physical music non-purchasers: how do you acquire/consume music? (NOW WITH MORE SOULSEEK)

link to scik mouthy's thread:

How much physical music (CDs, vinyl, minidiscs, cases ingles, whatever) have you bought so far this year?

purchasing mp3s (itunes, amazon mp3, emusic, etc)
downloading mp3s from blogs (mediafire, rapidshare, filestube)
downloading artist-approved free content

^mixture of the above (plus promo stuff)

i do stream on soundcloud and youtube sometimes but really prefer not to, listening always feels more cursory like that. NO SPOTIFY EVER.

never have managed to work out torrents and not sure how to turn the tv on

h8 radio because people speak and interrupt the music

You're able to download music from blogs but don't know how to turn the TV on?!

last time i tried to turn the tv on and there was no one else in the house i ended up sitting in front of a blank screen for 20 minutes frantically pressing every button possible on each of our gazillion remotes before i had to give up

last time i tried to stream a proper tv channel (as opposed to dodgy internet tennis streams, which i can cope with), channel 4 loaded but then refused to play

tvcatchup refuses to work for me

i don't know why and no one ever explains

you should have included promos considering the amount of music journos here

Do you have digital TV in Britain? In here we have it, and you first have to turn on the digital television adapter, then the telly. The TV should then automatically get the signal from the adapter. You can then change channels with the digital adapter's remote. The TV remote is only needed for adjusting sound and picture, you can't change channels with it.

Though I think nowadays there are televisions that have a built-in digital adapter, so you don't need two remotes with them?

But I know what you're talking about, I didn't have a TV set for 10 years, during which time DVD players and digi adapters became the norm, so it took me quite some time to learn how to watch stuff with three different remotes.

last time i tried to turn the tv on and there was no one else in the house i ended up sitting in front of a blank screen for 20 minutes frantically pressing every button possible on each of our gazillion remotes before i had to give up

last time i tried to stream a proper tv channel (as opposed to dodgy internet tennis streams, which i can cope with), channel 4 loaded but then refused to play

tvcatchup refuses to work for me

i don't know why and no one ever explains

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 13:33 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha, i think this is what i mean when i say a lot of people who might be interested in hearing new music these days could be hindered by their lack of computer/internet proficiency.

I buy both vinyl and digi so, for digi -

1) buy wavs, ideally from artists own site, otherwise clone,juno etc -
2) download from soundcloud - mixes mainly
3) occasional downloads from a blog for long out of print stuff that isn't available in any other form

Combination of Spotify and internet radio (WFMU, WREK, Psychedelicized, EVR, et al).

i'm so happy that this thread open w/ tuomas skeptically grilling lex about his inability to operate a television set

I download artist-approved free content, on a rare occasion might buy MP3s too, if the product isn't available in physical form. Don't really do any of the other stuff anymore, as I mostly listen to stuff done by non-famous, non-rich musicians, so I actually want support them in making their music.

streaming music (pandora, spotify): for most new releases - spotify sub
torrenting mp3s (bit-torrent, pirate bay): for obscure OOP stuff - what.cd
borrowing physical music from friends: for really obscure stuff not otherwise found on interwebz (generally 'borrowed' thru dropbox)
streaming video (youtube) and purchasing mp3s (itunes, amazon mp3, emusic, etc): occasionally

haha, i think this is what i mean when i say a lot of people who might be interested in hearing new music these days could be hindered by their lack of computer/internet proficiency.

yes but the point is that EVEN I have no problems with acquiring music through my computer

In the last few years, I've primarily been getting music from the library and burning it. I don't worry about the piracy angle of this too much because it's mostly very high-profile major label music from yesteryear. Newer or smaller bands or albums I buy on amazon mp3. I used to download a lot of out-of-print stuff and bootlegs, but not as frequently these days.

Do you have digital TV in Britain? In here we have it, and you first have to turn on the digital television adapter, then the telly. The TV should then automatically get the signal from the adapter. You can then change channels with the digital adapter's remote. The TV remote is only needed for adjusting sound and picture, you can't change channels with it.

we have digital tv. i technically know what buttons to press but it just refuses to work for me due to malice

My 80 year old neighbour can cope with digital TV. She'd never be able to download an MP3 though. Horses for courses.

