How do you collect music?

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:03 pm

Most of you know I've run a record label for years and like every other label am having a hard go of surviving the current 'music is free' trend. I've done CDs up until now am currently in the process of switching to vinyl. Basically I'm doing a little marketing R&D here.

Note the first three options are "I buy music on a physical medium". If you are choosing the 4th option, I'd like to know what it would take to make you want to purchase a physical album.

Please feel free to let this thread wander wherever it will (CDs vs LPs, physical vs virtual, why the music industry has failed), I really don't care. I'd prefer however for it not to become a discussion of legal vs. illegal download, which is actually completely irrelevant. I want to know, from people who purchase music, what kind of format they'd prefer, and if there's anything that makes physical medium still viable in the 21st century.

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:16 pm

i voted for downloading simply because thats how i find a lot of new music....

i buy CD's when i can, but i just rip em to FLAC and shelf the disc.....

i generally only buy music direct from the artist via there website or online seller....i also try and buy direct from the artist at shows....

im all for supporting independent music, but i want to make sure most of my money spent is actually going to the artist

also i didnt know you ran a label CMoon...what type of music?

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:26 pm

jonny5 wrote:
also i didnt know you ran a label CMoon...what type of music?

Last Visible Dog Records (www.lastvisibledog.com)

Psychedelic/Experimental.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be promotional, but I basically want to know why, if people are chosing a download over an album, why? And of even more importance to me, what it would take to convince someone who normally downloads to buy the album. For instance, a sound engineer friend of mine believes it is entirely about packaging. If you can get a really sexy package, then a LOT more people will buy the album. I'm not entirely convinced, but the influx of new vinyl and the near death of CDs has convinced me there must be some truth to this. On the other hand, I think it is more complex than that. I think perhaps it is because downloads and vinyl represent extremes in regards to how one relates to music (convenience vs elaborate ritual), revealing that a lot of CD collectors were perhaps never actually serious music collectors, but that perhaps CDs may have been only one step closer to ultimate convenience instead of a viable format in its own right. Personally I still see CDs as a fantastic format for collectors, but the money says no.

Anyway, was hoping to generate a discussion about this.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:36 pm

When I buy stuff, I mostly buy CDs, but buy vinyl when I want to hear a specific record like that (Acrimony!) or really love the album art. I've been using a torrent site for the past few months and I like getting new shit for free, but I've found that with all of the music I get from the tracker, very little of it sticks because a lot of it is shit that I would never buy or give more than a cursory listen to to begin with. I've always bought music fairly infrequently, usually saving my money for new releases I'm waiting for, old ones I can't get new anymore or for distro shopping at a show.

What I think has been a detriment to the record industry has been the pulling apart of albums and the reliance on singles. When you market albums based on one or two songs and people are exposed to the vast, decentralized power of the internet and computers, it's no wonder album sales tank. They can just download what they want, and leave the rest. Maybe if record execs hadn't been trying to push shitty albums with one or two likeable songs for the past, what.... 50 years? musicians and consumers alike would be more into producing and consuming full discs. With mp3s, you can download an album and delete what you don't want, or just download that one song you want and not take up any physical space and barely any virtual space. Buying a CD is useless when you only want one song because of the cost and the fact that it's a physical object you have to stuff somewhere just for that one track.

unsane · Post by **unsane** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:53 pm

I'm the type of person that wants everything virtual. There's no hope of getting ppl like me to ever buy physical music again. Pros: doesn't take up physical space, much easier searching/sorting, instant access to my entire collection, and more i'm forgetting.

My suggestion would be to adapt your label to virtual sales somehow (if you haven't already). Sell songs or albums in mp3/flac/etc formats.

kozo · Post by **kozo** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:12 pm

I buy physical when possible because,

• I want friends to see it on the shelf, ask about it, listen to it, enjoy it, talk about it.
• As a designer, I like that a lot of work goes into packaging design, artwork, the materials used, and I notice.
• I like grabbing a disc off the shelf and rummaging through the liner notes, especially with old VGM that smells like Japan.

• You can sell it when you're done with it/if you don't like it - a huge problem I have with both legally downloaded games and music.

...and you can't do any of that with effectively with virtual media. Less convincing but still good reasons include:

• I like having a backup for when my HD jacks up.
• I like being able to physically hand it to someone to lend it to them.
• I lose MP3s because they are usually valueless, but CDs I keep track of and take care of them and always have them to listen to.

