i relate mostly to Boy in this one. washateria(laundromat?) whatever u wanna call it, and all. good lord i cant get over how awesome this page is. this is my new wallpaper.
This is kind of like a summarized history of my (music retail) business. Maybe I’m the only one taking a pessimistic, bittersweet view of this strip, but Girl appears to be the average consumer age 17-25 these days. Music is worth listening to for free, and then why bother paying for anything if you have a constant inundation of more and more exciting and new music for free? Oh well, selling music was fun while it lasted. RIP, glory days of 2001-2007. Now back to my “real job” sitting behind a desk, working for somebody else.
I thought it was bittersweet, too, Dan. My favorite local record store is closing at the end of the month. There’s something exiting about not the Internet that too many people are missing out on these days.
ct: i can’t convince people of my generation, let alone the younger, that buying records is a worthwhile experience and not a hipster affectation. there’s a lethal cocktail of short attention spans and entitlement, and it’s what’s for dinner.
Dan, CT, RB, I was thinking back even farther, to the time when the only music you heard was what you yourself (or your friends) made live. Who owned that music? Who controlled how it could be played or sung? No one and everyone.
As I see it, Girl hears music and makes it her own. She doesn’t buy a record, she doesn’t download a file. She absorbs the music, gives it her own voice. No one can charge her for her memory, or for making music for herself. She and the music are free, in both senses of the term.
Next thing you know she’ll be changing the lyrics, altering the rhythm, tweaking the melodic contour. And that’s what folk music is all about, or at least it was back in the day.
I think it was the composer Zoltan Kodaly – a folk music scholar – who said that folk music comes out of the earth (as in the soil we walk on and plant things in). Think about what we do to the earth these days, and how it’s owned. That might explain something about where folk music has gone in the last half century.
At least that’s how *I* read the strip. And if you read it differently – well, that’s poetry, isn’t it?
Mr Lapin – I tend to agree with you on Girl’s experience of the music in this strip. Regarding the previous three comments, that sort of current young entitlement is present in panels 3 and 4 – but Girl is blameless of this.
To me, this strip doesn’t represent a progression of exploitation. The first four panels show attempts at owning music, each with decreasing levels of legitimacy and obligation. In contrast, Girl is doing something that is seldom seen anymore – simply enjoying a temporary experience, without staking some kind of claim on it, unfair or otherwise.
Ah, also I took it to be a statement on wealth – from Cat shopping for steaks, to Boy who doesn’t own his own washer and dryer, to the vampire beatnik buying one PBR (ironic or not, it’s still cheap beer), down to Girl. She doesn’t own a computer or an mp3 player, kind of making a mockery of the “poverty” seen previously. This gives her a bit of freedom from the ownership mentality.
I don’t mind downloading. I never liked music stores anyway. Walking in, asking some bored-looking thirty-something where the Led Zeppelin albums were. Getting a blank look. Walking out of the store feeling like I’m from another planet.
Records I’d love, but there’s nowhere to get a record player fixed in my city. You can buy new ones but they’re high-end and designed for DJs, not for people who just want to hear some music.
I don’t mind just listening to a song somewhere. That’s usually how I figure out if I want to really look into a band or not – I hear them on the radio or in a movie or someone mentions them in a conversation, and maybe I like them? I Google them, find somewhere selling albums, maybe I buy one and see what it’s like.
What has always pissed me off though is when I can’t buy an album because oh, that record company doesn’t sell albums in *your* country. I feel bad every time I’m forced to pirate because I can’t buy. I keep a running tally of albums downloaded, roughly what they cost, and how much I owe the band. (The sad thing is that if I sent them a cheque they’re probably getting more money out of me than if I actually did buy the album.)
January 21, 2010
Wonderfully efficient.
January 21, 2010
I raise my glass to taking the moment for what it is, and not for what the next will be…
January 21, 2010
I think I’ll learn to play it.
January 21, 2010
Ouch, you got me.
January 21, 2010
thanks to this comic, i’ve been whistling “Return I will to Old Brazil” all day.
no, really. thanks!
January 21, 2010
This has brightened my day :)
January 21, 2010
I think I’ll post the lyrics on my blog.
January 21, 2010
I love this comic. Especially the last panel. And Froggy’s comment.
January 21, 2010
i think i’ll start buying the albums of all the associated musicians.
curse you broken social scene, for taking over my shelves.
January 21, 2010
I think this is so beautiful. :D
January 21, 2010
I like this comic. I think I’ll comment it.
January 21, 2010
This was lovely. It made my life.
Thanks, Dorothy, for being awesome all this time!
