CD vs. Digital age: Please Think Of The Children

Dear cover art,

Please don’t die.  I know it is tough for you these days, but don’t give up hope, if you only knew how many people still loved you I promise you’d never go away.  You still have so much left to give.  I know, I know, I know all about the digital age.  People are so busy justifying their actions that they barely have time to steal the mp3′s that are trying so hard to replace physical CDs and put the music industry into a comatose state, forcing them to stay up late with enough caffeinne to kill a cute puppy, but that isn’t your fault.  You’ve been there for so long, making people laugh, letting them reminisce about their favorite bands.  You are more than a face, too, you come with a full body of lyrics, thank you notes, pictures that help us remember what MxPx looked like when they were in high school.  You bring character to a band that we may have never met, something we can hold onto, something that won’t be deleted from a myspace, twitter, facebook or purevolume page at the whim of public relations.  You have lasting value.  You have artwork that can either blow our minds or rile the blood with anger for its laziness.  You have originality when you open like a letter on Emery’s “The Question” or have see through pages that add to the original picture on Copeland’s “Beneath the Medicine Tree” or underOATH’s “Lost in the Sound of Separation”.  You’re something that ten years from now someone will pull you out of the closet, blow the dust off and remember the good ole days.  Please consider these things before you consider retiring.  Without you, it won’t just be the cover/insert artwork that becomes disposable, but the music itself.  You humanize bands, you bring them to life to people who may never get to see them, but want to hold onto their favorites beyond the next generation of social networking.  I just spend 3 hours looking through every piece of you that I own.  I don’t want you reduced to an ignorable piece of media.  I won’t pull the plug, please don’t go out this way.

thanks

Tyler