There is no denying it. We are fully in the age of digital music. There is not much left of going to the music store to get that latest album from your favorite bands. I saw that FYE still has a store in the local mall by me and it was surprising. I thought there were no more stores left. But now we are in a new age. Do you want to hear that new song by your favorite artist? Ok Jump on the web type it in and there it is even with the video! You didn't have to wait for MTV to play it on their request show... You didn't have to sit through a commercial... well wait that one I take back. If your on youtube you probably did have to wait through 10 seconds of a car commercial. But a little button came up saying skip! So 10 seconds later there is the new video from that artist and you can watch it again and again if you want. No waiting for it to play again on the tv, no wondering why they don't play that video anymore, just click and there it is.
Do you like a band that is underground and not many people have heard of them? No problem. Search them in Google, there is their website and they have some clips on sound cloud. Go ahead listen till your overloaded on the songs! Do you like to stream a pod cast of your favorite EDM artist? Go ahead its all there on itunes. Play the new one, go back and play your favorite one. Choose to down load it and you can bring it up on any device you want to listen to again!
This digital age of music has given us the listeners lots of choice and ways to get our music we love. But it has also made us lazy. Lets compare how it used to work to how it is now.
Then you would hear of your favorite band coming out with a new album in a week. You would be like I got to get to the store to get that album I cant forget, you would make a note put it somewhere make sure you could get to the store that day and get the cd or the cassette.... (yep I went there!) You were not satisfied until you had that album in your player and you were jamming out with it! And if the store was out of stock on the album well damn, you went back every day until they got more in and you got that album. Or you went to another store in another town just to get that album!
Now: you might hear about it on the web or you might not hear that the album has come out. If you don't go out and actively look for it you might not know it has come out. Or if its not listed in Itunes top 100 songs you might never know. I know it happens to me all the time, I have a list of music I want to get and then I try to find out if a band has new music out, but I cant find it right away so I say "Ill look later", then I forget, then weeks go by before I give it another thought! But do I go crazy because I have not heard new stuff by that band? No because I got so much other music playing either from Sound Cloud or a podcast on Itunes or even on Digitally Imported.
I have not even bought any music on Itunes in months. And there are several albums I want to get. But so much else is going on that I am just not as concerned about it. Before the internet and music on demand, if I didn't have new music I got bored of my cd collection. I wanted something different to hear, something I had not listened to before. Now, there is an endless supply of music. I have not gotten bored since I cant remember when.
This can hurt artists in the long run. They don't make a ton of money on the music they put out now, but if there are more people that have the mindset I have and get distracted that artist wont get the sales they could get because everyone went to listen to something else. Or they just pick a song from that album and watch it on you tube which makes the artist no money.
I kind of miss the days of going to the store and getting cd's for music. I would love to do that again, but the stores do not keep the same kind of stock they used to, and there is no selection any more. There are 2 shelves of top 40 and one of random stuff which may have 3 metal albums, 2 jazz albums and 1 christmas disc on it.... Not for me. But if I make the effort and go to different sites to buy music and see what is out there, Im sure I can find all the selection I want, and I can just buy the albums and download them. And I even get to sample them before so I don't waste money on a album that I don't like.
I think Im going to attempt to make more of an effort to buy some music on line from my artists I like. I want them to continue to play music in the future and I want to keep hearing what new stuff they come up with. There is so much talent out there from these artists they amaze me with the songs they come up with!
Do you feel the same way? Do you buy music still and do you go often to get music and actually purchase it from a store or online?
