Collecting music is weird now

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  • jagara

    Collecting music is weird for me now. Meaning, i more or less stopped collecting, and started merely accessing music.

    When i was a kid, i couldn’t afford buying music, so i copied tapes, like most seventies/eighties kids. Then, when i got my first job, nobody collected vinyl anymore, so i collected CD’s up until a little over 10 years ago.

    When i got online, i downloaded a lot of stuff, but i would still buy albums i liked on CD.

    Never got into buying music on Itunes or similar. Coming from the world of physical media, somehow it didn’t really feel like owning the music. It somehow felt ephemeral.

    Then streaming came around, now it’s all i do. Buying CD’s today feels like a total anachronism. Buying albums on Itunes seems completely backwards, when it’s available on streaming. And even weird Bandcamp shit is available on streaming these days.

    Yes, i know, i know...vinyl. I do half-heartedly buy the odd vinyl record. But frankly, i can’t really get into it. I tried for years. I buy it (pricy as fuck), listen to it once or twice, put it on the shelf, where It sits, while i end up listening to the album via the digital copy that comes with a lot of vinyl these days. Eventually just Tidal, because that’s mostly where i listen to music now. For me, vinyl is 1) Charming and stuff. 2) Too pricy and bit of a pain in the ass.

    All this makes for a very fragmented relationship with music, that i’m struggling to become comfortable with.

    Sorry for the whining :)

    What do you do? Commit to vinyl? Just give up and stream stuff?

  • Fax_Benson0

    Much the same. I've not bought much physical music for a long time and miss it - but would probably end up under-using it or
    streaming the same thing.

    The sheer volume and range of new stuff coming out these days makes it very difficult to buy hard copies - unless you've got lots of money / space / time on your hands.

    • Money, space and time... yup, i have little of all of those...jagara
  • jagara0
  • inteliboy0

    All true.

    Though putting on a record in a social setting ads a vibe that is about the music --- especially when people get to flick through the collection and pick stuff. Far more interesting and enjoyable then flicking through another glowing screen.

    It's very similar to photography, where now people take endless digital pics of whatever the fuck comes to mind. Where only a few years ago a picture was a considered moment in time, a conscious decision to capture this particular memory on film.

    • Vinyl has tons of charm. True.jagara
    • very true. the action forces people to "listen."pr2
    • Hm. Myeah. I guess it does!jagara
  • oey1

    I recently decided to go back to turntablism, not that I'm very skilled, and also started to deejay again after almost 13 years in pause mode.

    And, yes, definitely vinyl.

    I used to have vinyl as a teen or mostly record tapes.
    Then CD came out and I bought some in CD but not as much I did in Vinyl before.

    When MP3 came out I practically dropped everything else, except for the burned CD's to take to deejay in parties and the vinyl records to listen at home.

    Then I sold everything I had wit the exception for 5 vinyl and 5 cd's.

    Now that I started again I just got rid of all cd's I collected again in the last 10 years and either listen to vinyl or to digital.

    Vinyl is expensive but is worth more than money in the bank.
    I still find it sounds better and as a graphic designer and Illustrator I totally love to check covers and so.

    I bought many stuff for the cover and I also work sometimes with music labels so...

    Vinyl is heavy to transport :-) but i could also dj from two usb sticks if necessary.

    But I do commit to vinyl, t was always my thing really.
    I'm not even into Serato or NI.

  • pr20

    For me it's the opposite.
    Never was really into music until the online craze came about and you could easily find weird stuff.
    Never bought a CD or MP3 in my life but spent a ton of money on vinyl. It's so much more rewarding experience at a party to walk up every 20 min to the turntable to switch the LP.
    Then i ended up buying a 45 year old car that came with so-so radio and a tape player so i started buying up tapes too because the radio reception is so spotty and connecting the phone introduces a ton of hiss.

    Not a collector but when i listen to an album for free on youtube number of times i see if there is a vinly or tape out there.

  • Noggin0

    I have a slightly different take...

