Eighteen months ago, I wrote that the download revolution had begun. As with most revolutions, the slide into Bonapartist despotism has become unstoppable. There are now download charts on television and in the newspapers, singles can reach number one without even being released in a tangible format (think of Gnarls Barkley's recent hit "Crazy"), and MP3 sales have risen by more than 150 per cent since the start of 2005.
Like under all other despotic regimes, there will be a few whingers who prefer things the way they used to be, singing "change and decay in all around I see", like William Boot's uncle in Scoop. Complaints range from the variable sound quality of MP3s to the lack of physical artwork. A Guardian comment piece this year even foretold the "death of the album" as a coherent art form. Now just because this brave new world allows people to buy the two Coldplay songs they heard on the radio, without wasting their money on the filler Chris Martin wrote while waiting for the ink to dry on his Fair Trade tattoo, that doesn't mean we won't get a new Revolver. There are bigger threats to the future of music than a convenient new way of sharing tunes. Keane, for example.
As we wave goodbye to "The Download", let us celebrate the happy union of music with this now-established format by listening to something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" may only date from 1975, but it fits the bill for "old" because they really don't make guitar solos like that any more. For "new", download "WD25", an extraordinary track from Wiley, the grime overlord (off www.karmadownload.com). It's musically sparse and lyrically dense.
"Borrowed" will have to be The Clash's cover of "Police and Thieves": it's a great introduction to the hot weather. And "blue"?
Only Nick Drake's horribly, beautifully maudlin "Been Smoking Too Long" can ever rule that category. For these two and the Young track, go to iTunes.
