Who still buys music?

[Alistair]

I'm a neat freak. All of the CDs laying around pushes my buttons. I like having all my songs in one device.

I just downloaded another Shinedown album last night.

 

[talbot57]

I do. Within the past few days, I've received 3 Enya CDs and, in March, I received a new Jean-Michel Jarre and a new Mike Oldfield CD.

I don't have anything to download music to or play it on. No cell phone. No apps. No earbuds. Only my CD player.

I bought a Jean-Michel Jarre CD recently. It was from the London concert (Destination Docklands), brought back memories of a great night, even though the heavens opened.

 

[Essex Boy]

I got this LP for my birthday when I was twelve. I played it over and over and over and over. Then when I had enough money I bought volume 2. For about the last 15 years I haven't had a record player but I invested in a new one last year and now I'm looking on Discogs and Fleabay for a mint or near mint copy of volume 3 to complete the collection at long last. I could get all three on CDs or just listen to them on YouTube (it's all there) but it just ain't the same! Vinyl is what my generation grew up with, and shopping for LPs, handling them, reading the sleeve notes etc. is all part of the experience. You have more respect for something that you have to go out and find and hand over cash for and which needs to be looked after.

One of the biggest losses with dowloads is the cover art. There are classic covers, just as there are great posters or book jackets. When I started work I had a friend who introduced me to early an early music group called Studio der frühen Musik, who had already disbanded but their LPs were still about, and they were expensive German imports, the EMI "Reflexe" series. I remember paying £5.25 for them in the early 1980s, when lunch in a London sandwich bar cost about £2. We both collected them and we used to lend each other our latest finds so that we could tape them (we worked for a music publisher so we officially frowned on that sort of thing). But the thing is, even though I had a free bootleg recording I still went out and got the LP when I could afford it. The sleeves had very distinctive surrealist images. They're quite famous.

Many years later they were all made available for a limited period on CD, with the original cover art, and when they were deleted I bought a few favourites for a fraction of what we paid for those LPs. But guess what, I still prefer to play the vinyl. Never get rid of your vinyl collection--it's not just the music that holds the memories, it's the whole package. And that includes the smell of the cardboard and the inner sleeve with the plastic liner! Very important, that part.

 

[Essex Boy]

About the current vinyl revival. I've heard that some record companies when you buy an LP give you a unique password which allows you to get the download, so you can keep the LP sealed in its original shrink-wrap in mint condition while you listen to it on your little MP-thingy whatsit.

 

[gsdx]

Amazon is OK, but it just doesn't have the same feeling.

Or smell, and that smell changed with every format change.

 

[Ontariobear]

double post

 

[Ontariobear]

I get the neat freak issue. We have a revolving shelving unit that takes up 18" X 18" of floorspace, houses just over 1,000 CDs, sitting a couple feet away from the stereo stand. Problem solved. It was my birthday present after we moved. Sorting out the old vinyl and getting the turntable grounded and connected is next.

I have a couple hundred hours of music (uploaded) on the phone, great for flights, but just not my daily thing.

 

[USEDCAR]

I have an mp3 player that i loaded with music from the 80s 90s and early 00s. I downloaded them when torrents were popular. Sometimes i can just pin point a song i like instead of dealing with streaming.


I wouldn't pay a dime for the current hip hop and rap today.


But if need be i buy my music off Amazon.