The "horses for courses" file sharing/music buying/streaming/downloading system that Scik so casually just mentioned - what the hell is that?

xpost

yes but the point is that EVEN I have no problems with acquiring music through my computer

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 13:52 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it really is horses for courses though lex. i know quite a few people (not just doddering old geriatrics) who are music fans that don't even have an internet connection.

invite only xp

t**t - oh man, this would be a good idea weirdly.

dog latin, my mon - do elucidate!

the very elite music tracker H4C

:)

in descending order of frequency:

streaming music (pandora, spotify)
purchasing mp3s (itunes, amazon mp3, emusic, etc)
listening to terrestrial radio
streaming video (youtube)
downloading artist-approved free content

I really miss:

borrowing physical music from friends

Throughout most of high school, it felt like jjj and I had joint custody of a massive CD collection.

how's life forgot Britannia Music Club.

i still use soulseek a lot :-/ a bad habit i never got out of. I think I'll prob have to stop soon and find some other method.

either youtube or what.cd

purchasing mp3s (amazon + bandcamp)
free mp3s via friends (promos etc)
streaming video (youtube, soundcloud at work)

no spotify (mostly because it's blocked at work, and these days i only listen there or in the car)

i still love soulseek, it's the quickest and easiest way to find obscuro music w/o needing secret torrent account. haven't downloaded anything in forever, though ... now it's all spotify, soundcloud, or whatever streaming albums pop up on NPR and other sites.

mostly just spotify. i've pretty much stopped putting music on my phone except for stuff i do or stuff my friends do (i.e. stuff that wouldn't be on spotify). do 90% of my music listening at work and spotify on computer is the easiest way to do that.

feel like i explained this on the other thread.

spotify for older stuff and non-dance music.
mp3s from soundcloud/beats in space type shows, etc for dance mixes
some mp3s from beatport if i've been djing or am about to soon
and some mp3s of more rare or hard to find stuff from blogs
will be buying some vinyl again soon enough too

itunes - tryin a be a good citizen, reserved for things i know im into
soundcloud/youtube - checkin a song out, jammin a sweet mix or w/e
torrents/mediafire etc - checking an album out, getting albums from the huge kanyes of the world where im not really concerned w/their finances, things that arent on itunes

purchasing mp3s (itunes, amazon mp3, emusic, etc) = new releases / pop music on demand. usually on my phone. impulse buys.
streaming music (pandora, spotify) = all types of music. lots synced on my phone. use it a lot tbh.
streaming video (youtube) = check this if i can't find what i'm looking for anywhere else. hate the sound quality. watch lots of live stuff tho.
downloading mp3s from blogs (mediafire, rapidshare, filestube) = music from around the world.
downloading mp3s via filesharing networks (soulseek, etc) = techno n that
torrenting mp3s (bit-torrent, pirate bay) = rarely do i want the whole discography of something in one go, but if i do, i'll try here
downloading artist-approved free content = yup
borrowing physical music from the library = nope
borrowing physical music from friends = yup
shoplifting physical music from stores = sometimes feels like it when i buy pristine jazz records from store down the road
listening to terrestrial radio = not for music, no, sadly
listening to satellite radio = um, no.
watching music channels on tv = you're a poor human being if you still do this

100% streaming

These conversations always make me feel a bit estranged and ascetic. I do basically none of these things, except sometimes buy or "steal" mp3s for something I already own on vinyl and love to the point where I want it portable. I've always found the possibility of grabbing any music I want out of the ether more than a little overwhelming, to the point where I don't even really know where to start. I already feel like I have too few hours per day to really listen to and enjoy music, and so many things I already own that I haven't digested enough. The last thing I want is to feel like I'm in constant "preview" mode, giving a cursory listen to a recent download to justify the time and memory I spent acquiring it. I feel silly admitting this and more than a little out of touch with the way most people who love music as much as I do digest things these days, but I've found that I need to fairly strictly limit the way I actually encounter and intake music in order to preserve what I love about listening to it. If I'm curious enough about something, based typically on strong recommendations of trusted people, or things I read, I will go ahead and buy it in my preferred format (usually vinyl, more than occasionally CD, depending on genre/availability). I realize it sounds rigid, but it's the only way I feel I can give it a "fair" listen. Also, I think having actually purchased something makes me more likely to spend time and attention on it, which ultimately leads to more satisfaction on my end.

classic tuomas up there

mp3 blogs and spotify for me

good post Clarke B

I wish I was more like that. I'd probably love things I've downloaded onto my phone a lot more if I owned the record. I heard that Lindstrom and Christabelle on vinyl at a friends house a few weeks ago and it felt like a completely different record to what I'd been listening to through headphones.

I'm quite discerning with what I buy physical copies of- quite proud of my little record collection, it's always things I really want to give a "fair listen" or things that I want to play out.

spotify subscription
private torrent site
purchase of music on cd/vinyl (cd usually ripped immediately, vinyl usually listened to on the weekend and a digital copy torrented)
podcasts/downloaded mixes/soundcloud etc
itunes/amazon/boomkat/bleep

most of these are pretty equal, I tend to use torrent stuff to preview music sometimes

Thanks, Crackle. It was actually having quite a few experiences like yours with the Lindstrom & Christabelle that cemented in my mind how much of a difference the medium makes for me, especially in those early tentative stages of getting to know a record. It sounds corny, but there's something almost sacred for me in listening to an artist or record I've been curious about for the first time.

