downloading music in 2011
 

What's your attitude towards it now? Rants, bitching etc are welcome too.

Yes. I am a full supporter. I haven't bought a record in close to ten months. This is mostly because I've been living abroad for said ten months, and I don't have a record player over here, so its seemed kind of pointless. My partner did give me a Bulgarian commie era pressing of the Beatles "Love Songs" two record compilation which I am quite excited to listen to here in a few months.

I feel like this day in age, if you're against downloading music, you're an idiot. In my mind, it's the same as being against the internet or something like that. Sure, you can chose to be a luddite if you want to, but at the end of the day, you're just making life more difficult on yourself by not partaking. It's opened up whole genres of music to the people, stuff that would go undiscovered beforehand. Being a child in the 90s, and a teenager for most of the 2000s, my musical taste would not have flourished like it did without P2P networks. For this, I am grateful.

I still buy records, not for any monetary reasons, but because I too am a bit of a luddite and like to make things hard on myself for no real reason. I can certainly understand the sentiment for wanting to have something tangible. I tend to seek out records that I deem to be pillars in my musical taste. There is a lot of fluff that doesn't need purchasing. It's certainly as much about aesthetics as it is nostalgia. CDs are totally worthless and a waste of money. My copy of Abbey Road from 1994 deteriorated by 2009, while my fathers copy of Abbey Road on LP from the 70s plays just fine, sans a little crackle. So in some ways, I'm a purist -- records are my analog recordings of choice; mp3s my digital.

I like downloading to sample music, but if I like something I'll buy it...... I think it's important to support bands, labels, brick and mortar stores, and the like...... I like vinyl but I find it kind of pointless, sure it looks great but I don't think anyone can make the "analog purity" argument in 2011, there's a 99 percent chance somehow it was recorded digitally, or mastered digitally, etc. And if you have a high quality stereo set up you're not really going to notice any difference. If you are, chances are it's surface noise.

Anyway, it's important to buy records, given the huge amount of choice outthere you'd be crazy if you're buying everything, but it's still important.

Also: I will be dead in the cold cold ground before I pay for an mp3.

I download to preview things. If I really enjoy/respect a band and a record, I'll buy it... either via iTunes or, more commonly, directly/through a distro/label (just as long as they're not ripping me off, ahem Mexican Summer). Direct is the best way, and usually the cheapest. But many things I get into these days are much older and out-of-print, and I don't have the budget to shell out hundreds of dollars for rare records on eBay, so it's easier to download. And in some of the cases, purchase of those records wouldn't result in royalties paid to the artists due to corrupt record company practices, or an artist's indebtedness to a company because of advances that were never recouped.

I think it's impossible to stop the sea from coming forward. It's like the weather, you can't do much to stop it. Excessive litigiousness on the part of the big content industries and labels hasn't worked. But I do think that downloading can fuck smaller labels very easily. Indie-torrents, I think that's what it's called, is probably more of a pernicious influence than many would like to admit. It's far easier to break the backs of smaller companies with filesharing. I also think that mp3 blogs can make certain listeners lazy and uncritical. I have found so much cool shit through blogs, but there's such an inundation of content that it's very easy to overlook or dismiss something merely because you have a low-quality file, and the nature of the mp3 doesn't compel you to SIT THROUGH a song like a record on a turntable does. Songs need to make instant impressions or they go ignored.

If a record is out of print, unless I can snap it up pretty easily, it's getting downloaded...... Unless I want it really badly but that's rare. I'm all for insane record nerd-ism but at a certain point I gots a mortgage to pay first.......

I download tons and don't give a fuck.

Honestly, no sympathy for the small record label. They are becoming less and less necessary. People shouldn't be making such stupid investments these days. I think that rightly puts responsibility on bands to promote themselves creatively and what not. Really, I don't care for Odd Future's music, but I see them as kind of a milestone in the way music is distributed. They recorded and did all of that shit online, promoted via social media networks, and now they're fucking huge and on MTV and whatever. I feel like there is this tendency to think that doors are shutting because the way music is distributed is changing, but really they're opening up.