Physical albums give the music a frame, like a piece of art. Musicians toil for months or years on their work, and downloading a simple MP3 file reduces all that work and emotion to an often free little nugget of data for the whiny, self-entitled high-schooler to download, consume, misunderstand, lump with their other crappy music, and forget about - disposable, like everything else. It can be hard to get motivated when that is how your work is received - I know from personal experience. Of course, that probably doesn't describe most of you on this forum.

Obviously, with downloaded music there are upsides mentioned already like lack of physical space, can't get scratched, easy to file, but the pros of physical media outweigh the cons for me. And also, if the album is simply out of print and there is just no way to get a copy, I think it's understandable why you'd want to download.

Acid King wrote:What I think has been a detriment to the record industry has been the pulling apart of albums and the reliance on singles, etc.

Great post, agreed. Regardless of media, having an album with two great songs and 10 crap is the fault of the musician. That's why I like to release EPs...better 5 amazing songs than 15 barfy ones.

elfhentaifan · Post by **elfhentaifan** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:31 pm

i still sometimes buy CD's when they have 'good artwork' on it, and im pretty sure of the music to be pretty nice.
Then i just dump the mp3's from the CD and am happy.
Most mp3's on my HDD are of course downloaded though, since id have to pay an incredible amount to pay them all.
and before someone wants to bug:
ALL DOWNLOADS WERE FREE AND LEGAL

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:39 pm

to clarify, if i am buying music i want something physically in my hands.....

i have only ever bought 2 albums in mp3 format online.....but only because they didnt have physical copies for sale

i download a lot of music, most of which i havent heard before or just heard about through the grapevine.....if i like something a lot i will seek out that artist to purchase their albums....most of the stuff i listen to is independent label underground stuff, so a lot of it is off the radar so to speak...if i hadnt downloaded it in the first place i would never have heard of them

the main reason i buy the albums even tho i have mp3s of it is to give money to the artist and so i can get it in better quality....FLAC vs 156kbps mp3 is no contest

im not concerned with the actual CD's...once they are ripped to FLAC i will either throw it on a shelf or in a box or more likely pass it on to someone else

my computer is my stereo so i dont need discs

say what you will about music piracy but without it i wouldnt have ever heard of 90% of the stuff i listen too.....

Matsunaga · Post by **Matsunaga** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:47 pm

I used to buy cd's, but iTunes is so easy, and cheaper, and saves me a trip to the store. They also seem to have everything, so tracking down a rare cd isn't the hassle it used to be.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:48 pm

For money reasons and because I don't like to have a lot of stuff sitting around, my music purchases have returned to pre-downloading levels (a few a year - I own about 125 after selling a bunch). I'll only buy albums that have become favorites, i.e. stuff downloaded months back. It's nice when the packaging has some care behind it.

(voted 4, but the "few" are CDs)

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:30 pm

Dowload everything. I collect games.

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:59 pm

I was relatively late getting an mp3 player, as I only bought my first one last year. I'd hardly bought any CDs for a few years prior to that due to lack of interest in anything coming out. Since buying my iPod though, I've purchased hundreds of tracks on iTunes. The price point is exactly what I think the music is worth, I can hear partial previews of any song before buying, and I can pick and choose the individual tracks I want. That, plus the lack of impact on my dwindling storage space, was the magic recipe to get me buying music again. The only time I buy a CD now is if it's not on iTunes or if the CD is significantly cheaper than the download. On those occassions I'll rip the CD to my iPod and never touch the disc again.

I used to have more of a collector mentality, but that's been crushed out of necessity due to limited storage space. I prefer physical media for movies and full price games at the moment, but there's nothing that would tempt me back to that for music.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:10 pm

I don't buy music, never have really. The only music I mostly listen to though is video game soundtracks. Regardless, I do think the trend is toward downloading through itunes or whatever. The only people I know who actually buy CDs are musicians/music aficionados who like to have physical CDs. I'm pretty sure that's a minority of music purchasers.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:27 pm

Acid King wrote: What I think has been a detriment to the record industry has been the pulling apart of albums and the reliance on singles. When you market albums based on one or two songs and people are exposed to the vast, decentralized power of the internet and computers, it's no wonder album sales tank.

