Skip to main content

I've Stopped Buying Music.

The following post is a comment I left in response to a Mashable post, Why Are People Still Buying CDs? by Todd Wasserman.

I've stopped buying music, full stop (with one exception). I used to be a collector of music and would look forward to buying CDs of favorite songs as well as trying out the full albums of bands that seemed to consistently appear on my radar. I must be one of the few that enjoys buying a band's album not knowing if I'll like the songs that weren't singles. I haven't bought a CD in years with one exception... David Bowie can put out a CD and I'll buy it - don't even need to listen to the songs prior to purchase.

I grew up with Bowie but all the other music it was fun to collect bits and pieces of bands from here and there as they drift in an out of view.

For some reason I stopped buying CDs and collecting music as a tangible product. Other priorities I guess [or maybe because they stopped selling CD singles where you could sample 'B sides' and non album release versions of songs?]. 

The idea of paying to download music has no appeal to me. Curating my own 'cloud' of music just isn't the same as collecting CD's. All you can say is "I've got that song" and the immediacy and cheapness of it gives no sense of excitement to owning a copy. Downloads especially have ruined the concept album where cover art and book inserts are part of the experience.

Owning music is no longer the experience it was. In many ways it's gone the way of photography where the photos you took used to be more considered because it would cost to get them developed. Now you can take a picture of your lunch, before, during and after as well as what they're eating over there, the waiter, the view etc. All images that you'll forget once you've shown them to people... if you even remember to do that.

I listen to podcasts now because they're mostly free and once you've listened to them you can delete them. Music is all around us anyway. I'm happy to leave my music on the radio and maybe watch the occasional music video clip on Youtube. I don't really need to own it... except for Bowie of course.

Labels

TET Life Topics:

Comments

  1. Mum60January 19, 2013 8:14 PM

    Well, David Bowie's got a new single out, which I have only heard a couple of bits of on the radio, as they haven't played it all yet, at least not on 6pr that I listen to in Perth, as it's a talkback station and not for music, but they do play complete songs sometimes.

    I hope you'll play the one I bought you (I won't mention what it is here) sometimes and the DVD which has some good clips. It's good to have I think.

    I wasn't buying many CDs, but the Doubleday music club keeps having good discounts on 60s CDs and some present day artistes that I like.

    I'm not into downloading music, because I can only listen to it on my computer, not having a fancy mobile phone, but I like to have the solid product in my hand, with the book sometimes supplied and any photos or artworks like you. I've also replaced some of my cassettes onto CDs same as I've done with my DVDs replacing things from video tapes.

    I hope CDs don't disappear or DVDs, as I like my collections. I wouldn't part with my LPs either even though I only put them on sometimes, as some never went to either cassettes or CDs. It's a nusiance putting records on, but apparently, they are superior to CDs in quality sound - if they are still in good condition. It's easier to look after CDs and to put them on, plus, they are lighter and easier to store.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TET (David Arandle)January 19, 2013 9:17 PM

      I'll be buying Bowie's next album of course. I haven't stopped listening to music, I just don't collect it like I used to.

      I will of course listen to music bought for me. :-)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) *No Spoilers*

T his is another film that I would have liked to have seen in a theatre but, for whatever reason, didn't get to. Having now seen  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga  (2024) almost a year later I'm glad I didn't. Which is not to say it's bad. Like its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I enjoyed in a cinema immensely, this film would definitely benefit from being on a big screen for the spectacle and epic visuals of it all.  However unlike its predecessor there is so much going on, with back and forth between the waring parties, and Furiosa's story as well, you can't just sit back and kind of enjoy the ride. It's like writer/director, George Miller, wanted to cram in as many of his ideas as possible for the post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, because it's not likely he'll make another one, but whoever does, has a rich, detailed world of on screen source material to draw upon. The story begins with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and her journey from the ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...
3 comments
Continue Reading »

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Episode 3, 4, and 5 - Definitely Seeing Progress

TET, Episode 5 Heelflip attempt. C ontinuing my ten part series of Second Sunday Skateboard sessions , the series where I'm attempting to master all seven basic skateboarding tricks in Braille Skateboarding's Skateboarding Made Simple Volume One , over twenty weeks (or ten fortnights).  Each episode is a short Sunday check in to show where I'm at after each two week period of practicing. Generally I aim for at least an hour practice session every second day if weather or my work schedule permits. These are the links to Episode One and Episode Two  should you feel the need to see where I started.  I'm not a complete newbie, having been a relatively hardcore skater through the late eighties and early nineties, however I was mostly a mini ramp and curb skater, and never really maintained my skills beyond riding and ollies.  The explosion of council built concrete parks came a decade too late for me to maintain my mini ramp skills. Once we closed our own skate park in ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...
16 comments
Continue Reading »

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Major Parties and Their Promises

T he Australian Federal Election date has now been announced as May 3rd, 2025. As such I thought it might be interesting to explore some of the parties and candidates in a series of articles leading up to a final wrap up in the days after the winners are announced. This is by no means an unbiased viewpoint. I've said many times my political leanings are to the woke left because those people are way better at embracing casual Friday at work (though some of the more extremist left do have to be reminded clothes are still a mandatory requirement). The obvious place to start is with the two most boring centralist parties pretending to be either left or right but actually doing their best impression of 'cake' - everybody likes cake! The Australian Labor Party Otherwise known as the incumbent, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vying for his second term. The party is campaigning on seven key points including: Helping with the cost of living. Free GP visits & even cheaper m...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »