Jack White thinks you all* have no souls
Taken from http://www.recordstoreday.com/NewsItem/3405
"Why talk to other human beings, discuss different authors, writing styles and influences? Just click your mouse. Well here's what they'll someday learn if they have a soul; there's no romance in a mouse click. There's no beauty in sitting for hours playing video games (anyone proud of that stop reading now and post your opinion in the nearest forum). The screen of an iPhone is convenient, but it’s no comparison to a 70mm showing of a film in a gorgeous theater. The Internet is two-dimensional…helpful and entertaining, but no replacement for face-to-face interaction with a human being."
...
"We need to re-educate ourselves about human interaction and the difference between downloading a track on a computer and talking to other people in person and getting turned onto music that you can hold in your hands and share with others. The size, shape, smell, texture and sound of a vinyl record; how do you explain to that teenager who doesn't know that it's a more beautiful musical experience than a mouse click? You get up off your ass, you grab them by the arm and you take them there."
* if you happen to fit the description he uses in the above text.
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The screen of an iPhone is convenient, but it’s no comparison to a 70mm showing of a film in a gorgeous theater.
What a cock.
i forgot he lived in a log cabin and rode a pack-mule to all of his gigs
he does say 'get up off your ass'
true
i like old movies
whatever grandad
God, I hate Jack White
Self-important arsehole.
Acht the points he is making aren't that ridiculous
The internet and smart phones have brought a lot of positives but it'd be a fool that thinks they have not had some negative influence on how we interact with art and each other.
But you can't stop progress.
I agree.
It's more that it's Jack White saying it in his usual self important way that annoys me. Did anyone read that NME interview a few years ago when he was wanking on about digging ditches or something?
``There's no beauty in sitting for hours playing video games``
I don't even play video games, but there's nothing more beautiful about strumming a guitar than playing a game. What a wazzock.
he obviously hasn't played Skyrim
or anything by Team Ico for that matter
Or New Star Soccer
erm
something about the limiting nature of the screen
something about the limiting nature of the six strings
and how all guitarists should be playing a more beautiful harp instead.
fucking hell the last thing the world needs is more guitarists
What does vinyl actually smell like?
My mum's got some vinyl. Next time I go round I must have a smell.
nope. nothing.
He talking about the musty, old book smell you get from the second hand sleeves.
It is a nice smell. Well...I can think of much worse things.
being on computers/t'internet all the time does ruin your attention span
and the depth in which you feel stuff, and lots of subtleties are lost on a lot of people, but idk, shut up Jack White.
He does have a point about some of it
He just doesn't have to be such a self important buttock about it.
maybe we would respect his point more if it was delivered via lithograph
Can`t be doing with all that vinyl sniffing object fetishism bollocks
So you can keep your re educating, mr Jack.
If he really cared so much he would have told me this in person.
^potd
god i wish jack white would go away.
i really, really do. pointless musician.
the year was nineteen dickety two
we had to say 'dickety' because the Kaiser had stolen the word 'twenty'
thought of this too
to be fair...
he does kind of send himself up in the accompanying video.
Leave video games out of this Jack, you bastard!!
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs7/3941859_o.gif
Hahaha
He hasn't released a decent record in 10 years
He hasn't released a decent record...period
Some good singles, but a whole album? Nah.
MY GODDAMN HERO
GOD BLESS YOU, JACK WHITE.
If he doesn't like the internet...
then he should close Third Man Records' web store, stop selling his limited edition records using tmr's ebay account at inflated prices and stop trolling everyone.
yeah
yep
Why talk to other human beings, discuss different authors, writing styles and influences?
Because you'll end up in the fucking Raconteurs and Dead Weather instead of The White Stripes.
Fuck off
and make another Coke ad, you boring twat.
Whoa! People of DiS! Defensive much?
that said, Jack White doesn't do a great job of endearing himself to others, does he? he says some good things, he just gets the tone all wrong, just like his precocious performance in that fucking awful 'It Might Get Loud' film.
think he needs a text editor. i'd do it.
He's one of the most egregious bellends in music.
Don't sit there talking about soul, romance and authenticity while making totally derivative music and soundtracking Coke ads.
derivative?
really? is that argument still running? what isn't derivative? (yes, that's a rhetorical retort).
as for the Coke Ads... should we list the number of artists also involved in such supposed 'atrocities'? Mayakovsky would be overjoyed.
meanwhile, the mid-80's called. they'd like their argument back.