January 21, 2010
I think I’ll stream it once, because Lala charges you after that.
January 21, 2010
Holy crap, this is one of the best C&Gs ever.
Like, out of nowhere.
January 21, 2010
I think I’ll buy just this song on iTunes, and preview the rest of the album.
January 21, 2010
The Cat and Girl from Ipanema go walking…
January 21, 2010
I like the happy face tape deck in Grrl’s boombox
January 21, 2010
I usually do all of this
January 21, 2010
i relate mostly to Boy in this one. washateria(laundromat?) whatever u wanna call it, and all. good lord i cant get over how awesome this page is. this is my new wallpaper.
January 22, 2010
Jack Zipes approves.
January 24, 2010
Girl is free. Are you?
January 25, 2010
This is kind of like a summarized history of my (music retail) business. Maybe I’m the only one taking a pessimistic, bittersweet view of this strip, but Girl appears to be the average consumer age 17-25 these days. Music is worth listening to for free, and then why bother paying for anything if you have a constant inundation of more and more exciting and new music for free? Oh well, selling music was fun while it lasted. RIP, glory days of 2001-2007. Now back to my “real job” sitting behind a desk, working for somebody else.
January 25, 2010
I thought it was bittersweet, too, Dan. My favorite local record store is closing at the end of the month. There’s something exiting about not the Internet that too many people are missing out on these days.
January 26, 2010
ct: i can’t convince people of my generation, let alone the younger, that buying records is a worthwhile experience and not a hipster affectation. there’s a lethal cocktail of short attention spans and entitlement, and it’s what’s for dinner.
February 3, 2010
Dan, CT, RB, I was thinking back even farther, to the time when the only music you heard was what you yourself (or your friends) made live. Who owned that music? Who controlled how it could be played or sung? No one and everyone.
As I see it, Girl hears music and makes it her own. She doesn’t buy a record, she doesn’t download a file. She absorbs the music, gives it her own voice. No one can charge her for her memory, or for making music for herself. She and the music are free, in both senses of the term.
Next thing you know she’ll be changing the lyrics, altering the rhythm, tweaking the melodic contour. And that’s what folk music is all about, or at least it was back in the day.
I think it was the composer Zoltan Kodaly – a folk music scholar – who said that folk music comes out of the earth (as in the soil we walk on and plant things in). Think about what we do to the earth these days, and how it’s owned. That might explain something about where folk music has gone in the last half century.
At least that’s how *I* read the strip. And if you read it differently – well, that’s poetry, isn’t it?
February 16, 2010
Mr Lapin – I tend to agree with you on Girl’s experience of the music in this strip. Regarding the previous three comments, that sort of current young entitlement is present in panels 3 and 4 – but Girl is blameless of this.
To me, this strip doesn’t represent a progression of exploitation. The first four panels show attempts at owning music, each with decreasing levels of legitimacy and obligation. In contrast, Girl is doing something that is seldom seen anymore – simply enjoying a temporary experience, without staking some kind of claim on it, unfair or otherwise.
February 16, 2010
Ah, also I took it to be a statement on wealth – from Cat shopping for steaks, to Boy who doesn’t own his own washer and dryer, to the vampire beatnik buying one PBR (ironic or not, it’s still cheap beer), down to Girl. She doesn’t own a computer or an mp3 player, kind of making a mockery of the “poverty” seen previously. This gives her a bit of freedom from the ownership mentality.
April 20, 2010
Hooray Girl is enjoying herself!
June 12, 2010
And the moral of the story is… filthy copyrasts must die! Sharing is caring! Gogogogogogogo!
August 2, 2011
I don’t mind downloading. I never liked music stores anyway. Walking in, asking some bored-looking thirty-something where the Led Zeppelin albums were. Getting a blank look. Walking out of the store feeling like I’m from another planet.
Records I’d love, but there’s nowhere to get a record player fixed in my city. You can buy new ones but they’re high-end and designed for DJs, not for people who just want to hear some music.
I don’t mind just listening to a song somewhere. That’s usually how I figure out if I want to really look into a band or not – I hear them on the radio or in a movie or someone mentions them in a conversation, and maybe I like them? I Google them, find somewhere selling albums, maybe I buy one and see what it’s like.
What has always pissed me off though is when I can’t buy an album because oh, that record company doesn’t sell albums in *your* country. I feel bad every time I’m forced to pirate because I can’t buy. I keep a running tally of albums downloaded, roughly what they cost, and how much I owe the band. (The sad thing is that if I sent them a cheque they’re probably getting more money out of me than if I actually did buy the album.)
September 26, 2011
*GASP*