Citing evidence that “it’s how the artist intended their music to be heard”, area music aficionado and noted guy-with-opinions Dustin Bragel stated Sunday that, while the song being played was pretty good, it would have sounded way better if it had been etched in clay onto an ancient Sumerian tablet.
“Look, man,” Brugel announced, “when songs get compressed for your Spotifies or your Pandoras or what-have-yous, all the heart gets cut out. When you hear it how the artist actually wanted you to hear it, etched into a clay slab with a stylus by a Mesopotamian high priest 5,000 years ago, you’re finally experiencing the song in its original form. You can really feel all the pops and whistles of the recording studio that way, not to mention various ritual incantations to the sheep goddess Ninsun.”
Sources confirmed that, while driving to dinner with some friends last week, Bragel spoke over almost the entire length of ‘Starboy’ in order to explain to his peers how they “[hadn’t] heard nothin yet’ if they hadn’t listened to The Weeknd played out of an etched hunk of clay older than written language itself.” Bragel went on to steal the car’s aux cord, unplug his friend’s phone, and hook up a hand-forged, manually cranked bronze record player on which a millenia-old ceramic disk covered in jagged grooves produced an achingly scratchy rendition of that one okay Drake song.
“I can’t deny that the listening experience feels a bit more organic, a bit more intimate,” commented MC Fungus, a local radio DJ, “But you can’t just expect the casual listener to book an archaeological trip to Iraq, ford the Euphrates river, rediscover a long-lost underground ziggurat, and avoid a series of elaborate boobytraps in order to recover a 30-pound ritual artifact every time there’s a new Chainsmokers single out.”
Facing criticism, Bragel has acknowledged room for present disagreement. “I guess for some people there’s no difference between this and any old iTunes download.” With a casual twirl of his gelled mustache, he added, “After all, not everyone can appreciate the supple, mahogany-esque ear-feel of an Ed Sheeran song carved by hand into a clay tablet by Gilgamesh himself.”
