Pareles on the cloud

TODAY’S READING ASSIGNMENT: Don’t miss “The Cloud That Ate Your Music,” an insightful think piece in today’s N.Y. Times by the always readable Jon Pareles. In the essay, he contemplates the possible ways through which the universal adoption of online storage and software could change not just our listening habits but how we value music. The critic, who sees the great hope of the cloud in subscription services like MOG and Rdio, writes, “Now everyone, not just a critic, can feel awash in music, with an infinitude of choices immediately at hand. But each of those choices is a diminished thing; attainable without effort, disposable without a second thought, just another icon in a folder on a pocket-size screen with pocket-sized sound. The tricky part, more now than ever, is to make any new release feel like an occasion: to give a song more impact than a single droplet out of the cloud. This presents a challenge to culturally ambitious musicians: before they can be larger than life, they have to be larger than the LCD screen. Or they can try to conquer that screen and play the Internet as an an instrument, using its defining attribute: interactivity.” (6/22a)