You live in a future where no one listens to music. They don’t know what it is. One day you find your favorite CD from the past.

You live in a future where music in any form is considered repugnant. You find an old CD. It’s scratched and falling apart, but you start playing it. The music is cool. You start flipping through your collection, and find another one. The music is cool. You find a third. The music is cooler still. And then you’re listening to a band you never heard of before, and the music is cooler still. You go to a concert, and the music is cooler still. And you wonder. Are you a dinosaur? Or have you been standing still, just because you’ve never heard this music before?

The reason I bring this up is that I’ve been listening to “Music for Robots” lately, and “Music for Robots II.”

The first one (and this is true) is very different from the second. And yet, they’re both from the same composer. They’re both, I think, about a man who has given up on music, but still finds a way to enjoy it in its alternate forms. And I don’t think this is just about robots and about the future. It’s about music, and about the future, and about art, and about what music has become.

And, if you can, go listen to the first one.

You live in a future where no one listens to music. They don’t know what it is. One day you find your favorite CD from the past. It was in a car accident with the driver’s airbag blown out. The CD is broken but the artwork is completely intact. The music you listen to will be different and so will your life.

+ you don’t have any money. Someone drops a packet of cash in front of you and tells you to pick it up and give it to a man named ”Willy”. The man’s body is hidden under a car and he will kill you if you don’t. You need the money to pay the ransom.

+ you have a boyfriend who’s cheating on you. The entire time you’ve been together, you’ve been hearing someone on the other side of the wall. It’s always been something you thought of as static but now it sounds like he’s calling you. He’s hiding on the other side of the wall. He’s trying to talk to you.

+ You’re at a theme park. You’re on a roller coaster but the train won’t take off. There’s someone in the car with you. They’re pulling on the car but it won’t move. A man is on the other side of the car trying to convince you to get off.