Just like all those shitty mall record stores like Musicland and the Wherehouse died, leaving only awesome tiny independent record stores and horrible Best Buy behemoths; just like music videos shown on cable rotation died, leaving only YouTube and 3D megaplex screenings; and just like the middle class in America has died, leaving only the poors and the well-to-dos; so dies any middle ground when it comes to music formats. You can either have your oh-so-physical in the form of 12″x12″ LPs—which has always been my choice, petroleum and all—or you can have no physical object whatsoever in the form of an mp3.
This Monday’s anticipated announcement of Apple’s iCloud service goes even further: your music collection won’t even take up any hard drive space. You’ll have nothing except a tether to your files, floating somewhere. In 2005 terms, we call this “YouTube,” where nearly every song ever recorded resides. How to spiff up this non-material concept is something I’m sure Apple will handle with trademark skill, but what interests me is that for perhaps the first time in the history of the music industry, a major corporation is going to be spending millions of dollars convincing the American public to buy nothing at all.
.Apple’s iCloud Expected This Monday
