I have no desire to listen to music I have to pay for

antichef

pornk rock
There, I said it - I haven't bought a CD (other than from an artist directly at a show) for ages and I've never bought a song on iTunes, but I haven't been making/downloading/listening to unlawful mp3s either - I simply don't have the urge to listen to music that is managed by record companies. Why?

1) I'm too busy making my own crappy music. I get a bigger thrill listening to a song that I just made (at least for a day or two) than I ever got from an album or CD, even if the song/performance/recording sucks, and it usually does. I'm also busy recording my friends and relatives, and occasionally, mixing stuff.

2) I'm too busy listening to *your* music - admittedly, when your music sucks as bad as mine usually does, I don't listen to it more than once (and for those tunes of mine which you are unlucky enough for me to post, I expect the same thing is going on), but some of them are really good, and I listen to them frequently, and you all say that's OK for me to do.

3) Somewhere along the line the identity factor of the musician (and the fans) broke down some for me - when I was a kid, Led Zeppelin could have released the sound of a turd hitting the ground and I would have loved it because it was from them, and somebody I or my friends had never heard of could have released *the best song ever*, and I wouldn't have liked it very much, because I hadn't heard of him/her (and neither had my friends) - this effect is still present a little for me, but not nearly as much. I dunno if that's age/experience, or a number of factors, including the complete distrust of the music industry (and acute disrespect for major labels, and, by extension, those who sign with them, at least a little). I'm not seeing it in my 15 year old son, at all, btw.

4) I spend all my money on recording equipment and instruments (even though I should be spending it on lessons) - much more than I ever dreamed of spending on licensing music, btw.

5) In summary, I spend all my music energy making/listening/discussing home grown music. I don't have time or energy left over to see what Universal/Sony/EMI/Warner have for me to buy from them - truly, they can stick it up their #*(*@. Do they have better musicians/producers/studios/engineers/etc. than me? You bet, and I'll never catch up! Do I care? Not really. (disclosure: my wife listens to Pandora and youtube videos, and I often hear what's playing)

I just had to say it. I think it was the Emmy awards the other night.
 
Wise words, Chef, wise words....there's a lot there that I feel too. In fact these days if I buy a cd, I listen to the tracks on the net first and then buy it if I like them. There are great bands around, but good music seems to be more of a cult these days. MTV is the epitaph of shitty consumer rubbish devoid of a soul and it's controlled by the record companies. Fuck them, all they care about are numbers not art!
 
and it's controlled by the record companies. Fuck them, all they care about are numbers not art!
On the other hand, there have always been people working in record companies that care about art but want to make money as well. They've balanced it by and large better than artists, I think. I can't speak for nowadays coz I guess I'm out of touch with much of 'what's going on' but there was a time when record company execs, because of some of the limitations they placed, did music lovers a favour. They forced many artists into having to think seriously about how to write songs and present their music in a way that was both innovative and accessible. Without some of the limitations placed on artists we'd have more and more "Metal machine music" {Lou Reed} and John & Yoko's high pitched squealing and sound effects !!:D There's already enough landfill out there.:)
But I find myself in a similar state to you guys, insofar as I don't really buy new stuff. I've had about 8 major record buying periods in my life, the last of which spanned 2006-2008. Truth be told, I just have too much music to be thinking about new stuff. The 300 albums I acquired in those two years alone will take me ten years to properly assimilate ! I do listen to the music that members of HR post. Some of it is fantastic, some of it is OK. It really encourages me and spurs me on sometimes to try harder. I guess I do listen to some pop stuff coz I've got two young kids and neices and nephews. But not by choice {listening to the music that is, not the family !}! Being an albums man and driving for a living, I get more time to listen to my albums on the road than I did as a teenager with little to do so I rarely listen to them at home.
 
In the US natural gas industry, for instance, the infrastructure operators (the pipelines) for a long time bought and sold gas - they were both a monopoly (single seller) at the locations where they sold and a monopsony (single buyer) at the locations where they bought, in most cases - a textbook case of a "natural monopoly". A couple of decades ago, the laws changed that - the pipelines merely sell "capacity" - buyers and sellers conduct business for the gas itself directly with each other and tell the pipelines where to send it. Did the pipelines do the industry a favor? You bet they did - there's no good way to transport gas without a pipeline. But the market position they occupied because of the natural monopoly just didn't allow for market forces to really work - no getting around it - it's just a case of "market failure" that was remedied by regulation.

