Borgman: CDs are bad, Bach is good

I find Borgman's stance on CDs to be interesting, but ultimately antiquated. I understand that how the CD or mp3 file has replaced actual music as our idea of what music is, and I agree, when you're talking about Bach's Cantata, generally, that's a bad thing. The idea behind Bach's Cantata, when it was composed, doesn't have anything to do with CDs, and if you're listening to it on earbuds, as David Lynch put it, you need to "get real."

But music today is a whole other matter than anything Bach composed. Borgman sort of strikes me as a follower of Theodore Adorno: for quick and dirty summary of Adorno's view on music, he thinks anything that isn't classical is propoganda for the military. I, however, am not a follower of Adorno, which allows me to pose this question to Borgman: what about music that wouldn't be possible if not for recorded sound? I'm talking here about most popular music, really, but the best cases are DJs. A group like the Avalanches, or artists like Lovage or Kid Koala, who create music by looping other records together to create something new. I mean, if CDs, or what DJs usually use, vinyl, is bad, then what one of my personal favorite albums, which I have on CD, Lovage's "Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By"? CDs recordings are information as reality, right? So if I went to see Lovage perform, would that be information as reality, or since I was participating in the music making act as part of the crowd, would it closer to natural reality in Borgman's book, even though the source of the music was information as reality?

Then there's a case like Daft Punk's "Alive 2007", a recording of an electronic artist, using computers to create a live show for audiences all over the world, yet recorded again on CD, so you can hear the crowds chanting in the background--and it really does add to the music. So it goes from computers, information as reality, where the music is made, to the live show, natural reality, back to information as reality. Anyway, in summary, I think Borgman's system of discussing recorded sound in nowhere near intricate enough for all the interesting expirements musicians are doing today with recording.