So my new truck comes with a year subscription to sirius radio and I'm surprised at how much I like it. Heart&Soul is by far my favorite channel, but others are great too, XMU, 1st wave, backspin, shade45, the metal channels are good and the classic rock ones are too. Even spa which plays ambient is great. I think I'll pay once the free time runs out.

definitely kind of disgusting how much more reasonable the pay satellite radio stations are than the terrestrial ones

I feel very similar to Clarke B upthread. Especially with Spotify. I'm sure it's great and really good at organising your music into a profile and eventually starts working in an intuitive way, but to start I've usually found it daunting to use, the prospect of having EVERY SONG EVER at my fingertips, to the point where I find it almost debilitating wondering what I should listen to next. I guess I'm a big browser. I like to scan through my music until I find something that picks my fancy rather than thinking something up and finding it.

What you said about "justifying the time and memory I spent acquiring it" - not sure if this is the same thing, but when I owned a larger CD collection, I used to sometimes challenge myself to work out the time and place I bought a release, and often I could remember pretty well what shop and what I was doing that day. My music collection has always served as a sort of diary for me in that respect. Of course individual tracks and albums remind me of places and times by the sound alone, but with CDs I would be "ah, I remember being given that as a present" or "I remember going out and buying that on release day, and it was also the day I got my GCSE results", which are little warm moments I don't think I'll get so easily with MP3 downloads.

Try retaking your GCSEs.

What you said about "justifying the time and memory I spent acquiring it" - not sure if this is the same thing, but when I owned a larger CD collection, I used to sometimes challenge myself to work out the time and place I bought a release, and often I could remember pretty well what shop and what I was doing that day. My music collection has always served as a sort of diary for me in that respect. Of course individual tracks and albums remind me of places and times by the sound alone, but with CDs I would be "ah, I remember being given that as a present" or "I remember going out and buying that on release day, and it was also the day I got my GCSE results", which are little warm moments I don't think I'll get so easily with MP3 downloads.

― This Is... The Police (dog latin), Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:02 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've always done this; it's something I love about my collection. A good handful of my used LPs still have the stickers on them showing me what I paid, which for certain things I bought long ago can be funny given how much they're going for these days. I also sort of re-live the thrill of finding something especially rare or wanted-by-me when I play the record. I'd say it's definitely still more "about the music" for me, and I try not to be overly sentimental with these things, but I can't deny that it's part of the fun.

Torrent, Youtube, Spotify, iTunes.

I was bought the David Byrne and St Vincent album on vinyl (came with a CD as well, which was very cool + handy for me) for my birthday this weekend. I think if I'd simply downloaded it, I'd have probably given it a quick flick through the individual tracks, 30 secs each, and put it in the "to go back to pile", but as such I've had it on the turntable non-stop because, well it's just there isn't it? It being on the turntable means it has less other music to jostle around with and I can give it a bit more attention. The nature of vinyl means I'm also more liekly to listen to at least a whole side all the way through. And strangely with vinyl, I fidn myself playing an album more than once in a row, which rarely ever happens with MP3.

I usually stream to test stuff out, then get it on mp3 if I like it. Even in the post-physical world I still like to feel like I 'own' a piece of music.

if you think we've been mocking you try saying this nonsense to a 19-yr-old music fan

xp

dude, you can't even turn a tv on, so...

i am not pretending that says anything about anything apart from my technological incompetence

"we" have not "lost" anything by my inability to work a remote control

I haven't really discovered much new music I really love from sirius radio, (aside from R&B) but I have caught up on a lot of indie I had never heard before. Vampire weekend, animal collective, Purity Ring. I hardly ever look up music on youtube, I'm not already invested in, so sirius has been a great way to hear music I never would seek out on my own. Their jazz stations could use djs who dig deeper.

i'm currently around 80% spotify 20% downloading from secret underground music-sharing webrings

i do buy records i like sometimes but almost never before i've heard them

My music collection has always served as a sort of diary for me in that respect. Of course individual tracks and albums remind me of places and times by the sound alone, but with CDs I would be "ah, I remember being given that as a present" or "I remember going out and buying that on release day, and it was also the day I got my GCSE results", which are little warm moments I don't think I'll get so easily with MP3 downloads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE

I'm not denigrating mp3s or downloads at all. 90% of my listening is via digital and I like it that way. I'm only saying what works for me, and recently I've been rediscovering physical formats. There's no shame in saying that.

oh man, i remember when i added this album to my spotify playlist. it was that day someone mentioned it on an ilx thread.

if you think we've been mocking you try saying this nonsense to a 19-yr-old music fan

xp

― lex pretend, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:13 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Personally, I try and not let the imagined disbelief and mockery of hypothetical 19 year olds dictate how I feel about anything...

lol u old

lol u 19

the prospect of having EVERY SONG EVER

wish people would stop saying this about digital music services cuz it isn't even close to true and probably never will be

personally i would mock the idea of one's sacredwarmfuzzy moments deriving from the format rather than y'know the actual lived experience of hearing the music, regardless of what format it's on. the people i was with and the things i was doing or just how the song made me feel. these things have nothing to do with whether i'm listening on a cd or streaming it off soundcloud.