I love the way this has actually made people angry
it is most amusing.
I don't see how those quotes are that bad.
In fact, I don't see how hard it is to agree with any of it. We SHOULD be more supportive of physical media, and we SHOULD be more supportive of, say, movie theaters or record stores. Just because he sells digital albums as well doesn't mean he's hypocrite. It means he's not an idiot, and realizes that not EVERYONE can buy physical of everything.
why should we be more supportive of physical media?
Because, quite simply, digital media feels really cold. I don't ever buy digital. Call me an elitist or a snob, but I buy vinyl because I enjoy the fact that, when I take it home, I feel like I've spent my money on something that I can't just create at home. I've been sent a million MP3s, and been given loads of CDs, but those things never felt like they were made or sent with care or love.
I don't truly mind digital, because it's convenient, and I can't very well take a record player on the bus with me. I've built myself an altar to the music that I love in my house, and I've built it with physical media, be it vinyl, CD, or cassette. When I die, I'm gonna leave all of that behind, and it's going to take up space in the physical world. My 7 gigabytes of Merzow will not.
In short, I support physical media because I want my love of the art form to be apparent, and I want to know that I'm leaving behind something besides bones and record reviews.
So you've told us why you support physical media
Why is it that we SHOULD be more supportive of physical media?
``Call me an elitist or a snob``
Deluded was closer to what came to mind to be honest. Seems to stem from a desire to `leave something behind`, a sort of mini-existential instinct. Understandable for you, but landfill for the rest of the planet. Don't think there's any need to have other people follow the same path necessarily.
Is it really deluded to want something physical and tangible for my money?
Also, it's landfill if I just leave it sitting there. A very decent chunk of my record collection belonged to my parents, and likewise, my son will get my records when I die. I don't care about paintings or fine jewelry. I do care about a lovingly crafted record collection. I don't feel like that's a bad thing.
Also, people SHOULD support physical media because, while digital is all well and good, it will never be anything more than an adequate approximation of something that really feels real.
I don't really see how this mindset is hard for any of you to wrap your minds around.
There is nothing tangible.
Everything is on loan, even your body. If a MP3 is an amazing track who cares it's a MP3? I'm into music for the buzz when I'm listening to it in that moment. I grew up on tapes and never cared about sound quality THAT much, so MP3 is fine at 320KBPS. I'm not interested in recognition from others with my record collection, or the mystique of some romanticised vinyl manufacturing, building a collection to show off/pass on. When I die it can all die with me, I won't be caring about it then. There will come a point in time when everything we listen to now will be forgotten so sustaining it beyond our own lifetime's enjoyment is futile. I like album art though, for that I have an extra monitor solely for displaying the 1500x1500px album cover full screen from i-tunes/CD Display software. Looks nice but it's just a novelty compared to the music entering my ears and my brain decoding it.
Sorry for my thoughts on how I prefer to ingest my music. I didn't figure enjoying physical media was such an incendiary mindset.
It's not
As long as you know it is secondary to listening
Perhaps
the experience of listening, and how you listen to it, and where and for what reason, can be separate but equal to the actual music itself?
In the last few months, I've written a few essays about records and bands that have had an impact on my life. Here's a short tale:
I have a scar on my arm that I acquired from an electric hedge trimmer, which I cut open my arm with after slipping on some leaves. This quick anecdote is important because that event coincides with me realizing that I was truly in love with Radiohead's OK Computer, and it was the moment that I realized how powerful the song "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is. Is it important that I heard that song, and that record, and that band? Yes. But for me, it's just as important that I had that experience while I was listening to that music. I would not have the same connection with that music if forces unrelated to the syllables and frequencies hadn't come into play. Just like The Sunset Tree helping me cope with my own terrible family life, and just like my wife telling me that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is the album she fell in love with me to, it seems like a grand injustice to simply think of listening as just listening, and music as just music.
I think, at the bottom of Jack White's statement, lies something akin to this: Music is an integral part of our lives. We should make the most of the connection we have with that music. And to break it down to the point where we stop focusing on something we can touch and hold, and start focusing on just having the thing in a neat little data file, is a little insulting to such an important thing.
But that's, just, like, my OPINION, man.
