The Deserted Bandwagon

Author: MATT KUNZWEILER

Amazon.com has fallen into the obnoxious habit of greeting me with a "Hello, MATTHEW KUNZWEILER" whenever I visit their site. This personal touch fails to make feel special or warm 'n' fuzzy because there are only two people who call me by my full name in all caps - MasterCard and the US government. So, amazon.com's adorable little salutation just reminds me that my relationship with their company is and always will be strictly business.

And they're slowly losing me. I'm sure they can feel it. Even with overnight shipping and one click payment, they know they can't satisfy me quickly enough. In this golden age of copying and proliferating music without end, why should I have to pay and wait? Paying and waiting are what chumps do. And I'm no chump. Between the music libraries and the student body's personal collections, almost every relevant CD is already on this campus. And all of these CDs can be ripped and burned without end - this will not change.

But now I no longer care about the music itself. I only care about the act of consuming of it. This is how I measure a day's success, by the volume of music I have acquired. Most of it I'll never listen to - I even have the full Flashdance soundtrack - but as long as I possess it, then good for me. I am no longer an appreciator of the arts, but a sponge. What do I want? Don't care. When do I want it? Now, damn it. Do I feel any better after I have stolen the complete works of the Rolling Stones, thirty Dead concerts and some new trashy radio hit? Not really, but so it goes with any addiction.

You might ask, "But what about Napster? We have access to a great program and unlimited music." Personally, I loathe it and consider it a waste of money: it suffers from a limited and weak catalog, low quality streaming and awful design. And the idea of streaming is antithetical to my new relationship with music - you can't acquire streamed music.

You might protest, "But it's against the law!" Yeah, and so is underage drinking, but no one really takes that too seriously either. And let's get something else straight. I still buy albums, and at the same rate I always have - not so much from amazon.com, because 1) I would rather support smaller music shops with obscure inventories, and 2) when I buy online, I have to wait for the shipping, and who knows what will happen in two weeks' time - I could undergo some sinister transformation, and the Matt Kunzweiler I know could be replaced by a malevolent jackass who is nothing like the current me - and he would get my long awaited CDs. (The chances of this are slim but worth considering.)

So while I'm at college and I have these resources, I plan on gorging myself on everything within reach. And at the end of the day when I sit at my laptop and wistfully scroll up and down through my absurd playlist, I can admire the fact that I have more music than almost anyone else on campus, even if I only listen to a hundred of those songs.