The format is part of the lived experience, though. I guarantee that plenty of 19 year olds will grow up and look fondly back on whatever medium they're using now to listen to music. It's unecessarily hostile to portray that harmless sentimentality in such a negative way.

yep they're all going to be pining for their iphones one day

wish people would stop saying this about digital music services cuz it isn't even close to true and probably never will be

it is more like "the prospect of having EVERY SONG I CARE ABOUT EVER" for at least 75% of the people out there

yeah that's more accurate

spotify, soulseek (older stuff mostly), youtube, itunes store purchases (newer stuff mostly)

yep they're all going to be pining for their iphones one day

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:55 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I genuinely believe this!

I was agreeing with you

I'm so old I can't even tell anymore

iphone themed fleshlights by 2025

soulseek is so amazing for finding obscure limited-release avant-garde/experimental stuff

Xposts Well I just wrote a fairly lengthy defence/riposte to ronan and lex but my iPhone lost it (what's wrong with a pen and paper etc etc). But Clarke B pretty much summed it up above anyway. For me, personally, I think there's nothing wrong with admitting a certain attachment to the medium and acquirement of said medium and how all the external influences that may affect one's attitude towards the music I choose (and choose not) to listen to are as important as the essential absorption of sound. As a human being my enjoyment of music is drastically informed by even the slightest of conditions, and the format does play into that. If this doesn't apply to you, then more power to ya, but context, setting, experience, time and space all matter, and that's before I've even hit play.

a mix of purchasing digital music and torrenting. I should support the artists I like more than I do, but just grabbing an album from a torrent site is just so ridiculously easy and fast that it's hard to resist sometimes.

There unfortunately don't seem to be much decent streaming options in Canada. I would definitely use something like spotify a lot.

it's interesting that lex thinks memory can (should?) be somehow divorced from physical artifacts

When people say they like vinyl or CDs because they like to have something they can hold in their hands, or they like the artwork, or they prefer the sound, or they feel some ritualistic attachment in getting up an putting a record on, they're not lying or trying to be stick-in-the-muds. It's not necessarily related to nostalgia either - I thought vinyl fans were simply fetishists, weirdos and codgers for a very long time until a friend came round with a record player one day and started cranking out tunes. Since owning a record player only about a year ago, I can safely say that were I given the choice of listening to an album on mp3 through decent speakers or through my cheap little portable and its internal speakers, I'd genuinely have a hard time choosing.

I do feel like a fetishist sometimes, to be fair. I spent about an hour and a half the other week mounting and aligning a new cartridge on my turntable. But I like it! It's fun to do stuff with your hands. Lex is like the guy who would tell a whittler, "Look at you, you smug weenie with your little knife set; don't you know you can buy a miniature Indian chief head and a wooden piccolo at the store?"

Dog Latin, just wait and see how much more you love your records when you start playing around with a more serious setup... That's the thing for me; sure, it's sentimental to some degree for all the reasons we've been discussing, but it's really about sound. I honestly don't understand how to think about "the music itself" without at least some vital relationship to the way it's being presented...

I'm gonna sound like an old man here, but being obsessed with music before the internet, you had anticipate music and look harder. One record would last me for months. Almost all of the music I bought through mail order was stuff I had never heard and didn't really know what to expect. Reading catalogs and sales list, waiting for the record to arrive. It was fun. I still spend quite a bit of money on used record, most of which, i dunno 65% of I still have never heard before. And if I didn't track down these records I would never hear them, since there still is A LOT of music that can't be found on any of the means in this poll. I don't understand how the format is irrelevant or why it should be, Records are fun. Maybe lex just doesn't have the collector spirit in him.

Vinyl is awesome but not for these weird misplaced nostalgia reasons. Great sound, proper pitch control mainly

Comes with issues too tho, especially if you've little space, not gonna criticise digital...often not been in a situation I can play vinyl

I'm not saying records are The format to listen to music on. Mostly I listen to music in my truck since I'm always on the road, split between my ipod, which is mostly ripped records and the other half is sirius radio.