The big labels created an oligopoly and "oligopsony" (is that a word?) for music, because they built and defended what amounted to a manufactured monopoly over the means of transmission from supplier to consumer - radio stations / promotions / record stores - just as real as the natural monopoly enjoyed by the pipelines from the perspective of a musician (who has a lot less bargaining power than a gas producer) or a music fan. But now, it's technology rather than regulation which breaks their control. No question that the record companies (especially in the early days) did a lot for the development of music - but the market failure problem existed there, too, and eventually, it wins out until it's dismantled in some way.

Music and gas are different (with a few exceptions which I'll post to the MP3 clinic), but maybe the analogy is interesting despite the many inaccurate comparisons it invites.
 
Music and gas are different (with a few exceptions which I'll post to the MP3 clinic),

I already beat you to it

I have to say I rarely buy CDs anymore and I won't even let itunes on my computer, I figure apple already got enough of my money when my wife insisted on an imac and iphone. If I hear something I like on one of these forums and the artist is selling on a non itunes format I'll buy it because I like to support my fellow home wreckers (thanks to South Side Glen for that term)

That said I do listen to music all the time. I like pandora and jango (particularly since on jango I will ocailsionally hear my own stuff play which is kind of a wierd feeling). I try to keep an open mind and not fall into the "music was better in my day" trap but I must admit I don't get a good deal of what is out there right now but I like to try and figure out what is going on musically anyway.

I think it's very important to listen to and play other peoples stuff. If I didn't do that every piece I ever come up with would be a 1,4.5 progression in A (and actually a lot of it still is). It's very interesting to see what other people do to get themselves out of a corner they've painted themselves into musically or how they handle chord progressions to set different moods etc. I'm not talking about plagarism but basically learning music theory by seeing what it does when people who get it, use it.
 
*Ahem* you DO know that not all artists on iTunes and the like are managed by 'big evil corporations', don't you???
 
I've got mixed feelings. On one hand, the majority of my musical chops and understanding of music theory came from listing to records (many of my chops were developed long before CDs or downloads were around:)) - and there are few things I enjoy more than discovering a new song that is well written or a talented artist that I had not heard of.

On the other hand - I have grown very distrustful of the music industry on a whole and "sameness" of most commerical artists (in almost any given genre) - which clearly is driven by the industry bean counters (profit over art).

That being said - I purchase a lot of used CDs at rummage sales and used CD stores (I practically live at Half Price Books). Often I find CD's for $1.00 or $.50 - and I almost always find at least one song on any CD I enjoy. In particular I look for artists I've never heard of.

If I do find an artist I really enjoy - I may often go on line to learn about them and may also purchase more of their music.

I was a music fan before I became a musician - and I hope I will always be a fan first and a player second......I fear once I stop being a fan......I will loss part of my love for music.....which in turn will compromise my passion as a musician.
 
But now, it's technology rather than regulation which breaks their control. No question that the record companies (especially in the early days) did a lot for the development of music - but the market failure problem existed there, too, and eventually, it wins out until it's dismantled in some way.

Yeah, interesting points. I am out of touch, wilfully {well, kind of out of touch} but I guess I tend to react to blanket statements or concepts that don't take into account the zillions of nuances that exist within them. For me, few things are ever straight down the line black and white.
This has the makings of an interesting thread. Nice one !
 
*Ahem* you DO know that not all artists on iTunes and the like are managed by 'big evil corporations', don't you???
Yes (or so I've heard) - that was a misplaced, but true, statement about me not buying off of iTunes. Apple's not a big evil corporation - no wait. Apple doesn't manage the artists - I'm sure that's more true than in the case of a big label.

I tend to react to blanket statements or concepts that don't take into account the zillions of nuances that exist within them.
yeah, me too (actually, I don't react to them, I just ignore them) - and it's silly to characterize the music industry as monolithically anything, especially evil, even today. But the pipelines weren't evil at all - they just did what came naturally - same thing I'd do. What I really wanted to talk about was not the record companies, but rather that with all the home recording and listening to and collaborating with other people doing the same thing, I don't have the time or inclination to even get interested in what the record companies are doing. The brief fragments of the Grammy's I watched just seemed like irrelevant pantomime to me.
 
