Friday 14 September 2012

Why do I even buy music anymore?

It seems that nowadays, a lot of people have absolutely stopped ever paying for any music at all, and some people have grown up without ever having paid for music at all. Today, Down (You know, the band with Phil Anselmo) put out their whole new EP for streaming, and my first thought was 'Oh Cool, I must go and buy that' despite the fact that I already ostensibly had it already, via the stream. I wonder why that is? I mean, bands keep saying that they make almost no money off record sales anyway, so its not like I'm doing it to reward the band for making the product; what is my four pence contribution even going to do? Especially now, when every other listener gave up paying anyway so the tidal wave of individual four-pences no longer adds up to a thousand quid or anything similar. Now the band'll have eight quid and four pence or whatever instead of just eight quid. Maybe you could argue that it's important to stay a part of the chain, but after it collapsed so badly... what's the point? The second thing is that maybe I'm doing it to 'keep record stores open' but I only buy music off either iTunes, Amazon or in a HMV store so that isn't it. HMV aren't even as much a Music store as a Games and Films store nowadays anyway, so it definitely isn't it even a little. The third thing is that I don't want to be bad, which has merit but doesn't really satisfy. Could just be habit. I don't particularly want to not pay for music, but I'd prefer if there seemed any merit to it other than just doing the right thing to keep Santa Claus happy. Its like cleaning the canteen at your job even though you know the next slobs will ruin it before anyone thoughtful will notice you cleaned.

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