Hardly remarkable.
CDs are a poor archival medium. Especially ones that are used and loved over years and years. Ones that have traveled multiple states, lived in numerous rough textured folders, moved house over and over, slid in and out of player after player and played their contents for hundreds of hours.
Chutes Too Narrow is a nearly perfect album. There is not a weak moment on it. It is whimsical yet jaded, clever yet direct. Catchy and immediate yet layered and well wrought. I bought it the day it came out on a Tuesday in Autumn 2003. Fortunately, even before The Shins' inclusion on the Garden State Soundtrack in 2004, their new album was high profile enough to be stocked at the Muncie Best Buy on day one.
CDs give out all the time. Scratches, heat damage, basic defects...so why is this such a sad occasion? This is the first of my mainstays that has died of natural causes, from simple age and use. It was working fine a month ago when my wife and I listened to it while cooking, and now it's not. It's not just skipping in one place or a couple but nearly every song. The data cannot seem to consistently make it off the surface. It's eighteen years old. It has reached the end of its life.
I'll get another copy because I value objects even in the age of constant ubiquity. Because it matters to me that music marks time and so do things.
