VERSUS In the last post we went into the classic CDs vs. vinyl debate. This time around another ( if not more contemporary) debate is to be delved into: digital music versus the hard copy. Digital music seems to be the 'wave of the future.' Chances are any random person you come across will think buying records is stupid and downloading music for free is the way to go. In a way, we now have nations full of cyperpirates, and in a way it's kinda cool. Sure, in recent years the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is quick to notice falling record sales and point the finger at people 'stealing' music for free off the net. That's an easy blame. Could it just be that most of what is being released is shit, that so many record companies are not paying attention to what people really want though? No one wants to see their favorite band eating cold grits in a welfare line. Does this really happen? I always thought if an artist was legit and worthy enough, there'd be a way they could make a good subsistence ad infinitum. If an artist is selling millions of records one day and then flipping burgers the next, chances are they sucked enough for it to happen, or they let themselves be taken for a ride through a bad contract. Chances are their one hit wonder lost its lustre, the easy come became the easy go. I have never heard of any artist I consider hugely relevant or mindblowing completely withering away due to the lack of fan support. It may be something else, out of control drug abuse and infighting within the band for example.
The point is, artists can earn their bread in so many ways, and selling records is only a fraction of it all.
Most artists on a major label will be lucky to make about ten cents per record sold. That's ten cents to be split up by a whole band if need be! Of course, if they sold millions of copies that still adds up to something, and artists should take every little bit they can get. The balance between what the artist makes and the label makes is grotesquely distorted. At least on many smaller labels, the profits of record sales get split closer to 50/50 between label and artist, a much more fair arrangement. In any event, it is established that though record sales do not count as much as they used to, they still count for something. Bands increasingly have to rely on profits from merchandising, licensing their music to soundtracks/commercials/etc, live touring, and so forth. Times change. Still, the bands reap what they sow.
Many diehard fans will download music for free, but if they like what they hear, they will find a way to pay for it. If it's not through the traditional buying of records, then it is through buying music files from online music stores like iTunes. Or, at times, it could be something else, like donations based on an honor system.
The first question to be asked is whether to go digital or solid. Under the condition of going digital, the next question is whether to pay or not.
Here are some PROS and CONS of digital:
PRO: Bands can get free exposure that can spread like a 'good' virus. Great for marketing.
PRO: Almost any band that has existed with material released can be found on the net...so for collectors this is great news too. So much can be sampled free of charge (if done pirate style). It is better than sampling at a record store since you don't feel rushed, you can let music grow on you for even a month if you wanted.
PRO: Environmentally friendly. You don't need to manufacture all these records creating horrible plastic fumes and all kinds of refuse and pollution in the process. Furthermore, you avoid more pollution by not boxing and shipping millions of records via usually plane and truck to record stores all over.
PRO: Sales can still be made online in some forms, it doesn't HAVE to be 'stolen'.
PRO: Portability. Especially with compressed media, you can fit thousands of songs on practically a keychain trinket. Save physical space big time!
PRO: Uncompressed media exists, though it takes up mountains of digital storage space.
PRO: You can still burn CDs if you want that digital to solid medium feel. You can make up your own compilations as you choose.
PRO: If you buy digitally, you don't have to buy a whole album just for a few songs you like. You can buy on a song by song basis.
CON: No support for the local record store. Lose a local business, bad economy.
CON: No record store 'experience'. Especially at the independent stores, you can learn shitloads from the owners and workers...and have them turn you on to something new you might have not discovered easily on your own. There are other fun advantages to chillin' at the record stores, whether it's meeting fellow collectors and fans, in store concerts, band autograph signings, the free pong machine or the crazy B movie posters on the wall. It's just an environment that brings an experience in so many ways...much which is lost when you're staring zombielike at a screen at some download progress meter.
CON: No real artwork, no tangible experience, no liner notes smell. Some artwork files can be obtained and printed online but it's not quite the same. It's a con for the musical materialists.
CON: The listening experience of an album first to last track is easily lost in the realm of shuffled playlists.. (yes you can listen to a full album but many are tempted to skip lots and have A.D.D. mindsets).
CON: QUALITY is hard to find. The majority of sound files are compressed and lose a ton of quality compared to what is on CD or LP or whatnot. Even with iTunes, pretty much the largest site to legally buy music files, the quality is at 256K, almost ten times lower than normal CD quality. People pay for that shit??!
It is true that sometimes one can look online and find files that are 'lossless' (no compression, no quality lost)...or files with very very high sound quality, but this is rare. Overall it is so much better to listen to an actual record on a kickass stereo system than some compressed mp3 through dinky earbuds. It is possible to have a stereo sys compatible with digital media and play it lossless, or listen to lossless through very expensive awesome headphones. Once again though, finding lossless is not as common as it should be.
CON: TIME. Though download speeds are lightyears faster than they used to be, one must consider hunting for the files as part of the time taken to acquire the music. Sometimes this can actually be harder than it sounds, especially if it is a more obscure record. If time is money as well, sometimes you can just pop over to the record store and buy an album right away (or get the album from a local library collection) instead of hunting for it for hours and hours online. It really depends on the specific album though. For one example, the Beatles (I need not say a massively popular group!) weren't even available on iTunes for years until recently!!
CON: $. As unbelievable as it sounds, many a time online digital file music purchasing costs MORE per track (for what you get quality wise as well) than buying or ordering a physical copy. As above, this depends on the record though. Also this is dependent on whether you really want to pay or get it pirate style.
CON: For every reason that digital music can be good, you can easily extract any of the music from a hard copy of an album to digital form in any quality you like. Then with the hard copy you get the best of both worlds, whereas with only digital you only get the best of one world more or less.
In conclusion, I do believe in paying for music I really love, even if sometimes the artist doesn't make as much as they should. Because of this, I can either buy it online as files (usually compressed and lower quality), or I could have the actual physical album with all the goofy pictures and notes, the latter being the cool choice. It's usually more bang for buck too. Just say I got the Soundgarden album 'Badmotorfinger' from iTunes. It would be about 10 dollars acc. to the site. The other day I saw it on the shelves of the record shop for about 5 dollars NEW. Add tax and all that junk and it would come to around 7 dollars-ish. So I could either have it as crappy files for 10 bux or I could have the physical copy at pretty much ten times the quality, plus the option to create files from it, for a few coins less. Duh...I wonder what I'd pick? As a third alternative I could also 'steal' it free...chances are it would just be the files at the ever so common 128k (even worse quality than iTunes) and that's that. Not bad for free, but it would involve a little nosing around, and the band wouldn't get a single cent from it, and no actual copy for me. With the actual copy I could also honor the time old tradition of sitting in the den and playing it on a kickbutt hifi and soaking in all the sounds. I could sample all sorts of bands over the net, and based on that get into a lot of new stuff, meaning I would probably buy even more records, and be musically inspired to another level. It's never too expensive if one knows where to look for the deals. Most records I own rarely cost more than 10 dollars. If I ever had a band, I could see great potential for using the net as yet another tool of getting the sounds out to the masses. To me, all the 'pros' just described would equal the best arrangement of taking advantage of the two worlds of digital and 'solid'.