I have this weird thing where I don't like to take music for free unless it's a) old/out-of-print and/or b) made by people who don't need my money (lookin at you, Neil Young). so when I purchase music it comes down to what I enjoy purchasing/owning - which is records. For example I usually allot myself $25/month to spend on books/comics/music/whatever and while there are new things I want to purchase (Frank Ocean, Miguel, new Moon Duo) I have yet to be able to bring myself to just buy them from iTunes, since I would much prefer going to a store to buy a record (I dunno if there even is vinyl for Miguel; Channel Orange isn't out on vinyl yet). So I haven't bought anything yet this month.

There are many physical possessions I have a particular affection for because they remind me of different points in my life but my old CDs aren't really among them, even the ones I've owned since I was like 16. Conversely there are books I own that are battered from previous adventures that I'd hate to have to part with, even though I could buy a brand new edition if I wanted.

Yeah, I'm way less sentimental towards CDs than vinyl. Records have been part of my life since I was really little, and my mom used to take me record shopping with her every week or so, and she's buy me a few 45s or an album that I wanted. I still have all those, and I have all the records my mom has passed along to me over the years, too. On a very real level these are physical artefacts from my past, from my family; it's not this stubborn fetishization.

i had no idea people still used slsk or that it was still even functional

Probably about 50% artist-approved free content, 25% purchased mp3s, 25% slsk for me. I've flat out refused to buy music from major labels for a couple years now and wish nothing but death and dismemberment upon them. I also listen to vinyl when I feel like pulling it out and radio in my truck because that's all it has. I hate streaming if I can download and nine times out of ten won't even listen if I can't download, although I use soundcloud and youtube to preview and share music. Like I said on the other thread, it's been a while since I've owned a CD player.

btw Shakey, there is Miguel vinyl

I've severely curtailed my torrenting of MP3s, there was a day when I would do that all day long, but I have a library of 230GB of music most of which i barely ever listen to. If i go to listen to an album i used to physically own that i don't have anymore I'll torrent that but that's more or less it. Streaming has gotten pretty good the past few years, the idea of 'collecting' MP3s (which was a big part of my 2k consumption) has lost it's novelty. Sometimes it's easier to just type in "Cure Pornography Full Album" on youtube than to look for it on my hd.

Vinyl is how i started and i don't see it going away anytime. I inherited my parents' really awesome collections when i was a teenager in the 90s and then started buying up $1 records like mad when i first got into thrift stores. I still go thrift shopping a couple times a month, and have found plenty of amazing finds for under $5. One time i found a copy of the Silver Apples LP for a buck. It was beat up and had plenty of skips in it, but it's still a pretty amazing find. I think one of my best recent finds was original pressings of "Another Green World" and "You Made Me Realize" both for 2 dollars.

I can't see ever buying a CD again, unless it's a DIY band which has nothing else to offer. Amazed that slsk is still around!

youtube is shitty quality tho

You found You Make Me Realize for $2?????!!! Wow.

They also had the very first Flaming Lips self-titled record in colored vinyl. God bless that Last Chance Thrift Store.

Once i was at a Goodwill and kept finding OG Beatles vinyls and records were 99cents at the time. There was some middle aged record collector dude also looking through stuff and he got his hands on a Butcher Album and i was so insanely jealous.

The shops in East Atlanta are pretty good for finding some amazing vintage black gospel too. The kind of stuff you just don't see on CDs.

Spotify and Youtube.

The albums/tracks I LOVE, I either buy the cd or mp3s, cuz mobile Spotify kinda sucks.

I don't think I've bought any 'physical' music for about 7 years or more

I haven't bought physical music since 2007, if you don't count very occasional thrift store/yard sale record finds.

Trying something on Spotify before buying on iTunes is my most common method now. It's the equivalent of an old record-shop listening booth (not that I'm old enough to remember booths). I like the sense of commitment. I hear a song and if I really like it I want them to have more than the 0.000001p (or whatever) they'd get from that Spotify play.

like vinyl, dislike kneejerk nostalgia.

how do determine whether nostalgia is kneejerk or not?

when it exists independently of the remembered subject

What about kneejerk anti-nostalgia?

... You appear to be defining all nostalgia as kneejerk, because I'm not sure how it can exist independently of the thing you're being nostalgic about.

I prefer balljerk nostalgia

... You appear to be defining all nostalgia as kneejerk, because I'm not sure how it can exist independently of the thing you're being nostalgic about.

it's not difficult to conceive that somebody might be prone to nostalgia, and the merits of demerits of a given thing may then be less relevant.

Why is nostalgia bad? Why is newness good?

nostalgia isn't bad!

Why is kneejerk nostalgia bad? (I know kneejerk anything is bad... or rubbish at the least.)

can you really not think of how that might be bad? people fawning over things that weren't actually better?

i'm not even talking about vinyl, just the general sense on these series of threads that some people would wistfully pine for their happy days in a gulag.

