Led Zeppelin’s “Object,” or, the Chronicle’s Obstron?

Albums, dead. CDs, dead. Niedermeyer – dead!

Long live the download? Let’s get to the transmit, already, the full-on dump: The Complete Don Walser, Slayer Live 1982-2007, Sufjan Stevens’ Shower Melodies. James Brown: The Soundchecks.

Adieu Ahmet Ertegun. What record man will teach the world to sing? Whose gold grin will encompass Sticky Fingers, Presence, Highway to Hell? Who will sweet talk Mary J. Blige into Funk Brothers backing, a Chamillionaire/Paul Wall reunification, or Norah Jones starring in Lady Sings the Blues? When will YouTube broadcast in 5.1 surround sound?

Now that Los Tigres del Norte’s narcocorridos have flaked off into Ghostface’s Fishscale and the Clipse’s stripped and ripped Hell Hath No Fury, have nu millennial cocaine traders become last century’s murder balladeers? If Three 6 Mafia airs out the Carter Family, then Prince takes the Met from Plácido Domingo. Showtime in HD.

Tomasz Stanko’s Polish jazz vs. Boris’ Japanese metal: winner, Lone Star songwriting saint Cindy Walker. Alejandro Escovedo, Jon Dee Graham, and Ray Wylie Hubbard vs. Peter & the Wolf, Pink Nasty, and Scott H. Biram: and the ring tone goes to … Your Biggest Fan, Voxtrot. Time for the LP, boys. D’oh! That went out with DVDs. Can you get MySpace in Blu-ray?

Riverboat Gamblers or Be Your Own Pet? Bob Dylan and Butch Hancock. Which song for prime time? Ninety-nine cents times 30 gigabytes of iPod equals identity theft online. The Pod people, circa 2112: “Attention all planets of the Solar Federation – we have assumed control … we have assumed control … we have assumed control.” Run. Only the Shins can save us now.

This article appears in 2006.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.