It's officially a democratic space for anyone that has an internet connection, which if you live in "the west", you'd have to be a fool not to get access to the internet at some point. And as homeboy noted, while most tend to not be critical about the music they listen to and just take whatever they can find on a blog, I feel like for those of us that really give a shit about what we're listening to, it allows for a refined sense of taste that was previously unimaginable.

I'm a better musician than most. No, no - before you start. I really am. Ok, subjectivity and all that. I've worked fucking hard and I'm a fucking amazing musician. Do you know why you've not bought my record? No? Because I don't want to even pretend that I want to make money out of it. Not because of some holy act of benefaction to the download world. No. Because, fuck you, if I can't make money out of some 15 years of hard work (and none of you fuckers practise 4-8 hours a day)... fuck you.

I've been offered gigs. Paid gigs. Properly monetised, c£250 p/h gigs that I've turned down because, in all honesty, while that's a lot of money (especially given my utter poverty right now), I can't console myself with playing commercial music. I can't bring myself to play shit flamenco for corporate functions. So where does that leave me? I play for fun. I've spent all of my adult life working like a dog to play for fun. I give mp3s or digital versions of my music to friends because I like them, and some of them like me.

If I was an electrician, or a plumber [etc], it would cost £50 just for me to stand and tut at your doorstep. As it is, I'm expected to give away my music. Ok, a lot of you might hate it, but... well, if you don't want my services, I'm not fucking giving them to you. This is not an either/ or situation. Fuck you.

This isn't a fuck you to downloaders. I accept the situation. But what the situation ultimately means is that there's thousands, possibly millions, of people out there whose music you're not hearing. This isn't anti-download - I know people like Herr Park don't care in the same way I do. I know there's plenty of people for whom music isn't a simple revenue stream in the way it was. I know there's those who say 'fuck you, capitalist'. That's fine. Call me an old-school capitalist, but if you don't want my services - and let's be clear, my services include time, study, labour, practise, devotion, sacrifice etc - then you're not fucking getting them for free.

Again, this isn't anti-download - I'm looking around for soundtrack and other monetised work in the music industry, and I'm planning a few events because the old stratagems of cod-Beatles, record industry ideology don't work any more - in the interim, there's a lot of people losing out on a lot of great musicians who are looking to commercial work because there simply isn't a financially stable outlet for less commercial work.

Again, again - download all you like. But at the end of your internet connection is some poor cunt who's worked fucking hard at it, and is never going to be a professional musician unless s/he turns to function bands, soundtracks, busking etc etc. There will be no more Trout Mask Replicas, there will be no more Cages - all we can expect is an endless array of either bedroom faffers (fair play to those [Derek]) or pseudo-exciting indie (which, obviously, will be shit).

Actually there is plenty of work out there for talented musicians, where you pay for services rendered. Live bands are a fantastic way of making a decent living. If you're legitimately looking for a way to get paid to play, then you understand that there are ways by which you can make money doing what you do best. In fact, if you live in America, move to Austin and be a white guy playing the blues on a fender strat. Huge market for SRV rip offs down there. If you can, use your love of Faust to distinguish yourself and make a little more dough. But at the end of the day, like any other job, you have to do what the people who pay you ask for.

So let's be clear about what we're talking about here. You can get paid to play, but if you want to make music you actually give a shit about, you have to work it. And yes, that does require an equal amount of work and time, and yes it has everything to do with aesthetics and charisma, and almost nothing to do with quality: just like a real democracy. It's not a bad thing, you just have to recognize.

Honestly, this is such bullshit - and unfortunately, I'm obliged to not qualify that. Let's say I know someone who's in band x, who've sold x million records; let's also say I know someone who's sold nearly a million records. Neither consider touring a valid way of making money. Not in the old way. Ok, they make a substantial amount of money. Yes, there are external revenue streams - sponsorship (hello, ticketmaster), advert/ soundtrack affiliations, merchandise - but none of these are available to anything more than a preposterously tiny percentage of the population. I know (again, I'd best not name them) a band who can play in front of 5-10,000 people in central Europe for whom touring is simply less financially feasible than working in a bar for minimum wage. The US has smaller fuel premiums, and is more negotiable for less money, certainly - so I'll accept that they might have a different situation. But for the band in the UK, or across most of Europe, without financial subsidies from the state, it's not feasible. As a for instance - it's nearly more feasible for me to play in front of 20 people in Leipzig (542 miles, according to a recent google) because plane and train fare is cheaper and the government supports culture than it is to play, as I did tonight, 20 minutes walk away.