I don't really get that vibe though; and almost anyone who's getting near that vibe is saying, quite candidly, 'this is just my preference'.

i don't expect everyone to agree.

can you really not think of how that might be bad? people fawning over things that weren't actually better?

i'm not even talking about vinyl, just the general sense on these series of threads that some people would wistfully pine for their happy days in a gulag.

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Friday, 12 October 2012 15:40 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure if this is referring to my earlier posts (probably is), but I think I've explained my standpoint on this pretty thoroughly. The only kneejerk thing about it seems to be your own reaction to people enthusing about anything from the past, even if they qualify this by saying they also have plenty of time for their current equivalent. Not everything from the past is a "gulag".

nostalgia isn't bad!

The sticking point here is "weren't actually better" and the presumption that you can call BS on someone's own highly personal rememberance of an already personal past

did anyone even do that? you can do what you like, but what i call bs on is extrapolating that highly personal nostalgia into society-wide trends as though it's a thing that "we" do

lex, half your steez on this board could be pretty much boiled down to you mapping your personal preferences and experiences into universal and absolute 'truths'.

I prefer to listen to clean vinyl and/or high bitrate files, but use Spotify a lot. My last apartment move involved me both getting injured and then fired because of the sheer weight of the vinyl.

Starting to wonder why I keep it.

Carrying milkcrates up and down 3 flights of stairs lead to a sprained ankle and missing a week of work.

So I got a new apartment and a new job at the same time.

The sticking point here is "weren't actually better" and the presumption that you can call BS on someone's own highly personal rememberance of an already personal past

all completely subjective, i agree.

You're selling the gulag short a little, it's hard to look at a loaf of bread on my table and not think that something has been lost. I'm just not sure we appreciate it as much now we don't have to fight five other prisoners for it.

Once something happened.

also, lex assuming youth are just like him and that he has an eternal handle on the teenage mind

Teenagers, as a general rule, do not tend to be interested in obsolete or declining technology. Or paying for things when they don't have to.

The kind of ironclad Popism I dislike seems to take the honorable notion that "maybe teenagers aren't all stupid and maybe there's something worth paying attention to in what they like" and turns it into this sort of weird deification of the teenage mindset.

I was a fucking prick when I was a teenager. 17 year olds are the most disgusting savages in the world.

It's not deification, it's realism. People who have grown up with the internet are as unlikely to be interested in CDs even when they're older and wiser than 20-somethings were in buying VHS tapes.

They're more likely to be buying digital music rather than stealing it, and vinyl junkies will be around for a while yet, although they're a minority.

slsk

It's something you get in all debates about new technology. Someone always takes the line "but won't people miss that?" Which people when? Certainly not the people who were born too late to have anything.to miss, because they were busy enjoying other things.

you mean people who have grown up with the post-2000 internet

processors used to suck at decoding/encoding highly-compressed formats and bandwidth sucked

Most of the people who grew up with the post-2000 internet are now in the age range that used to be considered the main record buying demographic. Not sure the fact they had a dial-up connection when they were six or seven is particularly relevant.

very true

most of my home music listening and new music consumption is streaming now: Spotify, Bandcamp, DatPiff, etc. part of it's just a logistical preference -- I use multiple computers I use at different times for different purposes, so it's a pain in the ass to try and get the same files on all those computers, or keep the iPod sync'd up with the main computer that i put most of my iTunes library on, etc. plus I basically ran out of room on said computer a long time ago so I end up having to delete stuff to make room for every new acquisition.

3-4 years ago I was still buying CDs on the reg, as well as buying lots of digital music on eMusic, Amazon, etc. but the reality of parenthood, THE ECONOMY etc. put an end to that. i hope that someday i will have discretionary income to spend on at least my favorite music someday, but for now i'm living in the cloud and on the cheap.

was somewhat surprised to read someone like french montana is making like $60k in a year from Rhapsody, with other 70 or 80 for his label. i don't even know anyone who uses rhapsody.

*with another

my answer is overwhelmingly "downloading artist-approved free content" via rap mixtapes followed by whatever downloading dance mixes is.

when you turn up the volume, mp3s sound not good.

eq helps a ton, though

like right now an mp3 of "karvel" by bjork almost made me jump out of my chair due to some extreme EQing left over from the previous track

deification of teenagers by people too old to know is a ludicrous ilx staple, but i agree with matt on this particular topic, loosely.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

These results kind of bear out my concerns that lead to the first thread - i.e. that people who consume digital music by and large don't pay for it. Only approx 15% of voters in this poll pay for MP3s, and even those who stream legitimately (and pay subscription, which we've sadly not got breakdown of)... Well, we know the revenue models of streaming services, and they're not working for artists at the moment. Now you may say that ILM isn't a representative sample, but I'd be shocked if 90% of voters didn't identify as both serious music fans and law-abiding citizens who believe in fair pay for fair work. I doubt a wider sample taking this poll would reveal a higher proportion of people paying full price for all their digital music. My worry is that if the economics of the music industry erode any further, we'll be left with a less creative and fascinating industry, and we'd all be worse off for that.

i didn't vote in this because my digital means of consumption is spread fairly evenly over a number of options, which i'm guessing is true for most others as well

btw nick i'm not sure we needed an ilm poll to tell us that the Music Industry Is Dying, it's kind of been a thing for a while now

Just because we're all aware of it doesn't mean the message doesn't need reiterating every so often. I think it's quite important!

