Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

“They substitute the telegram with the fax machine.
What did you substitute me with?”

–”Chocolates”
The Aluminum Group

The Aluminum Group are one of my favorite bands. Every since their landmark 1999 record Pedals, I’ve been hooked on their blend of literary references, crooning vocals, and glitchy production techniques (if Burt Bacharach joined Tortoise, it’d sound like The Aluminum Group). The song “Wheat and Tare” from their last record, 2003’s Morehappyness, might be one of my top-ten favorite songs of all time; every time I hear it I kind of wilt. I have all of their records, and since their two previous releases were installments of a trilogy entitled “Happyness“ (with the first record named Happyness and the second being Morehappyness), I was of course looking forward to yet another record from them. In fact, each of the Happyness records have similar artwork and packaging, so while I wanted of course to hear the new songs, I also wanted to get the new record so I could add it to the shelf alongside its musical mates.

So when I read a positive review of the new Aluminum Group record on Pitchfork a month or so ago, I was excited and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the new record. The first thing I did was go to Amazon and search for the group. I was pleased to see the new record (entitled Little Happyness) listed alongside all of the other records I own, including the first two Happyness records. However, the new record was listed only as a bunch of MP3 downloads, not as an actual record. Not satisfied, I went to the record label’s website, Minty Fresh.

On the Flash-filled site I found a purchase page for the record (can’t include a link to it since the whole site’s in Flash, which is annoying), but — again — this was just for the MP3’s, and not the CD. Growing a bit frustrated, I went to the band’s website, which had an announcement for the new record as a splash landing page; from this page you could read the band’s bio, contact them, and listen to the new record. But I still could not find a link to buy the CD (nor any language saying “this is a download only release”). Finally, feeling a bit exasperated, I e-mailed someone at the label who promptly wrote me back saying that, at this time, there’s no plan for a physical release of Little Happyness.

This was a bit of a let down for me. Because, while what’s of course most important is the music, it does seems strange not to be able to have a physical product. I mean, the group itself is named after a line of furniture, and in their songs they name-check all kinds of artists and works of art (ranging from Tom of Finland to Erte). So while I’d just put CD instantly into my iTunes, I still want to own the actual product.

Even Radiohead augmented it’s digital release of their last record with actual CDs for people who wanted the physical items for their collections. So while I’m all for the instantaneous gratification that downloading an entire record with the click of a mouse offers, for the bands that I really like, and whose work I’ve been collecting for years, I’d still like to have — in addition to the MP3s — a physical copy of the record. For books, this will probably be the same. Books that people consume like candy — thrillers and murder mysteries; the kinds the airport bookstores are chock full of — will be similar; the content will be delivered digitally, and that’s where it’ll end. But for certain die hard fans, record companies and publishers alike need to realize that substituting CDs with MP3s may not always suffice. Yes, video killed the radio star, but digital delivery won’t completely replace physical goods.