Quiz: "Wall of Sound: The iPod Has Changed the Way We Listen to Music"
Answer the following question in a 2-3 good, solid paragraphs. Try to be specific, with some concrete examples and fleshed-out ideas to support your position. Feel free to use the essay in the textbook, but please don't use any outside sources.
Nikil Saval, the author of "Wall of Sound: The iPod has Changed the Way We Listen to Music," is critical of our excessive use of iPods specifically and digital music more generally. He has a couple of particular complaints. First, he says that iPods encourage us to listen to music alone, which leads to us creating barriers between us and other people. Second, he says that iPods lead us to a "total pluralism of taste," the idea that we can and do listen to all different kinds of music. The problem here, he believes, is that this robs us of the ability to judge quality in music;
now all we're interested in musically is having access to (and listening to) "everything."
Think about how you and your friends listen to music. To what extent is he right about how the iPod has changed the ways in which we acquire and listen to music? Why is he so troubled by these trends? Are there positive aspects of listening to music alone and having a "total pluralism of taste" that he's ignoring here? Overall, has the development of digital music and later iPods been a positive or negative development for popular music? Explain.