"ALL THAT'S SOLID MELTS INTO THIN AIR"














Interesting musings over at blissblog on the liquidization of culture and music in the so called digital age. It seems as though Apple has recently launched a new add campaign for the ipod in which they refer to the music gathered on the ipod as a 'city of music.' The add features various shots of album covers dissolving into a mass of digital information only to be gathered up and formed into an ipod. Simon goes on to illustrate (through his analysis of Words and Music and Das Kapital), how this in effect strips music of its subversive potentialities, placing it wholly within the endless cycle of capital. Basically, he illustrates how Marx's claim that, through societies reliance on the constant exchange of capital, 'all that's solid melts into thin air' is yet again being shown, this time through the decaying of records into digital information. Definately worth reading (although it makes you want to burn your ipod).