This isn't just a great post, it is exactly what I said in an interview for Record Collector News. Honestly I think the record industry has shot itself in the foot, where other industries under similar pressure (books for instance) are thriving. I feel like they build their fortunes out of a house of cards--and once they couldn't depend on the teen sales (being too savy to keep buying $16 CDs for 1 or 2 songs), the whole thing crashed.

unsane wrote:I'm the type of person that wants everything virtual. There's no hope of getting ppl like me to ever buy physical music again. Pros: doesn't take up physical space, much easier searching/sorting, instant access to my entire collection, and more i'm forgetting.

There's good and bad with it. I'm glad I live in a world with both.

My suggestion would be to adapt your label to virtual sales somehow (if you haven't already). Sell songs or albums in mp3/flac/etc formats.

Already have digital distribution, and I need to tell you that it stinks. Of course there's no way for people outside of music to realize that music sales ACROSS ALL FORMATS (including legit downloads) have crashed. So, while it is a good suggestion and one I've explored, it simply doesn't even begin to approach even the piddling sales I see from CDs. Sad isn't it?

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:29 pm

I realized that you may mean "collect" as in "this is what I occasionally listen to" and yeah I download game soundtracks often. Try to buy them too, depends on what money I have.

The last music I listened to was a thrift store CD find, a great one too (both the music and the value).

ncp · Post by **ncp** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:25 am

I didn't vote in the poll. I generally find a band that I really love and buy all (or at least most) of their CDs, but bands that I don't "love" I generally don't bother. I own a few hundred CDs. This also applies to game soundtracks which I own several of but nothing near a "collection" of them.

I don't really like the low quality of (most) digital music, and the lack of physical copy.

edit: I ended up voting for CDs because I do "collect" CDs in a sense (I even have a small collection of promos and such for certain bands), but realistically I do only buy certain CDs that I have previously heard.

Koa Zo · Post by **Koa Zo** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:19 am

I stopped buying CDs not because of downloading, but becasue the physical quality became so shitty and suspect.

Of the last dozen or so major label CDs I bought all of them were fucking peices of shit -as in one little hairline scratch and the damn thing would skip all to hell. However I have scores of CDs from the early 80s that look like they've been used to clean a floor and they still play OK.

To further my disgust, (or to finalize it) the last NIN album I bought skipped right out of the package. The last Beth Orton CD I bought wouldn't play in my car CD player (right out of the shrinkwrap), and also skipped very easliy in most any other player. The last Tori Amos CD I bought was unplayable after one slight hairline scratch.

Just looking at the bottom of the CDs, a significant difference is apparent. The discs from the 80's have distinct pits or data lines or whatever, discs from the past 10 years are not like that - like the data is written shallower.

Mostly I outgrew collecting music (the industry made me disgusted), though I still buy some stuff, like an occasional game OST, or a few Drive By Truckers albums.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:46 am

Looks like I'm first to buy mainly LPs when I buy in the vote. I've mostly been buying old stuff in those oversized closet stores downtown, because that's the kind of stuff I feel like owning, stuff like Duran Duran and Bowie. But I have bought some new things, usually what's cheap. Bought a Bibio record because it was 10 dollars... Wanted to own Panda Bear's Person Pitch and the newest Animal Collective record regardless of the price. I'm not the type of person who can afford to buy music every other day or week, but sometimes I do treat myself. Oh, I bought "Before Loveless" by MBV on Ebay which is a reissue comp I'm pretty sure, so I guess that counts.

I bought CDs for portability until mp3 players got so inexpensive. I've sold a lot of the CDs I used to own because I don't have a CD player in my car, I used to carry one around that played mp3cds I could make as well as CDs I owned, but mp3 players are infinitely better than that setup. I hate that I sold so much of that stuff for like 2 and 3 dollars, but I was an idiot teenager.

Most of the time vinyl is too expensive. It's discouraging especially when a CD is $11.99 and the LP is $24.99. I'm not really an audiophile or anything, I just like bigger cover art and it's less impersonal than digital formats. I know that I like when stuff is packed in it, if it's a letter or a book of pictures or a story. It sucks getting a record and it's just the record, but I know a ton of people think that would just be relying on gimmicks. Oh, and usually when a record has something like that it doesn't tell you before you buy it, it's just a surprise. Maybe they can be more upfront about it, even if it's just a small sliver of art and a lyric sheet.

