Oct 04 2007
A Rant about Music
When the controversy over illegally downloading music and etc first started, I have to say I was strongly in favor of, well, buying cds. I think it’s reasonable for people to expect to be paid for work they did, even if that work was writing up a contract for someone to sign or stupid crap like that. I didn’t mind money going to those people because I was supporting an artist. This was before the days of cds that didn’t allow you to copy songs onto your computer, and largely before most people had mp3 players.
Musicians had a few different reactions at that time. Some musicians threw pansy fits like Metallica, some didn’t care, and some actively tried to make it worth the money to buy their albums – by packaging them well and by including bonus dvds or collectible stickers or something.
I always had listened to artists who created albums – those artists are also largely the artists who chose to package their albums in ways that made fans want to purchase them, or released albums on vinyl, which I still buy regularly. And while I’ll download songs that I have on vinyl so I can listen to them on my computer, or make cds to play in my car, generally speaking, I do purchase the music I listen to.
With Radiohead’s novel new idea (pay what you want for mp3s of their new album, or buy a super dee duper package with extra goodies) and Trent Reznor’s recent(esque) comments about stealing music because companies haven’t lowered the costs, I feel pretty okay about how I go about purchasing or not purchasing music. Both are artists I respect and listen to, and the fact that they share the same frustrations and philosophy as their music fans means that the music industry is garbage for both fans and artists.
A spokeswoman for Sony/BMG recently made a comment that if you buy a cd and copy it onto your computer or a portable listening device, you are, in fact, stealing that copy.
I don’t know about you, but back in the day, I was rocking my sony walkman. I had this badass little kid one with the clear back so you could see the gears and wires and that thing lasted me from when I was 7 until I was 17. I made tapes for it from cds and records and ended up with an enormous collection of mix-tapes. One particularly fabulous mix-tape got me through rush-hour traffic in my car without a cd player for the first two years of college. I don’t remember anyone throwing a fit, back in the day, about people having to buy tapes of cds or records they already owned. Why would you, when cds had better quality and staying power than both tapes and vinyl?
But the truth is, people still buy vinyl. I’m still tempted to buy tapes, if only I had something to play them in. It’s not about the music, it’s about the experience of listening to music, the nostalgia of listening to music in a certain medium.
Listening to vinyl means sitting down for a good hour or two and listening. It means knowing where all the scratches are on an album you’ve listened to a kajillion times. I listened to Lou Reed’s Transformer almost every day after school in my junior year. It was the album my mother had listened to in high school. I knew where it skipped, where it got static-y. Same with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Vinyl is about connecting to music in this intense, almost meditative way for me, more than cds, more than mp3s, more than tapes.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have cds which I then burn to computers, which I then make into mix cds, which I then play in my car. And why the hell should I pay for a copy of a song I already have paid for? That’s idiotic.
The fact is, people at these companies don’t understand technology. They also don’t seem to understand that the more stupid, backhanded methods they uncover for trying to keep people from illegally downloading things or illegally copying things (erf!), the more they distance themselves from the public. There will always be individuals who are smarter and trickier than those companies who will put their freedoms on the line to make sure I can get my music for free. So make me want to buy your music. Caress me, don’t prosecute me.
K.
The contents of this blog entry may not reflect the views of the Webmaster of Doom, Michael.