Ok, so I’m dating myself a little, but I remember how much some people complained when LPs gave away to CDs. Fans of album art were furious that the canvass available had shrunk from 12 inches square to about 5 inches square (viewers of Saturday Night Live in the early 80s will recall a similar rant by Eddie Murphy about G.I. Joe shrinkage).

Many albums from the 70s were considered classics, not just because of the music pressed on the vinyl (my daughter would have no idea what this sentence means), but also the art of the album cover. See below for an example — Houses of the Holy, by Led Zeppelin which is recommended by no less experts than Bill and Ted. The irony that you can’t make out the details of the album on this blog is not lost on me by the way.

For those people that actually purchase music on iTunes, you’ll find that the shrinkage continues. The area of the album art is now about half the size of a postage stamp. This occured to me after I bought Graceland by Paul Simon for the third time and the third medium (obsolescence and an apartment break-in played roles here). The South African art motif is displayed by a few blurry pixels.

Of course thinking about that album made me recall the slightly out-of-my-league date that I brought to the Graceland concert at Maple Leaf Gardens. [Editor's note: the author keeps adding the word "slightly" after we remove it.] I checked to see if she had joined Facebook. She hasn’t. It ain’t stalking, people…it’s social networking.