Some years just feel less momentous than others as far as
music goes. Sure, music is still great. You can mine some classic vinyl or
download unheard obscurities you might have missed to keep interest up, but
this year has been uniquely fruitful in a wide array of genres.
Whether you are blasting the deeply layered electronic music
of Jon Hopkin's Immunity out of Bluetooth speakers or dropping a thick
slab of Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires of the City onto a beautiful retro style turntable, the year has
been offering an avalanche of unique releases by huge acts and upstarts alike.
Most likely the on-demand nature of our entertainment tastes has you moving
freely among genres to have the kind of beautiful smorgasbord of sounds that
generations previous could only dream of.
Musicians are taking advantage of the anything goes vibe of
our modern musical moment and making some fairly boundless albums. Kanye West,
never content to be dropped in a box, has unleashed his combative Yeezus album to a mix of fawning praise
and confused head scratches. Meanwhile Daft Punk, an iconoclastic cult act for
more than a decade, sold 350k copies of their recent album Random Access Memories. They even moved a huge chunk of those
records in deluxe LP form perfect for those retro style turntables that have become a huge hit everywhere from
college dorm rooms to luxury apartments.
The successful rebirth of the vinyl record business as well
as robust business for streaming playlists through stereos, computers and in-dash receivers in cars seems to
suggest people are once again interested in investing money into their
entertainment experience. This is good news for the music industry and the
audio equipment business, but it is also good for consumers. As people put
their money into high-quality music like the aforementioned artists in this
article, more and more companies will invest in this kind of risk-taking art.
Beyond that, consumers have more and more choices for how to
take all of this great music in. Have you ever heard music played perfectly
from a pair of easily movable Bluetooth speakers? They have all the impact of
gigantic stereo systems of the past with mobility that was heretofore unheard
of. Seriously, with all of these perfected speakers, turntables and other
equipment, everything sounds good whether you are dancing to Robin Thicke's
"Blurred Lines" or moping around to the latest National album.
