start and Stop buttons at the right time to get the maximum amount of song and the minimum amount of DJ chatter. Even so, I never thought myself inconvenienced because I loved those songs and, once captured, I could play them until the tape wore out.

But now that I can download them at will for 79 pence apiece, I find that reality doesn't quite measure up to my memories.

Listening to those songs without the benefit of a worn-out reel-to-reel tape playing though tiny, crackling speakers is a revelation. With the sound originating from a state-of the-art whatchamacallit wired straight into my ears and embodying the type of fidelity generally associated with Emperor Penguins, it quickly becomes evident that many of the cherished songs of my childhood are, well, rubbish.

Where I had been anticipating a languid stroll down memory lane, I rapidly became ensnarled in the brambles of jarringly awful lyrics and bogged down in the mire of amateurish production. And in one song, I swear they sang an entire verse out of tune.

Our parents were right—we were listening to crap.

Disappointed but undaunted, I managed to find some modern-day songsmiths who compose pleasing melodies, know how to carry a tune and enjoy the advantage of Dolby Sound and digital enhancement and can now walk proudly to the bus stop with white cords trailing from my ears and disappearing into the collar of my jacket as if I'm some sort of hip Secret Service Agent.

But now that I have become one of the Pod People and can summon my Wall Of Sound at will, immersing myself in a musical maelstrom designed to block out the world and everyone in it, I have discovered a truth that few people understand:

Silence is terribly under-appreciated.