Only approx 15% of voters in this poll pay for MP3s

That may not be completely right cos we're talking about primary means of acquisition here. Not will results be affected because people can only vote for one option, but the results will be skewed somewhat as it's easier to listen to more music through Soulseek, Youtube, Spotify, than it is to acquire it through purchase. Technically, more music might be being bought than ever before but this could be equally and exponentially matched by people accessing even more music through non-traditional / free means.

Yeah, that's a fair enough point, and an ILX poll can never be sophisticated enough to pull out data that you could use to form anything more substantial than a hunch. There's something about the word 'acquisition' in the poll question which makes me think that this poll isn't just about how we listen to music mostly (raw hours is probably streaming digital radio at work for me, although today I'm in the office alone and playing MP3s [ripped from CDs I own] off my iPhone).

The ontology behind this whole question is very complex and touches on ethics and environmental issues (I had a CD of music I already own air-mailed to me from Japan, ffs, think of the airmiles). There is no satisfactory answer or conclusion or approach; simpyk, what you're happiest / most comfortable with doing as an individual. Which feels a little too late-period capitalism relativist to me.

The ontology behind this whole question is very complex and touches on ethics and environmental issues (I had a CD of music I already own air-mailed to me from Japan, ffs, think of the airmiles).

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a jumbo jet filled with CDs. (There are or were I believe actual people who eschewed the usual digital transport mechanisms of torrent etc in favour of mailing hard drives full of music.)

lol. some guy coming up to me at a party a couple years ago, asking "do you want all the music in the world?" He then whipped a hard-drive out of his trench-coat and offered to let me grab anything I wanted off it. There was some classic rock that I probably would have grabbed, but it was far from "all the music in the world". The red flags on it were a lot of trance and a very complete Incubus discography, so I politely disengaged from the conversation.

The circumstances around that were that I had stopped into the party on the way back from Best Buy and had a new external drive outside in my car.

Pretty stupid story, I guess.

"all the music in the world" is great

some guy coming up to me at a party a couple years ago, asking "do you want all the music in the world?

Last time this happened to me, my nose turned into a sausage and my wife ended up hacked to pieces whilst still inconceivably alive inside a wooden box.

what?

you heard

I remember some discussions I had with friends in the late 90s-early 00s (when file sharing became really big) wondering how long it would be until there were people who basically had all of recorded music released throughout history on a single hard drive. And then they could just go out and sell copies of "all music" for 10 bucks or whatever to people on the street. Fun times (with drugs).

Yeah my friend once had bought a similar hd off someone with 'all the music in the world', alot of which i copied, most of which now sits on DVD+Rs and have never been listened to. I think the dream of personally amassing every song ever was kind of something in the early 2k's but thank god for streaming and youtube and the sheer reality seeping in of how laughably impossible that would be.

why would anyone want all the music in the world when 99% of it is guaranteed not to appeal to you at all. And your spouse ends up in pieces in a box too.

To futilely bat back at the looming specter of mortality?

there was definitely a thing people did in the napster days where sometimes you'd come across something you weren't really that interested in but figured you might be at some point in the future so you just downloaded it, since who knew if this would be easy to find in the future if ever you really wanted it.

Basically something like "oooh, this guy is sharing Frank Zappa's entire discography. I don't really know anything about Frank Zappa but some people seem to really like him. I better download this just in case."

kind of wonder if there's an overlap between that and the people who think they need their whole music collection on their ipod with them at all times

Props to the shoplifter.

I kind of assume that was Scot S.

there was definitely a thing people did in the napster days where sometimes you'd come across something you weren't really that interested in but figured you might be at some point in the future so you just downloaded it, since who knew if this would be easy to find in the future if ever you really wanted it.

Basically something like "oooh, this guy is sharing Frank Zappa's entire discography. I don't really know anything about Frank Zappa but some people seem to really like him. I better download this just in case."

― silverfish, Monday, 15 October 2012 16:19 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kind of wonder if there's an overlap between that and the people who think they need their whole music collection on their ipod with them at all times

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Monday, 15 October 2012 16:21 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Semi guilty of both these things at one point or another? The latter happens when I suddenly HAVE to listen to, I dunno, O Superman or something RIGHT HERE NOW or else I'll have a mini breakdown right there on platform 9.

