Whale Blubber
Quotation | March 29, 2010 | Posted by Basilisk
“I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn’t last, and now it’s running out. I don’t particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate–history’s moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.”
– Brian Eno, in an interview with The Guardian, 2010
Also worth a read: Dr Pangloss in Prospect Magazine.
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I’m confused, does this mean he thinks interest in music will die out or just physical mediums? How else does someone listen to music outside of a live setting? It has to be recorded and replicated right? Recorded music will never become obsolete. Comical actually. I suppose he finds no value in longevity. I buy albums so that kids 5 decades from now may actually be able to listen to the wonderful music being made today. If there was no such thing as recorded music, how would he do it? How would we be listening to the Beatles today? I have an irrational obsession with trying to make my favorite music last an eternity. If anything we need to find a way to make recordings permanent.
Eno is talking about the sale of recorded music–recordings as a commodity. Physical mediums are a means of delivery and an object of collector fetishization but records are not the music they contain.