``Also, people SHOULD support physical media because, while digital is all well and good, it will never be anything more than an adequate approximation of something that really feels real.``
It's not an approximation. There is no tangible difference to listening to a digital music file that I've downloaded or music data playing on a disc. They both come out of my stereo the same and enter my ears the same.
Jack, if you want to get into this boy's (apparently nonexistent) soul
you gotta pay the troll toll
Well done sir, best post in this whole thread :-D
I think he's wrong about video games - I think there can be beauty in playing them
I read something once in Plan B magazine (RIP) about how playing a good video game can be almost like integrating yourself in to a work of art. (I might try and find it because it'll make this point a lot better than I can.)
But that aside, I think he's right.
HE GOT LUCKY
So much filler on his records (except the one that blew up massively in 2003) - He's quirky, He sounded like Lite Zepplin, I got so sick of hearing about him & seeing him everywhere (I'm from Detroit) - Yeah, call me when 3rd Man is as badass as Norton records. Then we'll talk. But not text.
I can forgive this putrid verbal excretion because
I love those first few White Stripes albums so much and play them pretty frequently.
However, fuck him when it comes to videogames. There is magic in some games, not all games, but some.
fuck off jack white
this thread is funny but lacking in Internet Athiest Rage
so far
I think I just fulfilled that one.
This may be my first ever 50+ reply post
I, feel a little less boring
My first was asking what people's favorite opening album lines are.
I feel decidedly boring.
Must be weird to give two flying brown ones about anything Jack White thinks or says
I sit on my ass and listening to vinyl records
I'm confused...should I be standing?
Well
He also thinks that the belief in God is the only thing stopping people from widespread rape, murder and violence. Which basically means he has no moral compass of his own, and has to rely on the threat of eternal damnation to make himself a decent person.
Therefore anything else he thinks or says is invalid in my eyes.
There it is!
I don't really think religious beliefs make the rest of your life invalid.
Unless you were trolling...
Try reading some books
seriously you need to read.
Yes, yes I know you read. Shhhhh. Go read some more.
I really can't find anything wrong in what he said there
I like the fact that labels like Blessing Force et al
give you a digital version of the vinyl you buy. This is becoming more common now and is a very simple, very good solution to the whole digital vs physical issue. You buy the vinyl online, you get the digital version very soon after, then the beautiful vinyl arrives a bit later. If this could be acheived in stores, that would be even better.
Well, it is
Loads of labels give away download codes with their LPs
yeah, it's standard practise to include a download code in the sleeve
domino and bella union always do at least
Sub Pop, too!
Their champs about it.
*they're
Who could possibly have predicted...
...that the denizens of a website messageboard would get so angry about this?
stop reading now and post your opinion in the nearest forum
ooh he's done us
Like a kipper.
I believe this simile is old-school enough for Jack. Although I'm worried about the prospect of a vortex of post-modernism opening up now. Who will come out of it? My guess: Steve Strange.
I disagree with everything he says
It's not my experience of the internet at all or video games.
I've had more meaningful, deep, three dimensional conversations with people on the internet that I've had in the whole of my 'face to face' interactions with people. He's lucky to live among like minded people and I'm sure his face to face conversations with people are totally thrilling. I can't say the same.
The older I get, the more it seems to me the people around me are pretty much dead to anything. There's definitely more life on my internet.
As to vinyls, I like antiques too, and I can see how they would make a great collection, but as my only source of music? Even he doesnt' think so, it seems.
Video games - because you don't like playing them, don't rubbish them.
Not everyone can play guitar like you, Jack White. What annoys me most is that the same people who would rubbish video games, then would spent 3 or 4 hours a day in front of their TV. I know what I would rather do with my time in the evening and I bet it would also be better for my brain!
Where he would have scored a point
is if he 'd mentioned live music - I'd say there will be nothing to replace that and you need to experience it.
if he'd said that video games are not encouraging people to pick their books and Kindle - but TV managed to do that quite a few years ago.
If you enjoy computer games
it is great fun. If you love a tune it doesn't matter what format you listen to it on. Internets are a great way of talking to people who are too far away to meet and interact with normally. Nothing wrong with any of it in moderation. This dude is just contrary to reinforce is huge ego.
There's no beauty in sitting in for hours listening to music or reading books whilst discussing authors
it's just a way to pass time