Dear Lou Reed: MP3s Won't Go Away

Lou Reed, owner of perhaps the most tuneless voice in rock music (which is more fact than criticism), whined at the SXSW conference about the quality of MP3 music. Indeed, MP3s are about 10 times worse fidelity than music on CDs. As Reed noted in his keynote speech, you can't hear the richness of the music. "People have got to demand a higher standard," he said.

But...most won't. It's a funny thing, recorded-music fidelity moving backward after a long march forward from the 1930s to the 1980s. But the mass market has traded high fidelity for good-enough fidelity and much greater convenience -- i.e., you can carry around your entire music collection in your pocket, and buy specific songs you want. We're not going to give up that convenience. Just look at the comment-revolt at Lifehacker when an editor suggested it was time to go back to buying CDs.

Jack Plunkett/AP Photo.

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