I did that with a 5GB package of Sunn O)))) several years ago. Still haven't listened to it all yet.

I once downloaded a torrent of all albums released by Soul Jazz. This was at least 7 years ago. I've listened to maybe a third of it.

5GBs?? I know they've been around a while but that sounds excessive...

weren't you getting all snobby about formats earlier? everyone knows you have to listen to sunn o))) in uncompressed aiff

lex's essentialism/New Criticism model of music is so weird coming from him imo

kind of wonder if there's an overlap between that and the people who think they need their whole music collection on their ipod with them at all times

a lot of friends were big on this at the time ipods first came about, and seemed to have "filling" their ipod as a goal, ie they'd share music via hard drives or go to someone's house and get a load of shit seemingly without great amounts of thought.

personally i've never really felt the need to have more than a 20gb device, and can easily manage with 16gb or a lot less than that really. i like an ipod where i can shuffle it and not flick past stuff.

A friend was visiting at the weekend and was keen to check out some new music so I pointed him at my external hard drive. 10 minutes later: "Cool, I just copied 40GB over from your Music directory!". I get that he's not going to listen to all of it but I can't imagine putting much value in a massive music dump - like, there's a load of rubbish on there as well as good stuff, where do you start?

My 30gig ipod was usually full to bursting point, I didn't use shuffle very often but you never know when you're going to want to listen to something.

This has become less of an issue in the era of Spotify and smartphones, obviously. There's a fraction of the amount of music on my phone.

I mean it was all stuff I liked, I never bothered to just copy a load of music off someone's hard drive.

A friend tried to "trade music" with me like this last year and I was like, are you friggin kidding me, I am not going to copy this hard drive of your "cool tunes" and then dump the same from my library. I'm gonna give you a handful of albums you might like.

Her man ended up hooking her up with a turntable/stereo setup at her new place and I've loaned her a few albums on vinyl and she's listened to the few things I selected that she might like a hell of a lot more. Very few people actually can just throw some large chunk of digital music into a random playlist or whatever and really get much out of it.

"you never know when you're going to want to listen to something" is kind of a misreading of the opportunities that technology has given us by making access to a lot of recorded music omnipresent

so much at our fingertips and the situation we feel it best addresses is instant gratification of our whims

kind of wonder if there's an overlap between that and the people who think they need their whole music collection on their ipod with them at all times

I did not know until I had completely filled my ipod that it was possible to choose which files went on it. I rarely have more than 10 albums at a time on there now. It occasionally sucks when I'm somewhere away from my computer and I'm not in the mood for any of the albums I'd "packed" for the day, but it beats the hell out of having to scroll past hundreds of albums and artists that I don't want to listen to at all and may not have listened to in years.

instant gratification of my whims is AWESOME and i wish for more of it

I quite like delay of gratification and the heightened state it can induce, actually.

To travel hopefully is better than to arrive, and all that.

maybe that's why you give a shit about bits of plastic

lol

lex's essentialism/New Criticism model of music is so weird coming from him imo

i don't have a model of music! stop ~putting me into boxes~

"you never know when you're going to want to listen to something" is kind of a misreading of the opportunities that technology has given us by making access to a lot of recorded music omnipresent

so much at our fingertips and the situation we feel it best addresses is instant gratification of our whims

This is kind of a misreading of what I said. I mean obviously the best thing is access to huge swathes of music you'd previously have had to hunt around for months for. But the joy of wanting to listen to a song on the way home from a pub and knowing you have it with you should not be underestimated.

Cosign on the pub-walk.

Lex, I've got huge amounts of time for you, but you do an awesome job of caricaturing yourself, never mind anyone else putting you in boxes!

disclaimers: 1. this probably isn't the best thread to put this but i don't know where else to post it, 2. it seems like an obvious point so it's probably been mentioned before but i haven't seen anyone else say it, and 3. i am not arguing that spotify has a "fair" payment scheme, because that's a complicated question and i don't know what fair payment for music is exactly.

but

in the ongoing discussion about how musicians get paid for music (in the grizzly bear thread re: nitsuh's article, for example) i keep seeing comparisons of how much musicians get paid for spotify streams vs. how much they get paid for radio play. this irritates me because it's a false equivalency:
* a spotify play is a play to one person. a radio play is a play to thousands of people. so of course you get paid more for a radio play
* almost all of the musicians on spotify are musicians who aren't getting radio play anyways, and wouldn't have been even 20 years ago, aside from maybe occasional college radio play.

basically, please stop talking about spotify and radio payments like they are somehow equivalent and comparable

yeah but you could make the argument that spotify payments should be more because it's on-demand and you can listen to it as often as you want

and the musician gets paid each time you listen to it

To define the amount of money you get from Spotify as "payment" sort of stretches the definition of that term

it's a consideration