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At work and I am bored - but have been talking about how people 'aquire' their music collection...a lot of people bang on about how the music industry is being destroyed by people downloading music for free, I on the other hand see it a completley different way. I run a small independent record label, releasing mainly vinyl editions and I still download a lot of music for free from torrent sites/soulseek or whatever really. The stuff I really like I will inevitably buy on vinyl (if available) so essentially I use MP3's as a screener to see if its worth parting with the £15 - 20 average for a good ol' 12" record. I never buy CD's any more and have never paid for an MP3 in my life. So I am interested to see what other peoples music buying habits are....do you still even buy music? If you do what format do you tend to buy? Or if you dont buy anything anymore, why? Cheers!
I don't buy CD's or vinyl. Haven't for years. Always buy MP3's. Being a man with a guilty conscience, someones spent money making the music, only fair to give them dosh back. If they get it back. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I will find a way of getting it...
Amazon MP3 these days - their stuff is in exactly the same format/quality as I'd rip myself from CD, and their downloader sticks it straight into iTunes. There's not many weeks when I don't succumb to the temptation of one of their £3.99 albums. I buy quite a bit of indie stuff direct too if it's in the right format.
Offer people what they want, at a fair price and without annoying DRM and they'll buy lots more of it. Funny that - hopefully the other entertainment industries (movies, TV, books, etc) will catch on soon.
Amazon pretty much killed off any reason for me to buy CDs - I used to buy them to rip then they'd be packed away, which was preferable to any DRMed digital downloads. Haven't used CD as a primary music source in over a decade - used to have MD in the car and for portable, which got replaced by MP3 players once they got cheap and capacious enough.
when I ran my label I used to do mainly vinyl but sales dropped in line with the audio being on line.
you and I have a connection to music which is why we run / have run labels so we probably lean one way but I find a lot of people just want the music, it doesn't matter where it came from or what format its in as long as it gets on their mp3 player somehow.
I mainly use spotify these days - haven't bought a piece of music as such for years. Used to do a lot of illegal downloading but its not really worth it now
Until recently i used to buy most of it CD then rip it. I just liked having the physical copy - even though for at least 5 years of doing this i rarely listened to the actual CD, it was just put on the shelf. Still do that occassionally but mostly it is all downloading and spotify now, much more convenient.
I do miss the pre mp3 days though in one major way - listening through my computer, or ipod, in the car or wherever...i have tens of thousands of songs available but i'm skipping between artists and genres and playlists rather than sitting back and enjoying an album, flicking through the booklet before deciding to put something else on and enjoy another album. Its like my musical attention span has disappeared.
I buy CD's or vinyl from CD Sid in Hebden:
[url= http://www.muse-music.co.uk/index.html ]Muse Music. [/url]
Have started buying vinyl again now that quality and availablity have improved again.
Quite like Spotify for background listening, but that's all it is really.
Don't like MP3's - sound quality is awful.
I buy CD's and Vinyl fairly regularly. Probably 3 or 4 albums a month on average, more if I can depending on cash flow.
After a tough day at work I find it cathartic to take a record of my shelf, slip it out of its sleave, place it on the record platter and gently brush it before dropping the needle and sitting down to listen.
I have only ever bought one track on MP3 and while I purchase music from a few online places that give access to great quality downloads I have never bought any.
I just wish more labels would include a download code for the MP3's with their vinyl releases 😕
I still buy a lot of vinyl - a hangover form my djing days. Also some CDs, but not normally new releases.
I like Ninja Tune's model of offering mp3 downloads with every physical purchase, means I can buy it on vinyl, and still get it onto the ipod easily.
Just got the new DJ Food album through the post - Cool A4 comic book format, with a CD and a 7" included - and of course mp3 download from the website.
My band got annoyed with relying on others to distribute our music, so we recently started a digital label to sell our (and other local musicians) music - [url] http://www.woodengunrecords.com [/url] & [url] http://www.melosalive.com [/url]
What's your label btw?
I use spotify most of the time, and like OP said, it's just a screening service before I get the very good stuff on Vinyl or the quite good stuff on CD.
I pay the subscription for spotify but only for convenience; used to merrily take the mp3s for free until it became easier to pay. The industry should have caught up with that a long time ago.
Ultimately, it's gotta be physical media for music that really matters.
I listen to music on spotify, occasionally if I like something enough ill download it, or use audacity to put it on my mp3.
I dont really think theres much music I consider worth buying.
I am old fashioned, I like to have a physical product in my sticky mitts.
This was kind of vindicated last year when my laptop HD decided to die. Fortunately I had backed up most of what I'd ripped to mp3 but 'lost' the last 10-15 albums. I re-ripped them so no loss.
I recently have actually started listening to my cds again after a couple of years of either the walkman or the computer.
I miss the physical artefact-ness that was vinyl. It was a great package, and the sleeve was half the thing... I don't miss the space it all took up though.
I've never bought an mp3 although I did download a free mp3 album version that came with a cd. I could be tempted into buying a single track off an album but I tend to just buy the album, if there's a couple of other tracks on it it usually works out cost effective.
I have been buying about 3-4 albums a month. Some recent some old.
The main problem is that I've bought some cds on spec that were rubbish and there's no real way of recouping the losses on that. Hey ho.
Edit: I'd class my taste as being generally non-mainstream. Yes people like the black keys could probably manage without the likes of me investigating their back catalogue but I'm not so sure people like Bonnie Prince Billy, Gillian Welch, et al can, never mind the likes of people like Clogs, Espers, Luke Haines, etc could. If they have no incoming they won't go releasing anything more and I would personally be the worse off for it. These people do not exist in a vacuum.
I use Spotify for screening as many above, and buy everything I want on CD and rip to iTunes. Occasionally will succumb to impulse buy download from iTunes. Do not have a single track I didn't pay for - have friends who are musicians...