One for the album

iPod music is great, but where are the liner notes?

So, I8217;m a few years late on the MP3 player bandwagon, but I8217;m finally here. Yesterday, I downloaded my first albums on to a contraption smaller, thinner and lighter than a small chocolate bar: an iPod Nano. The albums are good. When transmitted through wires that have a private line to the ears, I catch layers of background vocals and sounds I hadn8217;t previously. Still, something feels amiss. The music has no packaging 8212; no book jacket, no liner notes.

Liner notes were one of the reasons why I forgave technology for jumping tracks from tapes to CDs, and turning my four drawers of cassettes into relics. While most Indian music genres have grossly under-utilised this space, the packaging in western genres is designed to create a buzz about a new album; sometimes, among the more intelligent and thoughtful music companies and artistes, to inform and to aid appreciation, even to indulge.

LPs and tapes flirted with liner notes, but it was in the CD format that they truly found themselves, creating another playground for rich literary and visual expression.

Jazz albums, especially those from its shining era of the fifties and sixties, did it best. Like the music itself, those liner notes are graceful, articulate and critical, written by musicians or by competent writers who care deeply for the music, the process of creating it and its place in the pantheon of that rich music genre. So, for instance, one can read pianist Bill Evans comparing the making of one of jazz8217;s seminal albums, 8216;Kind of Blue8217; by Miles Davis, to a Japanese painting style. Or, one can gaze at 12 pages of stills from a Pat Metheny record. Increasingly, though, musicians seem to have little to say other than to announce themselves.

One contemporary band that does keep the art of liner notes alive is a precious Scottish band called Belle and Sebastian. The words and pictures were mostly those of the band8217;s eloquent visionary, Stuart Murdoch. Their seven albums and 12 EPs include a charming short story, musings on who the band members could have been, diary jottings8230; quirky thoughts. Equally arresting are the visuals, mostly doused in only one colour, featuring band members and friends. My 4GB iPod holds about 1,500 songs and packs in a lot of convenience, but these are some emotions that slip through it.