Given the increasingly sorry state of the planet there is a an increasing importance to the actions encompassed in the phrase “reduce, recycle, reuse.” Less stuff is arguably better.
A Google search of “minimalism” comes up with “about 873,000,000 results”—ironically maximalist, I think—with the characteristics of the 3Rs foremost, not the works of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La Monte Young, or Terry Riley.
But even those who are associated with a comfortable but minimalist lifestyle, like Marie Kondo, aren’t full-on 3R mavens. Kondo writes of her KonMari approach:
“One of the reasons the KonMari Method™ is associated with minimalism is because many people discover while tidying that they’ve been living with items they no longer love – or never did. And they suddenly feel empowered to let them go with gratitude.”
Objects are OK—as long as said objects provide the individual with what can be considered personal “joy.” And arguably, much music is associated with the joy—or even sorrow—in our lives.
Artifacts of a life are certainly not as important as family, friends and, certainly, life itself, but those objects are in many ways definitive of the person’s movement through time: Perhaps it is a collection of stubs from concerts seen (in a pre-scanning age) or the first Wilco LP bought when the comparative obscurity was in its own way important.
They may be things that haven’t been looked at or used for some years, but at the time of acquisition they were certainly notable and they carried that importance, although perhaps diminished over time, forward.
Another phrase that’s heard is “Get experiences, not things.” But things acquired during those experiences (e.g., a concert T-shirt or a Fillmore West postcard from a visit to San Francisco) can bring the memories back in a powerful way. (One could gloss the famous literary manifestation of this: the madeleine cake dipped in tea that gave rise to Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu: no physical cake, no memories evoked, or at least not to such an extent.)
Which is a roundabout way to get to the recent “RIAA Mid-Year 2023 Revenue Report,” which has it that first-half U.S. retail revenues hit $8.4 billion, the highest take in a six-month period.
