Turning The Green Light

Digital music is great for keeping landfills a little less cluttered, and for the same reasons it has brought about the beginning of an end of an era: the living room as a museum for music related furnishings of a bygone era. Curator—you. These are the relics that remind us of how we once listened to music, and for better or for worse, have retained their inhabitation in our homes.

The CD Tower

The signature of college dorm rooms and squalid bachelor living spaces of the 90’s. It was a fusion of utility and fashion at a level not seen since gun holsters. It was a music geeks credibility hanging constantly in the balance. Still present in some homes today, the CD tower is one of the final pieces (of trash) to emerge from the long history of music related home décor.

The Console Stereo

I remember when I was a kid, lying on the floor in front of my parents console stereo, that even at the time was a relic, and looking into the tiny, circular green light located at the bottom of this giant box of wood and fabric, telling my family that there were little people dancing in there. At four feet tall and the length of a couch (the stereo, not me), this “little dancing people” scenario was not a possibility to be immediately dismissed. Now that they are gone (console stereos, not the little people…well, both) they are missed and some of the smaller, more manageable models are finding their way back into peoples homes.

Giant Faux Wood Speaker Cabinets

I know this doesn’t really fall in line here as its extinction had nothing to do with the march toward digital tunes but it still merits recognition for its long standing presence flanking “entertainment centers” in the living rooms of show offs and being the target of restless house cats in need of tactile sensory stimulation.  If found today, they are probably being displayed as an ironic gesture.  There’s your new idea cool kid.  

The Jukebox

Sure, they are still made and they twirl cd’s or play digital tracks but it’s purely nostalgia now and who wants to waste time basking in the campy glory of years past? Old jukeboxes had tube amps that achieved a unique, warm tone. You would be lucky to find one of these in a living room now and more likely to find one in a small town drug store or stuffed away in a garage somewhere. Sad.

Goodbye

Now that we can perceive the end of this decades long marriage of music and furniture, we can appreciate what it was and say goodbye, or just kind of ignore it like it never happened. That is, all the way up until the moment you run across some old photos and see a grated steel contraption snaking upward toward the ceiling housing hundreds of jewel cases filled with grunge era crappiness, bags of chips strewn across the floor, and someone you vaguely recognize smiling in the photo, convinced he was a real cool guy.