Like it or not internet is here to stay

There are three kinds of people in the world:

Those who are excited about the internet and its potential for good.

Those who aren’t excited about the internet, but use it for email and to stay in touch with the family on Facebook.

Those who are antagonistic about the internet. They don’t use it. If asked, they are quick to dismiss the internet and all its accompanying technology as a passing fad.

When you’re working in communications and marketing nowadays, you have to expect, and be prepared, to understand, and work with (around?) all three kinds of people.

The internet antagonistas? I understand them. Internet technology wiped out one of my lifelong joys. Let me explain.

Carefully sifting through bins or stacks of vinyl music albums, and then, cassettes, and compact discs (CDs) at music stores, department stores, convenience stores, pharmacies, Goodwill stores, public libraries — this was a favorite pastime and learning tool of mine. I became the Album Whisperer. That is, without knowing anything about an artist/band on an album, I could tell 97 percent of the time if the album was good or not. My music sixth sense was (still is) that acute.

To a great extent, this was how I built my music collection, how I was able to collect and study literally thousands of albums, primarily spanning the histories of jazz, rock, blues, and country. Albums often came with liner notes — essays, really — written by some of the best music journalists ever, e.g. Ralph J. Gleason, Nat Hentoff, Leonard Feather, Orrin Keepnews, or Ira Gitler.

Also, album covers included wonderful photographs, again, by world-class photographers like Francis Wolff, Charles Stewart, and Annie Leibovitz. And, yes, those pictures were worth a thousand words.

I was able to use that music self-education to build a career in music journalism. And as I had more experience writing about music and musicians, I was able to parlay that experience into writing about other interests. Politics, for example.

There are still very few times I walk into one of my old record buying haunts without looking around, hoping to see an album cut-out bin I can browse.

The internet took all that away, and for a while, I was unhappy about it. Dealing with CDs replacing vinyl LPs was tough enough. It seemed to me too many CD reissues of jazz albums I loved were, in fact, not the jazz albums I loved. CDs hold 70-plus minutes of music compared with not quite 45 minutes for the standard 12-inch vinyl LP. Record companies were restoring parts of songs — bass solos, drum solos, choruses of tenor sax solos — edited out of the original LPs.

Result? I could buy the CD of, say, the Thelonious Monk Quartet’s Monk’s Dream with all the songs restored to their original length. I just could no longer buy the Monk’s Dream I’d been listening to all along.

Yes, the internet took away many options. Eventually, I was seeing and appreciating internet music listening/collecting options that were different, but were in many ways, better than my old ways of gathering music. The internet today offers more music, for listening or buying. Plus, there are plenty of online forums to connect with music lovers all over the world.

The online music business is still sorting out itself. But because I know the music business so well, I use it as a reminder when navigating internet-based changes in other businesses. Antagonistas notwithstanding, the internet is here to stay, and we should make best use of it. Even if it means restoring some “drum solos.”

Scott K. Fish has served as a communications staffer for Maine Senate and House Republican caucuses, and was communications director for Senate President Kevin Raye. He founded and edited AsMaineGoes.com and served as director of communications/public relations for Maine’s Department of Corrections until 2015. He is now using his communications skills to serve clients in the private sector.