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ella_kenyon's review
2.0
Wish I could say I liked this book as it’s a topic I’m interested by and even did my dissertation on. It’s basically a book version of a podcast of a guy that is trying to persuade himself and us that he doesn’t mind the digital age of music but every sentence screams ‘I’m lying through my teeth, analogue is better and more meaningful than digital’. There was definitely potential in the content and room to go into interesting detail about the topics he addresses but he barely touches them… no depth to any of his points at all. Just when I think ‘ooh here we go’ he’s moved on, it feels like a bunch of individual sentences which very loosely link to the next. Maybe there’s more detail in the podcast but this book has done nothing to intrigue me enough to go and listen to it. Books to podcasts can work, podcast to book does not - at least in this case.
He gives a continuous vibe of ‘I like analogue so I’m better than you. Let’s talk to loads of people from my generation who have had the same experience and agree with me instead of talking to a more diverse pool for a variation in opinions’.
One star for the occasional interesting comment on specific tracks/albums and one for the lovely aesthetics. I don’t tend to review books but clearly this one got to me - for the wrong reasons.
He gives a continuous vibe of ‘I like analogue so I’m better than you. Let’s talk to loads of people from my generation who have had the same experience and agree with me instead of talking to a more diverse pool for a variation in opinions’.
One star for the occasional interesting comment on specific tracks/albums and one for the lovely aesthetics. I don’t tend to review books but clearly this one got to me - for the wrong reasons.
categal's review
3.0
This is a print rendition of a podcast on sound and hearing, signal and noise. Not being familiar with the podcast, I literally took it at its printed word. Krukowski raises interesting questions about what it means to have constant access to sound and constant exposure to noise. I also was fascinated to learn that digital time is not good at syncing with itself. Huh.
aprilginns's review
3.0
I read this for my Audio Culture and Digital Sound Production class, and we got to have a Zoom call with Damon at the end!
bookish_sue's review
4.0
This is a cool book -- a speedy diversion into what it is to hear and to listen in the digital world. It's nostalgic, yes... but also inventive.
This book is the script to a podcast -- which I'm currently listening to. I'm one to tolerate repetition, and enjoy thinking on what each medium -- print and audio -- bring to this story; and how I experience the story through each medium a little differently.
Reading -- or the solo experience of turning down the exterior world to internalize a story -- remains a singular exploratory experience for me.
This book is the script to a podcast -- which I'm currently listening to. I'm one to tolerate repetition, and enjoy thinking on what each medium -- print and audio -- bring to this story; and how I experience the story through each medium a little differently.
Reading -- or the solo experience of turning down the exterior world to internalize a story -- remains a singular exploratory experience for me.
jgn's review
5.0
This is an engaging and delightful book about how we experience the world. The key examples in this book, which is essentially a transcription of the author's podcast, Ways of Hearing, come from music and sounds. [Full disclosure: I went to grad school with Damon and was at the first show his band Galaxie 500 played in a bar.]
The chapters are on Time, Space, Love, Money, Power, and Signal & Noise. Damon helps us understand how music means something different when recorded and played via analog vs digital means. But it goes a lot farther than that: Our music companies and institutions have been able to seize control of the medium by emphasizing the technological control over signal.
In a tour de force but brief final chapter, Damon tells us that our world is impoverished without noise. Noise provides the opportunity to turn one's attention to other signals -- the conversation across the room, the digital fingerprints captured during an analog recording session. But our culture's ceaseless obsession with making everything available for profit-taking is all about reducing noise in favor of presenting us with choices that satisfy our conscious desires, not leaving much room for the random play of opportunities to experience everything else (and all of those things that are being pushed out of the digital channel). If this book doesn't make you start being your own historian or ethnographer at used record stores, book stores, and live performance, I don't know what will. A funny irony for me reading the book is that in passing Damon suggests that people reading the book have heard the podcast; I didn't! I like books and randomness, and in fact the book was a gift from my friend Jaimie. So I think there are ways to increase the opportunity to grab noise instead of a coroporately-curated signal.
The book is clearly an artifact from the podcast, and Damon doesn't go into a lot of detail with his argument -- the book is really about the examples and conversation, I think. I expect we would find that in his longer book, [b:The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World|31213293|The New Analog Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World|Damon Krukowski|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475306206i/31213293._SX50_.jpg|51867851], which I'll be putting on my list.
The chapters are on Time, Space, Love, Money, Power, and Signal & Noise. Damon helps us understand how music means something different when recorded and played via analog vs digital means. But it goes a lot farther than that: Our music companies and institutions have been able to seize control of the medium by emphasizing the technological control over signal.
In a tour de force but brief final chapter, Damon tells us that our world is impoverished without noise. Noise provides the opportunity to turn one's attention to other signals -- the conversation across the room, the digital fingerprints captured during an analog recording session. But our culture's ceaseless obsession with making everything available for profit-taking is all about reducing noise in favor of presenting us with choices that satisfy our conscious desires, not leaving much room for the random play of opportunities to experience everything else (and all of those things that are being pushed out of the digital channel). If this book doesn't make you start being your own historian or ethnographer at used record stores, book stores, and live performance, I don't know what will. A funny irony for me reading the book is that in passing Damon suggests that people reading the book have heard the podcast; I didn't! I like books and randomness, and in fact the book was a gift from my friend Jaimie. So I think there are ways to increase the opportunity to grab noise instead of a coroporately-curated signal.
The book is clearly an artifact from the podcast, and Damon doesn't go into a lot of detail with his argument -- the book is really about the examples and conversation, I think. I expect we would find that in his longer book, [b:The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World|31213293|The New Analog Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World|Damon Krukowski|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475306206i/31213293._SX50_.jpg|51867851], which I'll be putting on my list.
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