There's little I can say about it, I guess ideally I'd want the performer to pop out of the record when I open it and give me a high five and smoke a blunt with me, but any sort of personal connection it offers to the music to buy it or just a link to something tangible tacked to it would be really cool for the stuff I bought, even a CD if the presentation was cool enough, although I can't remember the last time I put in a CD to anything to listen to music, other than to rip it

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:00 am

Syycag> Nice post. Since I'm moving to vinyl, those are the comments I'm looking for. When I started running a label I didn't think much about art because a lot of my artists didn't think about art. Now I invest a lot of time in graphic design, and I get kinda crazy when the artists submit lazy artwork. That said though, I've been wary of gimmicky artwork. I do know there are people who buy things based on EXTRAVAGANT packaging, but I wonder if this is really a big pull, or just a few people. I've always bought music based on whether I like the music or not.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:43 am

Think of it like cereal where kids only buy it for the toy and the colorful box, haha. Although that's not gonna work so well if you're selling bran flakes. And they can go to their neighbor's house and eat all the cereal they want. So yeah basically I'm telling you to put word puzzles and stare-eograms on the back, and a magic color changing spoon inside. WHOA, can they make hypercolor vinyl, where it changes color when you touch it? Try to do THAT with a CD!

Doctor Fugue · Post by **Doctor Fugue** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:41 am

I buy all my music on CD, and on cassette before CDs were widely available. I have a reasonably large collection of music but I don't listen to music very often. Really the only place I do a lot of listening is while driving. Downloaded music might be more convenient for taking with me in the car, and I do occasionally plug in my MP3 player (all the music on there is taken from my CDs that I have bought), but I would rather have a 6-disc changer in the car (which I do!).

I also prefer to have all my music exist in the same (tangible) format. Since it would be impossible to find every CD I have on LPs as well, I default to buying all CDs. If, however, there was some band or musician I really like and wanted to support them, I would buy both the CD and LP.

About art and packaging: I couldn't care less. The only reason I know what albums look like is because I want to find them quickly in a store. Other than that, I never really look at them. In my collection, I only look at the spines to locate my selection.

I wrote a rant here on marketing singles and how it is actually the public's fault, but erased it. Bottom line: if people didn't buy shit, shit would stop being on the menu.

I pride myself on only buying albums where the entire length is quality material. I guess the main reason is that I only buy music from bands that I am truly passionate about (after doing extensive research). I think there is enough music out there that I can be selective. A band with only a few good songs is worthless to me. I want a lot of great material, or in extremely special cases, one perfect album.

Actually, I am terribly surprised that the internet hasn't made music sales go through the roof. In my younger days, it was difficult to find new music (especially in a small town). But now it is everywhere and readily available. We can search and buy music all over the place. Independent, major label, dude in a basement, the store never closes.

Boy, I'm going all over the place. Too many things to write about. I'm a musician but I hate recordings.

kozo · Post by **kozo** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:48 am

jonny5 wrote:most of the stuff i listen to is independent label underground stuff, so a lot of it is off the radar so to speak...if i hadnt downloaded it in the first place i would never have heard of them

That is a good point, and something I failed to give a plus to on the "download" side.

charlie chong · Post by **charlie chong** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:10 am

i buy lps still but only really from thrift/charity shops,bootsales and second hand stores and fairs. i don't like to spend much money on music cos i need a constant supply of new stuff to sample to make hip hop. this makes me open to a lot of different sounds as i don't really have a wants list i just get given what i find that looks good at the time. there is loads of stuff i would buy instantly because i like the artists/players involved,the label ,the art etc so a lot of purchasing is done on feel and knowledge but i also take a lot of punts on stuff and i have no idea what it is. there are so many lps in the world you will always come across some very strange,obscure,weird records that no one else may have heard or seen before especially when you start trying to learn about local bands etc

got to admit when i'm buying an lp "blind" the cover has a lot to do with whether i pick it up to check the back for instruments/artists etc to try and determine what type of music it is and will it be good??

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:16 am

I'm a DJ (hobby), so I download shit loads of trance, listen to everything very briefly and delete 80-85% of them. The ones that are "keepers", I buy on 12" vinyl. I used to listen to preview clips in the online music stores, but got fed up with the fact that you can't really hear if a track is well produced in lo-fi previews, also, some tracks sound awesome, then some cheezy sample fucks it that aren't in the clip you heard online.