All this meritocracy bullshit is just bullshit. I'm very prosaic - I realise that my work will not translate into money. I look to other things for a career. Meanwhile, a good friend who's spent 10 years working genuinely very hard at nothing but music - including gladhanding promoters, learning the trade, getting inter/national press etc was admitted to hospital from malnutrition recently.

It is true. I know nothing about Europe. But you can easily make $200 a night playing weddings for 50 year old ex-rockers who just FUCKING LOVE ERIC CLAPTON.

Maybe you should take your craft to the United States... or Leipzig.

Very good point(s) however it's just a sign of the moving times to me. Things will always change and it's better to see the silver lining to the new prospects instead of clinging onto the antiquated old ones. We may not have another Cage or Trout Mask Replica but we will certainly have something as culture changing or ground breaking eventually that will manifest itself in another form.

As I say, I can't console myself with playing commercial music. Some sorts of commercial music. I have done it - I made more money for one corporate function than a lot of my friends make in a week. The equation is a bit fucked - I've easily made more than that doing something I don't like in a professional. I've played shit (as in actual shit) at weddings for friends (Eva Cassidy, anyone?). But I very seriously feel that talent as in craft is an entirely different thing to talent as in artistic talent. I can't imagine Beefheart (who I don't even care about particularly) making money from the wedding circuit. Music is an art and a craft, but there is no money in music as anything but a craft any more... possibly.

[Edit: to jonathan]

Yeah - I'm optimistic too. What I'm very worried about is a musical culture which simply doesn't expect to remunerate its artists. Yes, van Gogh made nothing in his lifetime, but JS Bach made at least a fair living. Our challenge isn't to simply hope that we will be rewarded for our efforts from kind-hearted benefactors - our challenge is to find ways to continue to be artistic (people will always be artistic) and find ways to live our lives in something approximating a comfortable fashion at the same time.

[two beers into the evening.....] If you download and don't buy records, that's fine or whatever, but I don't understand how people can claim to love music and not support it financially (unless you're a crusty punk, or whatever because then you have to spend all your time pretending to be homeless) - this isn't a "physical product/fill your home with shitty records/buybuybuy" argument, but if you really take something from an artists work you can't buy their record? I mean this is kind of a different argument than the new Lady Gaga CD, or when the billion dollar film industry complains about pirated videos, for independent musicians however this is so crucial - these people have rent to pay, strings to buy, amps to fix and tours to book. I know some people like our good friend atsonicpark are firm believers in free music, but for the most part the people I buy records from work day jobs and use their vacation time to book tours....... and I firmly believe that in order to keep the music scene alive it has to be supported by those who take enjoyment from it.........

This is somewhat peripheral to the above discussion, but playing fringe music for art school kidz and expecting to pay rent with your checks from tiny crap venues is a bunch of bullshit. It's awfully presumptuous to expect that you can make a career out of touring around the country and playing indie schlock in this economy and cultural climate. Many do, but if you start thinking of a CAREER from the outset, there's something wrong, UNLESS you are a professional session guy/gal, a techie or member of the crew, or someone whose working in other areas of the music establishment, like the classical or jazz world. But even there, groundbreaking work usually goes unnoticed till a composer is in her 50s.

Anyone expecting to make a career in fringe music is obviously insane, but that has nothing to do with anything that I said........

Was referring to jonathan's vague notion that playing in a live band is a "fantastic way" of making a living.

I downloaded a LOT between 2004 and 2009 (slsk + blogs).
These days, i find that most of the LPs i want to listen to are available on streams, bandcamp or spotify.
So i don'treally feel the need to actually download them. I rarely do.
As far as buying records, i have nearly stopped buying CDs as i have bought lots of CDs I had to own for a long time (thank you ebay) and find my collection is just perfect the way it is today). Now when i buy records, i buy them on sexy waxy and that makes me happy as i've recently bought a new turntable and amp. I still have about 20 Lps i need to buy but have other more important things to save for (thank you Christmas list).
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