I copy you on the "feeding the beast" near obsessional behaviour inherent
in an mp3 players owners' day-to-day existence ; and I have previously
posted here as to the merits of digital music providers in hastening the
demise of electronic/idm music by virtue, ironically, of its "try it before
you buy it" music streaming services and ones apathy towards music
generally as a result this.
Until I had recieved a gift of a 40 GB ipod last Christmas I was receiving
the occasional box of CD delights from FE or other [insert mail order shop
of choice] retaillers and labels every one or two months. Often I was
buying music completely blindly, as in I had never, ever heard it before.
I'd often walked, drenched by the relentless Irish rain, for up to an hour
to collect bulging packages from the Post Offices sorting office on the
outskirts of town. I was like a child, on arriving home, who'd been let
loose for a one minute sprint around a sweetshop, grabbing what looked nice
on the eye and only sampling for the first time their assorted flavours
afterwards, with a mixture of delight and disappointment. But most often
delight.
So I'd already had about 23 GB's of mp3's on my hard disk before I got a
broadband connection last April... And I've about 2 GB's of space left on
my 40GB iPod now.
Yet I've only bought about 12 or 15 CD's since. It's all become largely web
based downloads, whether it be from online digital music providers -
subscription (eMusic) or pay as you go (Bleep, Kompakt etc.) - right down
to the hit and miss mp3 blog sites, label freebies, podcasts/mixes etc.
Sure I've got some form of p2p ftp software on my 'puter aswell, but I
exercise extreme control over it's deployment for the download of music,
UNLESS there's little or no other choice in sourcing the music digitally
i.e. it isn't for sale on the web as an mp3. And I always first try and pay
for downloads directly from the labels before hitting the big boy
providers.
Does the instant gratification of immediate download and subsequent
appreciation match up to or equal the anticipation and appreciation of
receipt of mail order/store purchased goods ? Kinda...
I do still intend to purchase hard copy releases. I do still intend to
purchase well encoded mp3's from labels or providers. But I'll probably
rarely ever savour again the innocent delight, not to mention the hour long
walk (I've since got wheels), over rain soaked streets in super saturated
clothing, in picking up the latest treasure chest of mail order CD's from
the post offices sorting office.
Breathe in deeply this musty whiff of nostalgia people ; for these are the
very things we have lost in the firewired-up broadband adulterated digital
lifestyle revolution of today.
But you could do a lot worse than to pick up Low either live, on disc or
even on hard disk as an anecdotal antidote...
np - Thuja "Pine Cone Temples"
|---------+------------------------------>
| | chthonic |
| | <chthonic@chthonics|
| | treams.com> |
| | |
| | 11/01/2006 17:17 |
| | Please respond to |
| | chthonic |
| | |
|---------+------------------------------>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: idm@hyperreal.org |
| cc: |
| Subject: Re: [idm] r.i.p. SMALL LABELS |
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
quoted 3 lines anyone thought about there being a connection between> anyone thought about there being a connection between
> mp3 downloading and inability (by labels) to sale
> physical product ?
yes and no. it depends on the people on the downloading side. i had never
bought a LOW
album until i went to kranky's site and they had a free download of
"(that's how you sing)
amazing grace". after i heard it once i was looking up the album it was on
and sending
kranky my money. i must have listened to it another time before i got the
CD. same thing
happened with downloadable songs from calla and the walkmen.
then again, i am not enamored of the mp3 format except as something to
stream on my
computer at work, to check out things in order to buy the "real" release.
i want the other
tracks a song goes with, i want artwork, i want lyrics, i want whatever the
artist has bundled
up with their music to offer it as a complete work. so to me an mp3 is not
satisfying in itself.
i do not own an ipod, nor do i intend to.
for someone who does however, every song is just to feed the beast. i know
people working
on getting a second ipod because their first one is now too small. once
they start
accumulating tracks they can't stop - and they're not going to start some
kind of file
management/backup system or (god forbid) delete anything (at least, not on
purpose). i
think that mindset, coupled with an indifferent attitude towards having
"the real release" and
perhaps a bit of crying poor, can lead to rampant downloading and hoarding
of free tracks,
legal or not. but this is just a hypothesis, based loosely on personal
observation. i know
millions of people actually pay to download, but i've never met one.
d.
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