I buy (latest was Wolfmother, so it's been a while) rock albums on CD though. Even though I have some vinyl albums, I don't listen to them, as I don't have a hi-fi system connected to my vinyl decks. All music I don't play at parties I prefer to listen to on my HTPC (connected to a hi-fi system), and that's mostly ripped CD's.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 12:59 pm

Doctor Fugue wrote:
I wrote a rant here on marketing singles and how it is actually the public's fault, but erased it. Bottom line: if people didn't buy shit, shit would stop being on the menu.

The marketing of singles and it's theoretical contribution to the problems within the music industry isn't because people are buying shit. If anything they're consuming less shit because of the ability to pick and choose what bits of an album they want. If you remember the time before the internet, music was marketed through the radio and MTV, both of which were oriented toward singles. If you didn't know anyone who owned the album, the only exposure you got without actually buying the record was the singles, and if you listened to something other than mainstream pop and rock music, you didn't even get that. The consumers here are being smart because once they learned they could get those songs for nothing, they jumped at the opportunity. The people not buying those major label albums and single releases aren't the people that are really into music the way many of us are, they're just into music they like. They're the kind of people that say shit like "I like music I can dance to" or "i like anything with a beat". And really, those are the people not buying major label releases, because why would they spend money on an album when they can get the song that they hear in the club or on the radio for nothing?

I think the situation is similar to what has been going on with beer in America. Craft brewing has continued to grow, even with the shitty economy, while the macro brewers are having problems. Thats because their core consumers are buying cheaper brands like Pabst because they just want something they can dance to, something with a beat and they want it as cheap as possible. People that actually love beer and care about quality may be spending less money, but they're still buying craft beer. And just like craft beer (America now has more breweries than any other country), there are more niche record labels releasing music than ever before. Not only do music lovers have more choice than ever before, which can be a problem for labels because the market just becomes more and more fractured, but they are, in my opinion, more likely to spend their money on an album because they care more about what goes into it and were never the ones targeted with singles to begin with.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:03 pm

IF i buy a record (and that doesn't happen very often) i prefer vinyl.
If your label is Psychedelic / Experimental it's fitting perfectly fine.
Cause most of the crowd that likes niche music already has a vinyl player.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 2:00 pm

i buy CDs at the record shop, sometimes online if i cant find it at any of my local places.

dont like the format much tho but i just cant be arsed with vinyls these days.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:26 pm

Acid King> Again, we share about the same thoughts on this; glad to know I'm not alone out there. IMO, the music industry built it's empire on an illusory music fanbase that wasn't really there. Once the window became open to just get those individual tracks which 'are good to dance to' or 'have a nice beat', suddenly the revenue disappeared.

Interestingly enough, small stores specializing in vinyl, are starting to crop up; and their selection doesn't look anything like the music section of walmart or bestbuy. These new stores are more like music boutiques which carry precious little of mainstream, radio play music. It makes me think there is a growing division between 'music collectors' and the people who buy an album because they heard a song they liked on the radio. I'm not saying that distinction hasn't always been there, but in the past, I'd have said these record shops I mention above were specializing in 'weird music', but now I'm starting to think that isn't the way it is at all. Rather, that the serious music collector may have always been into so-called 'weird music'. Once the casual music shoppers are weeded out, I'm starting to observe that the tastes of the standard music collector (everyone who is left) are pretty esoteric.

I assume the record industry will attempt to capture this market, but I think it is very small for them--so it may be the time for micro labels, just as it is for micro beer.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:27 pm

Jockel wrote:IF i buy a record (and that doesn't happen very often) i prefer vinyl.
If your label is Psychedelic / Experimental it's fitting perfectly fine.
Cause most of the crowd that likes niche music already has a vinyl player.

Well this is what I'm seeing in my scene. My friends which run similarly minded labels that have switched to vinyl have done pretty well with it, and I think those are the kind of people who DO want vinyl. I guess time (and money) will tell.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:37 pm

Putting on a vinyl record is a whole nother way of celebrating music.
A way that's quite popular with the alternative crowd.
Perhaps a small and limited CD printrun to accompany the vinyl release, so the audiophiles can get their kicks as well.
Or you offer a download code for high quality MP3s with every vinyl record.
However if you keep it vinyl only it's less likely to get pirated.
On the other hand if your published music isn't too famous that's nothing to worry about.
Pay attention to really good artwork and very artsy covers.
If a cover looks so good that you'd want it as a poster in your living room, i think you are on a good level

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