Steve Litchfield

Having a hobby of 'collecting music' used to involve shelves and shelves of vinyl LPs (yes, yes, wonderful cover sleeves, and all), then this evolved for many into cases and cases of cassettes (much smaller but just as fragile, but it's all we had in the 1980s). Then, in terms of physical media, eventually into CDs from the mid-1980's onwards, so most of us had 'towers' of CDs scattered around our house. Or perhaps packed tightly into living room shelves. Life was good in terms of the hobby itself, but at some point in most people's lives physical space becomes a premium - perhaps when starting a family or down-sizing for whatever reason. And, with the advent of truly digital music from about 2000 onwards, in theory one can collect music with no space requirement other than the equipment required to play it. But there's more to it than this, especially in 2024. After all, if what you want to listen to is popular music then it's trivial to stream it v

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to technology, even within music - I'm a fan of electronica, think Klaus Schulze, think Jean Michel Jarre, even think modern trance. So I'm not against sequenced, synchronised music per se.  However, when it comes to rock music - you know, guitar, bass, and drums, I contend that it was the advent of the click track that heralded 'the end' of real music. With feeling, with excitement, with a sense that everything could go horribly wrong. Or right. Which is partly why so much of the best rock music in history was recorded in the 1960s and - especially - the 1970s, with click tracks that drummers had to stick closely to coming in at the start of the 1980s.  The idea was that by playing along to click tracks (in headphones), the dummer would be forced to stick to a specific tempo and cadence, stopping any unwanted speeding up or slowing down, and - mostly - ensuring that keyboard parts and sequencers could be overlaid and stil