make it mine
The music-buying confusion continues. I’m in the middle of reading this fascinating book, which has put the old “no one buys music anymore” discussions in a new light. Record companies are more evil than I knew and have been ripping off artists for a while. Sometimes, people who illegally download all their music are actually doing other supportive things for artists. Digitalization isn’t necessarily bad. Prince is awesome.
Seriously, read this if you like music:
But I still don’t know whether to prioritize buying CDs anymore. (The alternative, just to clarify, is some combination of Amazon mp3s — which can be fantastically cheap — and Spotify/Pandora/last.fm/etc. Never was into the peer-to-peer filesharing thing. Or iTunes.)
After finding some new must-buys on Spotify, I had my CD shopping list ready during a trip into New York yesterday. The problem is, CD-buying just ain’t what it used to be, even in the greatest city in the world. With those afternoons spent browsing the vast aisles of the Virgin Megastore a distant memory, my fellow music fiend and I first tried Norman’s, the record store where we’d had reasonably good luck last time.
Unfortunately, we seemed to have cleared the place of anything decent last time. Nothing on my list to be found in the dusty $1-per-album basement, on either CD or vinyl, and nothing even really worth buying.
We next tried hipster-tastic Other Music, where I loved the thoughtful staff-written album descriptions posted in front of the albums, as well as the yummy scent of shiny, fresh, new vinyl. I picked up a few of the CDs I was interested in: Dawes, Washed Out, The Antlers.
The prices suddenly seemed very steep, even though I used to think nothing of buying 7–8 albums at a time at sometimes higher prices. Frames of reference adjust so fast when $2.99 Amazon mp3 specials have seemed to be the norm lately for so many of the albums I’ve wanted. I put them back on the shelf and checked again for the album I really, really wanted.
This one:
Gorgeous, lush 70s-ness with lyrics that make me want to give poor Blake Sennett a big hug, despite my rampant fangirlishness for the lady on the other side of his old band/romantic breakup. (I can have split loyalties, right? They’re still friends, right?)
But anyway, surprisingly, this album was nowhere to be found. Maybe the band is too 2000s trendyindie. I started feeling my “I am not hip or worthy” nervousness that used to hit when I was around my fellow college radio DJs and didn’t ask the store staff if they had it.
Left the store empty-handed. Went home several hours later, still empty-handed (except for some leftover vegan chocolate cake). It all felt wrong (except the cake).
I’m currently listening to this album for at least the fifth time in the past week or so, nearly convincing myself that it’s okay I can only listen to at it home on the computer, and that I should be minimizing clutter in my small one-bedroom apartment, anyway.
