this idea that when you download music, your connection/attachment/memories related to the music are less then if you went and bought it

the only value is, as you intimate, you can listen to stuff and make your mind up whether you want to take the chance and spend money on it, though in that respect i'm still the old-fashioned buffer who prefers listening to them on headphones in the shop and making my mind up that way.

the thing i worry just as much about with mp3s is that the sound is shittier than any other mediums. cds i already found plasticky often, and too sterile compared to vinyl (which might make me old fashioned i know) but the mp3s are even more compressed and compacted than any other audio format. i worry that people dont care about this. its cool in a way as it makes things sound 'new' or 'different' at least, and ipods are convenient, but a lot of range gets lost when convered to mp3 (esp with a lower bit rate). im disheartened noone but rabid audiophiles seem bothered about this.

I like owning records and CDs, always will probably, I grew up with them after all. But most of my memories and attachments formed to songs not to objects, and MP3s haven't affected that. As for getting to know - I tend to make compilation CDs and listen to them intensively so I feel I still get very familiar with most of the songs I download. I don't often download albums because I'm hardly interested in albums now: I probably download a 70 minute CD's worth of stuff per week, on average. This rate of consumption doesn't seem excessive compared to the number of albums lots of people buy.

(The only actual OBJECTS I used keep for sentimental reasons are a couple of old Smiths cassettes, I think I've got rid of them now though.)

Also, more of a connection when you're broke and can only afford so many albums a year, so if you take a risk on something you are initially disappointed with, you'll force yourself to like it. At least kids used to do that. I doubt they do that with mp3s.

I did this when I was in my teens. It resulted in my forcing myself to like some complete shite (The Wonder Stuff!!) so I'm not that nostalgic about it.

ah yes, the old "trusting the nme" mindset. never a wise thing to do, at any time.

If the mp3s have been ripped straight from CD at 128, 192 or 256kbps or higher, is it really that bad? Usually there is no reason for a barely noticeable loss to really matter to people because of the most common situations for them to be listening to it. I think it's a problem for DJs and playback through PA systems sure, but not much else.

I'm much more bothered about digital TV compression right now.

I mean it's not totally impossible that if I listened 50 times to the Kaiser Chiefs CD I'd end up liking it, but it's not likely.

xpost

(oh dear)

Q.

i can remember my first 45 (well, my dad bought it for me at my request) which was sugar sugar by the archies in '69, but for the life of me i cannot remember what the first cd i bought was except it would have been 1990 or thereabouts and something that i couldn't get in any other format.

I bought the EP it came from as well, on vinyl.

i was, in truth, a little embarrassed, my room gave nothing away at all, no clues to who lived there.

i'm not entirely sure how i feel about this, though i like the sense of mobility, of readyness, of being unencumbered (while knowing everything is safe, elsewhere)

there are around 40 records i could never part with, and its not necessarily to do with the music either, but a sense of 'something', great artifacts, great to look at, to hold. but my listening had for a long time already been converted into cdr mix style chunks

it also struck me, that many of my favourite records (loopzone's natural high) i have never owned on vinyl, cd OR mp3, but only as part of a mixtape. many of my favourite tracks, i dont know who they are, what they are called, they are simply snippets on mixtapes. i'll probably never know

as someone who has a lot of music on battered mixtapes with rambling sound quality, and possibly rubbish mc-ing over the top, i dont really care about fidelity, im not an audiophile

records can be great. cds can be great. i dont think they're better though, not inherently anyway. but a great artifact is still great to hold, to look at. an mp3 is just as good though, which is why i mp3 out-of-print stuff, and pop it on slsk

this bothers me, people thinking these things are all 'free'.

99 of these 100 albums are likely to be rubbish, however.

this bothers me, people thinking these things are all 'free'.

well, they ARE free now ! so why bother paying... I dunno if this free downloading economic system can keep going like that...

That said, I do prefer to have the physical object at home.

no, you don't pay anything but that's different from them being free.

why bother paying? because musicians need to eat too. it'd be different if they were giving these things away themselves but they aren't 99% of the time, someone else is, someone who doesn't have the right to.

> I dunno if this free downloading economic system can keep going like that...

exactly. nobody seems to be thinking about tomorrow. they are overfishing.

kids today... 8)

I never buy CDs anymore, ever, I have bought one since I got broadband, and that was cos I got a HMV voucher as a present. I do buy alot of vinyl though so my conscience is clear.

I think this doesn't necessarily distribute the money fairly, ie I am more likely to buy a piece of vinyl if I haven't downloaded it already, but in a way this means bigger artists lose out, and smaller ones get my cash.

yes, on other threads i've said that 'digital media' will get there, it just isn't there yet, and the people taking the brunt of it are the suppliers (who i don't feel a lot of sympathy for, tbh) and the creators (which i do), which doesn't seem fair. itunes etc has helped, but that's just a different breed of suppliers, who's to say they'll be any better?

plus what Marcello said above about a record being more than just the music. i will miss that.

Well, I'm not sure these "objects" will disappear. As far as I'm concerned, despite broadband and heavy d/ling, I probably buy as many, if not more, cds/lps as I used to. ILMers may be atypical in that sense, but I'm not sure that "fickle" kids only listening to mp3s are less attached than they would have been in the lp/cd age. These people who probably only have been listening to the radio.
I guess people older than 25 are a transition generation who hasn't really assimilated the proper filtering mechanisms or identification patterns with digital music, but I don't see why kids growing up today would inherently be less attached to music.