    I enjoy paying for the CD or WAV download, say from HDtracks because I want the higher quality and also because the streaming services are a REALLY bad deal for musicians (and engineers, producers etc). I want the musicians I enjoy to keep making music and I am more than happy to spend money on that than a $5 coffee or $15 cocktail etc.

    • For me, it's the best argument to buy these days.jagara
    • I do the same, the streaming services are terrible for the artists themselves so would rather pay and own and know they get a little money from thatdee-dubs
  • HijoDMaite0

    I still think that one day I'm going to end up with a large volume of physical records and analog listening equipment. But for the time being, It's all about the digital scape.

  • prophetone0

    Nowadays buy alot on iTunes, Bandcamp, Beatport - d/l mixes mostly off Soundcloud.

  • drgs0

    5% Bandcamp + 95% Youtube

  • mort_1

    I've a garage full of vinyl and a HD full of purchased wav files (mostly house). Spotify is one of the ways I discover new music. junodownload.com is my house music wav file source.

  • colin_s0

    once i settle down i'll get back into vinyl - had to sacrifice a big collection about 8 years ago because i just move too much... now bandcamp is how i try and directly support artists until then

    refuse to use any streaming services

  • imbecile1

    I used to own a lot of cds, most of them are stored somewhere. I usually listen to Soundcloud. Recently cancelled a $5/mo monstercat subscription that allowed me to stream and download as much as I wanted from their catalog.

    The only reason I buy vinyl is the charm and permanence of it. Easier to skip around with digital. It is nice to put on a record and let it play through.

    Music, in the volume that we are able to catalog and access is disposable. I can’t think of very many songs I want to hear again years or months down the road. Several listens when I find it then on to new stuff in a few days/weeks is how I’ve been maybe the last ten years.

    Given the amount of music produced and available to listen to vs the number of hours in a human life, I wonder how much more music exists that we will never hear.

  • CyBrainX-2

    I've done all the formats since vinyl except for 8-tracks which I always thought were garbage. I don't want any physical media anymore. It's just not necessary. And vinyl is the most overrated nonsense in the realm of music. It's just more inconvenient, is more fragile and doesn't sound as good.

    • trust me vinyl sounds better than most digital.fadein11
  • DRIFTMONKEY2

    This is a fascinating discussion. I've been collecting records for 30 years now, but most of my listening is done at the office, so I use streaming almost exclusively. I guess it's just force of habit at this point that if I really like something, I will buy the record and throw it on the pile. I honestly only get around to listening to about 10% of the records I purchase.

    But then when I have time and I can actually relax, get stoned and put a record on, the experience reminds me why I do it.

  • mugwart3

    For me it was the explorations. Growing up a weird kid pre internet in a fucking shit hole of a town and not liking anything mainstream, hunting music/film was a psychological mind expansion, traveling into the depths of Mordor (wardor street) London and going into record shops and really helped find myself and stopped me thinking suicidal thoughts as it allowed me to realise how big the world wasand I wasn't the only wierdo.

    Format didn't mater it was in the Searching and that sweet moment you discovered something incredibly.

    Same with films, streaming made everything so accessable and so main stream music lost its meaning and became flat.

    The only way I can describe it was when I was 18 enjoyed to travel rough and off the beaten track. After a few months I got a bus with loads of western wantabe travelers and listened to their "stories", they were there but didn't experience and definitely didnt grow from it.

    Same again for my photography, when I was shooting with film it meant something real, digital meant shit.

    I think it might be with the actual community, you loose that with internet. Recently started to buy records again and interestingly my art has started to come back to me.

  • colin_s1

    i think one of the worst things to happen to music in the last 20 years was oink (and subsequently what.cd) being shut down

    that was such an enigmatic space where you had truly passionate fans - of both music AND how it sounds - dedicating themselves to producing possibly the most intricate and wonderful music-related network ever

    sure legal ramifications whatever blah blah, but that sort of site is exactly a blueprint for how a true music sharing service should act and what it should offer

    the countless records i was able to discover and enjoy through what - it was the natural evolution of napster and its loss cannot be exaggerated