I was reading over on lolo’s site about how he feels guilty for downloading all his music, and never buying it.

I’ve gone through those same pangs of guilt, and trust me lolo, they pass. Don’t go doing anything rash by blowing your money on CD’s.

The last time I let the guilt take over, I bought what was for a me a rash of CD’s over several months in 2003. It was somewhat sparked by me chatting with an old high-school friend. We always used to share music recommendations (and in fact, he introduced me to my Big 3 Artists - but that’s a story for a different time), and we quickly fell back into the same dynamic after not speaking for a few years. I ended up buying the following, before I got it back under control and stopped.

That was it, until 2004 when “Smile” by Brian Wilson was released, which obviously had to be purchased. “Smile” is the only album I can think of I’ve purchased recently specifically for the purpose lolo talks of when he says he wants to somewhat “endorse” an artist. I simply couldn’t believe that Brian Wilson was actually doing it, and couldn’t stand the thought of it flopping. So I felt I had to do my part.

I didn’t buy another CD after “Smile” until this month, when I bought “69 Love Songs” by The Magnetic Fields. It’s a three CD set, and so far, I haven’t played any of the actual CD’s. I just read the liner notes (which contain an extensive interview with S. Merritt) and then put it on the shelf.

I guess the way I’ve rationalized it to myself is somewhat a bastardization of a point Robert Fripp used to make. A musicians job is to play music, not to play it once, record it, and live off it forever. I consider going to actual shows to be supporting the artist, and that a CD shouldn’t be any more important than any other promotional tool.

Not only that, I don’t really like CD’s anymore. They seem quaint. They occupy too much space for the amount of music they hold. You can damage them really easily. You can only listen to a little more than an hour of music before you have to change CD’s. I know it’s going to come off as sheer iPOD snobbery, but really, once you have one you CANNOT even think of going back. Since receiving my iPOD and more recently my first Mac, I’ve become and unabashed Apply fan-boy, so take that for whatever disclaimer you want.

I still buy CD’s when I know the liner notes contain something I want, or when I really can’t fathom an album by a band I like flopping. But I don’t do it because of guilt. If you aren’t going to some crazy indie store, or buying your CD’s out of the artists van, you aren’t doing that much to really support them anyway. An easy way to check if the artist you are attempting to support actually *needs* support or not, is to search MTV.com. If the artist has a page there, keep your money unless you just absolutely love the artist (such as my Brian Wilson buy) and simply must have the actual CD.

The caveat to all that, that really destroys my own internal reasoning, is that I’ve spent countless hundreds of dollars on used vinyl LP’s in the last few years. They are bulkier than CD’s, usually somewhat damaged as soon as I get them, and contain even less music than a CD. And while many of them have indeed been recorded, cleaned up, and placed on the iPOD, vinyl is stil a pursuit relatively removed from my day to day listening habits. It’s more like treasure hunting. I can’t imagine stopping. Since I’ve moved out of my old apartment, I don’t even have a turntable hooked up, and I have boxes and crates of records occupying most of the free space in my room simply because I don’t trust putting them in storage. But that didn’t stop me from spending $20 a piece on two 12 inch first release singles from the UK. (Chris Raven’s “I Know You Love Me Too”, and the Thrillseekers/Binary Finary Remixes of Ascenion’s “Someone” - because I’m still a big Trance nerd at heart.) I haven’t played them, just bagged them, tagged them, and stuck them into their spot in the crates.

Oh, and just so you know…most of the vinyl I buy is not electronic stuff. Those are just two big tracks for me that I had to have. Although my vinvyl obsession did start in the electronic realm, my non-electronic collection has since overwhelmingly dwarfed my “electronic” records.

So anyway, to wrap this mess up, I say go to the shows, live music is what it’s about anyway. I’d rather support them by watching them do their jobs, rather than furthering the idea that recording success are the be all end all of an artists career. And start an obsessive compulsive habit of buying records you’ve never heard for $2 used, on vinyl. It’s great fun.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 29th, 2005 at 11:04 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.