1994 Soundgarden FTW ... and why digital music sucks

Taking a day off ... spent the last couple months mixing a LOT of Canto-pop, bleeding ears, anxiety attacks over ability, screaming RSI and with EQ curves burned into my retinas ... the whole nine yards. But now I am done until the next batch rolls in. Made it. Still alive. Not dead. So - partly as reward, partly as inspiration for my own music making later tonight - I decided to trawl through CDs I'd not heard in a while and have a good old listening session while catching up on studio paperwork.Stumbled across a pile of Soundgarden albums ... thought I'd lost them. But no, here they are, all six of them. Their 1994 effort Superunknown rules the fucking day ... is all I have to say. Fourteen years old and it still kicks the pants off most rock music being produced today, in every aspect of musicality, recording, mixing and mastering.Which got me thinking ... with everyone buying singles, downloading digital files and not purchasing albums or full length artist releases as much ... what does that hold for future generations of potential music producers? You think some future kid is going to click-wheel thru a 20 year old iPod (assuming it still works) to hear their Dad's old music? LP artwork was usually enough of an incentive to take the recording out and have a listen. I discovered Count Basie 'cause one of my Dad's albums had an image of a huge fiery red atomic bomb mushroom cloud on it. I would not have opened a track listed under the 'big band / jazz' genre in iTunes ... not at the age of six.I've already lost music I bought only last year due to hard-drive failure or simple stupid archiving errors. But my CDs - scratched and battered as they are - still play, still sound great and are there for anyone to rummage thru at anytime for inspiration or enjoyment.Think about it. Half the joy of music is returning to songs you previously didn't have an opinion about and finding new love for them. Albums do that for you.