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You can actually get free music online (legally) from dozens of people who are willing to let you have it for free, and much of it is really good. Soundclick has thousands of free mp3s.

Even Itunes has free stuff, mostly classical and such, but classical is good music.

I buy from Itunes, but the vast majority of what I buy is from my teen years when I listened to heavy metal and such.
 
Like others have mentioned, I tend to be too busy recording and listening to others' music to have time to buy CDs, and part of the problem is I don't have time to listen to it. There is stuff I know that I do want to buy . . . but I wait around for fairs and markets where things are secondhand. I can't remember the time I bought a brand new CD.

I don't have as cynical view of the major companies as others do. One of the main reasons is because I still have choice . . . I can choose not to buy from them . . . and everyone else has this choice as well. If the companies are doing ok from people exercising that choice, well, that's fine by me. It may not be to my taste . . . but it is certainly someone else's taste.

And a quick thought about natural gas pipelines . . . they may have been a monopoly/monopsony in the transport of natural gas . . . but they did have competition . . . from other fuels: electricity, oil, nuclear and coal. Were I to be running that business, I would regard these as strong competitors and make sure that gas was not pricing itself out of the energy market.
 
I guess I'm an exception to the home rec rule of thumb. I own over 3,000 CD's, and a somewhat smaller amount of vinyl. I am a recording artist with a fairly successful CD, working on the second. My music is not available in MP3 format, because I hate the format. I will not download music in compressed formats for money *or* for free. I simply drew the line in the sand at 16bits/44.1kHz. Unfortunately, making good recordings costs money, and in order to make that money, you have to be able to sell music. If you can't sell it, you can't afford to make it. This is the primary cause of the degradation and dumbing down of recorded music.

As a corollary of this, how can I expect anyone to pay for my music if I won't pay for anybody elses? I can't. So, I do my best to support the efforts of recording artists that I think are worthy. I too, buy CD's at yard sales, because often that's the only way I can find out if their portfolio is worth adding to my collection. I don't duplicate factory CD's, although I could, and I refuse to violate the copyright of recording artists, big or small time. I also own the CD's produced by several people on this board.

We are in a period of transition in the music business. The old way of doing things is dying, and no one knows what the next step will be. Making good recordings simply costs money, and if we want to have good recordings, we have to figure out who will pay for it, and how. If we don't, then the days of well produced, well recorded music is behind us, and that is indeed, as Don McLean said "The Day the Music Died". -Richie
 
And a quick thought about natural gas pipelines . . . they may have been a monopoly/monopsony in the transport of natural gas . . . but they did have competition . . . from other fuels: electricity, oil, nuclear and coal. Were I to be running that business, I would regard these as strong competitors and make sure that gas was not pricing itself out of the energy market.

You could argue that music is in a similar boat. Sure, the 4 (3? 5? I don't even remember anymore) major labels have a virtual monopoly on popular music, but they're still in competition with each other. (Except for when they scheme together to screw over the consumers I suppose...)
 
"The Day the Music Died". -Richie

This is very similar to my view. If you don't buy others, who will buy yours?

Now granted I haven't purchased any music yet from any home wreckers, although that one guy (I think he has a Court of Crimson King avatar) is making a really cool retro prog album that I plan on buying once its finished, and there's a few others in production as well that I plan on buying. Just nothing as of this time.

Music costs money, and if people think they are entitled to free music (like most people do) then the quality of music will go down, and down. Even though it was low budget, there would be no way I could make Off the Spring without investing several thousand into different aspects of its production. Since people aren't buying it as prolifically as I hoped, well, I have no incentive to make another epic CD.

The whole "piracy leads people to buy music" theory is pretty bullshit too. I mean, if you get music for free, who the hell wants to pay for it? I think that whole Radiohead thing was just out of guilt....they made people think they were actually stealing, so they had to "donate" for the music.

The problem is, only Radiohead can pull that off. No one else really can.

The message is clear, yet needs to be broadcast to the masses. Music costs money. If musicians and producers can't recoup their costs, they won't make good music...or any music at all.
 
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