Obtaining music used to be an experience, an adventure. Growing up, I was afraid of both the law, and more directly, my father, who would surely wring me out if any questionable download site slowed down our only computer, so for me, getting new music had to be a (mostly) legal exchange. But that was fine with me, a budding teenage audiophile, with more than enough angst and free time to fuel the whole operation.
Traveling to different record stores was only one of the simplest ways I would get the goods. I would scour my parents’ collections, my friends’, and my friends’ parents with the hope that they may have some elusive record that I was currently pining for. If I did find something, it was truly a diamond in the rough. It was a thrill to finally hold the desired CD in my hands, tangible and undeniably real.
Then there was iTunes, which opened up an even wider world. I would spend almost every day exploring, listening to those 30 second samples (that’s all you got back then) for hours on end. My allowance was 2 songs per week and in order to make sure I was making the absolute best possible purchase, I would study both critical and customer reviews, artist biographies, music blogs — and whatever else I could find. For special occasions, my most preferred present was an iTunes gift-card — usually for 15 dollars but on some rare and lucky occasions, up to 75. There was no greater satisfaction than filling up my iPod with a slew of hand-picked, brand new songs that had been waiting patiently in my wish list for sometimes months on end.
Sometimes I even coerced my friends into helping me get my fix — I would give “recommendations” to whoever was so lucky to have a new gift-card and then receive a bunch of songs I had picked on a mix CD a few days later.
But a few years later, the landscape changed. Full albums became available on YouTube. Streaming happened. And all of a sudden, it wasn’t so hard to get whatever song I wanted, whenever I wanted, essentially free of charge. And this was an absolutely beautiful thing. It opened so many doors, it allowed for so many discoveries. But it also made music a little bit less precious.
Does the way we consume music affect its value to us? On some level, I feel that streaming encourages a culture of expendability.
While instantaneous streaming has its perks — increased discovery and artist reach not among the least of these — there was something to be said about actually owning a song or a record. (Of course, there’s a potential debate here on whether we really can ever “own” a song — but we can absolutely own a recording of it.)
We can rent or stream movies on Netflix. We can borrow books from the library or from friends. But when we absolutely love a book or a movie, it’s satisfying to own a copy of it and know you now have physical access to it at all times. Music is an art that almost depends on replay value — it’s not unheard of to watch your favorite movie or read your favorite book only once or twice, but that count would seem ridiculous in terms of your favorite song. It’s all the more reason why it’s satisfying to have your own copy.
A reader wrote into NPR’s column, “The Good Listener,” stating that, “When I was a teenager, I saved up to buy music, bought one CD or record at a time, and listened to the crap out of it. I knew all the lyrics, I knew melodies and bass parts, I had different recordings of the same track — all that. Now, I download a heap of music: some albums, some singles, some random tracks that catch my fancy. I listen to them a few times, and then they get lost in the iTunes pit of despair. At this stage, I have very little idea what’s in there. I miss knowing music really well.”
NPR’s Stephen Thompson identifies this conundrum as normal (“this is an incredibly common feeling — in fact, it’s practically universal”) and attributes part of the problem to just having more time as an adolescent than as an adult to fully absorb music. But there’s also the factor of “the absurd modern-day abundance of music.” Thompson writes that “it’s gotten to where iTunes just sticks U2 albums in your library whether you want them or not — and it’s no wonder you’re spending less and less time obsessing over each track.” But this makes me feel uneasy rather than comforted.
People talk about Netflix “binging” but I feel like now I binge music — I listen to songs for hours on repeat. I used to be afraid of wearing out a song, but now I’m confident that I can just as easily replace it. Either that, or I listen only half-heartedly to albums in the background, distracted by the temptation of others laying in wait.
I was once just hungry, but now I feel insatiable.
I miss the experience of memorizing every beat and every lyric, to knowing intricate facts about every band, to just listening, really listening.
We may never, and probably won’t, solve the “music problem.” There will never be an end-all, be-all method for purchasing music. The best solution I think, is to keep every option open. No method will ever be truly obsolete. There’s still value in every format, as we’ve seen in the resurgence of vinyl and even cassettes. Ideally, both listeners and artists should be free to explore every medium equally, and know the value of each one. I would hate for the next generation to never know the thrill of holding music physically, in whatever format they so chose, in their hands, for them to miss out on that sense of pure joy.
