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No Computers please, We're Rock Stars
• Some star performers slow to embrace The Digital Age
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By
The Minx, contributing editor
Thursday,
26 October, 2006
Not all performers have taken to the digital age with alacrity. A surprising number of musicians confess to disliking computers and being unable or unwilling to download music (we assume some have flunkeys to do it for them.)
Still, Sir Paul McCartney owns an iPod nano but says he “hasn’t ever downloaded a track. Never.” Rolling Stone Keith Richards says he gets his daughters to do his downloading for him.
A large number of musicians actually prefer the CD experience. Sir Elton John: "I don't have a silly iPod. I like to go buy the whole artist's work”; Larry Mullen of U2: “I’ve never downloaded a track, I still buy CDs” and Modfather Paul Weller: “I’m still carrying this bag of CDs everywhere.”
In a recent interview, Jarvis Cocker revealed he had just been shopping for CDs when he "pulled a 4 CD set of Jake Thackray out of an HMV bag". Latest Bond girl, Caterina Murino "takes 20 CDs everywhere".
Younger new traditionalists who prefer the "old " technology include Richard Ashcroft : “I’ve never downloaded a song….I’m traditional, I like a shop, I like to browse”; Blur frontman and Gorrillaz virtual group creator Damon Albarn: “I’ve never downloaded anything. I don’t know how to. I’ll listen to the excerpt and then go and find the record”. (Note the use of the archaic “record” for album). And Beyonce doesn’t know how to download and doesn’t own an iPod: “I still fax people”.
Mark E Smith of The Fall doesn't like computers much or indeed those musicians who do: " I don't go much on computers. David Bowie's band, they're on the internet after a gig to see if anyone liked it. Seriously".
Noel Gallagher of Oasis claims to have rejected modern technology altogether: “Not owning a computer I am immune to any of that filth.” Another Luddite, Tim Finn, ex-Crowded House, famously rarely left his beloved New Zealand, and eschewed mobile phone and email contact with his record company in favour of good old-fashioned handwritten letters.
The Naked reader 2006
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