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Originally Posted by hipster_bebop_junkie
Would love to hear your thoughts on Spotify, Lee (If you would have the time and inclination to share). I for one find it hard to embrace it after reading some other artist's stories in regards to Spotify's unfair practices. Still, I consider this a good idea. Food for thought for those willing to participate (Jen's work is awesome as you say, for instance), and a bunch of fun for those into Spotify.
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I can speak briefly to this, having asked you all to participate in this little endeavor: I myself have many mixed feelings. On the one hand it seems the wave of the future, even if still in the growing pains stages. A massive library--great reference tool--of music. People tell me it spells the end of 'music ownership' as we know it---you know, record collections. That all that stuff will exist in the digital realm. Coming from an age when record collecting and collections was a noble endeavor, it rubs me a little bit. ebooks, same thing. I read 'em, would rather carry ebooks on tour than huge tomes (Keith Richards, I love ya but I'm thinking of you...), but I STILL WANT THE OBJECT for any that I love and value, and by same token still go out and buy hard-copy music LPs of stuff I love and want to keep close. At their best, in the heyday of albums, they are cheap, affordable
objets d'art as well as containers for the music inside. Artifacts. Beautiful things to hold.
There's also the fact that one great thing about a record album (CD, etc) is all the information you get--credits/artwork/mysterious liner notes--that are all lost--thrown out--on Spotify (and iTunes etc etc). I love that part of the music--digging into the cryptic mentions and information included with an album, pouring over beautiful photos or strange drawings on the jackets. I don't really understand why these music services don't make all that stuff available---or maybe they do and I just don't know how to access it? We took great pleasure, when working on my album, in designing the art--especially the LP art/gatefold collage/liner notes etc. I'd be sorry to see all that stuff become a thing of the past...
On the other hand, if you read the music press, and want to find out what's happening (and don't want to fully rip off artists and illegally d/l stuff), but don't want to spend tons of $ on some records you might just listen to once, it's a well-spent $5/month.
Artists payments from these services are a major point of contention. I sort of assume these issues will be worked out as this sort of situation becomes normalized and established. This is all in the very early stages---after, what?, 100+ years of "owning recorded music", we've been downloading via such services for a mere blip of time... Growing pains...
Conflicted? Sure. Kicking and screaming into the digital age? Not really...
L