Music Media
by Lore Sjöberg

Mini-Disks
Will someone please explain to Sony that I'm not going to buy their damned mini-discs? I've had ample time and huge deforestations of magazine ads to help me make up my mind and it's just not going to happen. I will not take them to a club, I will not -- Jesus, I almost went into a Seuss Fugue. Look what you made me do! D

CDs
The acronym is overused but CDs are a lot of fun. They spark when you put them in the microwave, they can be used to make decorative clocks, and I'm pretty sure they fly. Let me try -- yup! Take that, Ace of Base! The main drawback is that they look just like CD-ROMs, DVDs, and Playstation games. That's never been an actual inconvenience, but it offends me on an aesthetic level. Different things should look different, dammit. A-

LPs
I like vinyl records because they may be the last data storage format that one can experience on a tactile level. Also, there are a bunch of great gags involving vinyl that don't apply to other types of music. Like, you know, when Fred Flintstone or Lucille Ball or whomever is pretending to sing and the record skips and they have to lip-sync the same line over and over? Okay, not great gags, but still, what are you going to get out of a CD? Rainbow humor? A+

Cassette Tapes
People complain when their tape player sucks up their tape like Lady and/or the Tramp in that one spaghetti scene, but I think it's the best part. There's a very basic satisfaction to be had in yanking audio tape out in handfuls, and I'm always grateful on some level when third-rate technology gives me the excuse. Take that, Abba Teens! C

8-Tracks
I dunno. A lot of people get this whole Starsky/Hutch, Sonny/Cher, Chico/The Man pleasant retro groove from 8-tracks, but I remember them primarily as the medium used by "2-XL," an educational robot from the late Seventies which, I'm convinced, could kick Poo-Chi's ass in a bar fight. The only two 8-track albums I remember were "The Red-Headed Stranger" by Willie Nelson, and "Back Home Again" by John Denver. But those were damn fine albums! C+