Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Hi, this is Aaron Nathans from the Nathans and Roncast podcast and the acoustic duo Aaron Nathans and Michael G. Ronstadt. Today I want to talk about computers. You've probably noticed that in our music there's been a theme. Lately we've done a few songs that have touched on technology. There have been a lot of songs out there about technology, but not a whole lot, at least not in recent years, that have painted technology in a positive light. Please think for a moment about what technology was like. Before computers. People were computers. Math was done on slide rules and abacuses. Radios were big. Televisions, once they came along, used vacuum tubes. There were dial telephones and telegraphs. Remember Morse code? Remember typewriters? And how about paper maps?
[00:00:56] Mechanical computers came along and changed everything. Alan Turing envisioned the machine. Johnny von Neumann and his collaborators realized it. The team at Bell Labs in New Jersey created the transistor. And then Gordon Moore and his friends in Silicon Valley came along and built microchips that made computers a part of our everyday world. You might have heard of Moore's law, named for Gordon Moore of the company intel. Gordon Moore said, the chips get more and more powerful as time goes by without much of an increase in cost. So technology has been pretty amazing. And early songs about technology tended to be positive. There were a number of songs that praised the radio. There was the Beach Boys 1973 piece magic transistor radio. There was Russia's 1979 song the Spirit of Radio and Queen's 1984 radio Gaga. Radio wasn't in itself a computerized invention, but it was technology that made it more accessible.
[00:01:56] But then, as we moved into the 1980s and the advent of the personal computer took hold, we began to see the darkness emerge. As popular culture portrayed computers as things to be feared, songs about technology are tinged with violence. Let's take video killed the radio star from the Buggles in 1979.
[00:02:16] They took credit for your second symphony, rewritten by machine on new technology. And now I understand the problems you can see in my mind and in my car we can't rewind we've gone too far pictures came and broke your heart put the blame on VCR or how about Mister Roboto by sticks in 1983? This is some serious cheese. Here are some lines from that song. The problem is plain to see too much technology machines to save our lives machines dehumanize these songs tracked the general concern about our inability to keep up with the technology we created, that somehow they had gotten a mind of their own, and now they were free to act on their own. This only became more pronounced in the age of the Internet. Remember virtual insanity by Jamiroquai from 1994?
[00:03:12] Futures made of virtual insanity now always seem to be governed by this love we have for useless twisting of our new technology.
[00:03:21] Oh, now there is no sound? For we all live underground? And I'm thinking what a mess we're in? Hard to know where to begin? If I could slip the sickly ties that earthly man has made? Even the fun songs hint at some kind of technology induced mania. Let's take Pac man fever?
[00:03:40] I got a pocket full of quarters and I'm headed to the arcade? I don't have a lot of money but I'm bringing everything I've made? I've got a callus on my finger and my shoulder's hurting too? I'm gonna eat them all up just as soon as they turn blue? Cause I've got Pac man fever? And it's driving me crazy? I've got Pac man fever? I'm going out of my mind? Yes, technology has created real problems in our world. There's been AI deepfakes and chat, GPT, identity theft, loss of privacy. There's the digital divide in the way that algorithms can replicate racial bias. There's been the loss of real world experiences and even job loss. But it's also true that technology has made big changes for the good in the way that we live our lives today. There's been improved communication, email, texting, easier international phone calls. There's remote working and remote education, digital banking, cloud based applications, gps, entertainment efficiency, new and different jobs. Technology has done some good things. And technology has also, ironically, allowed for a revolution in how music is made and distributed. That's right. All those songs that are decrying technology are being made on technology made possible by computers. First there were CDs, and then MP3 s, and now streaming devices. There's digital recording, including home recording. I'm recording this at home right now. There's sampling, beats, digital sounds. Electronic instruments are even used in live performance.
[00:05:19] Now, artistically, it's a lot easier to tear down machines than it is to praise them. So writing a song that casts technology in a positive light is a lot harder. So how do you do it? Well, first you go back to the motto from where technology started, that we have created these machines to serve mankind and not the other way around. And I'll talk about that in a future episode. For now, I'm Aaron Nathans Peace.
