Why buy anyones CD's anymore or purchased downloads?

[twoheadedboy]

If you use Spotify, or Apple Music you can hear any album by any artist in their library. So why buy any CD or purchased download?

The next question is how do artist make money if you just listen on the music apps....do they get 10 cents every time you play one of their songs on the music app?

I buy physical media (mostly vinyl), because I want indefinite access to some music, independent of the internet. Also, I don't want to have to use a device with a screen to listen to music all the time.

I think the streaming services like Spotify have some value, but I don't like how they pay artists, and I find that when I use them I tend to do too much exploring and not enough deep and careful listening.

 

[jogogonne]

I still buy CDs or digital dloads. You can't get some jazz online for free. It's still unpopular/rare enough.

I'll hear on the jazz radio station, and then try and buy the CD. Although I'll be honest, most of it is on Youtube. Even many of the artist put their music on Youtube knowing full well people will get it for free.

I've bought CDs from jazz players before just to support them, sure.

Honestly ... they should make people pay for music.

 

[Lobster]

If the only new music you are a fan of is laptop produced pop, I guess that's not an issue.

Laptop Pop is a good name for a genre to categorize this kind of music that you speak of.

 

[jogogonne]

I care about as much about artists quarterly earnings as anyone in this thread cares about mine...

People would care if you spent several thousand dollars and hundreds of hours into your work (like making an album) and had to do it for free.

That said, even back in the day, people would copy tapes and CDs. Especially tapes. But it was different. If you liked the band, you were going to buy the tape/CD whether you could copy it or not.

THAT is the difference. The copying was always there, the idea of buying music is dying, and it is not good...

 

[Big'Uns]

I buy the digital albums for the artists I want to support. I supplement that with Prime Music.

 

[dwoverdrive]

The Apple Music library is pretty large and if you subscribe to something like that there is just no need for a physical copy which I love. More obscure things that won’t be in the subscription I would just buy

 

[JohnK24]

I continue to buy a few CDs and mostly vinyl now. My CD collection is 1000 plus and vinyl is a few hundred (most from the 70s/80s when I was in high school).

 

[JPH118]

I mostly listen on Spotify (premium membership), but when I like something new, I buy the vinyl album to support the artist. I’ve re-purchased all my favorite classics on vinyl as well, and they certainly sound better than ever thru a good system. So in many cases, I’ve supported an artist twice for the same album, with the CDs stored in boxes in the attic. I don't think we have one CD player in the house anymore.

If it’s an album I bought on CD or tape in the past, then I really have no problems streaming it now. I paid for plenty of iTunes downloads over the past decade too, but there was def something very unfulfilling about that, and I rarely enter my iTunes library now unless it’s not on Spotify. They def built a better mousetrap, but I’m sympathetic to the artist side and will never stop supporting them regardless of how I choose to listen.

 

[KRosser]

Remember a few years back, when the popularity of E-readers lead some to predict the demise of bookstores, even of print itself?

There was a backlash, and bookstores are thriving, physical book sales are climbing, while E-readers are discontinuing and reporting losses, leading some to now predict the demise of the E-reader tablet.

And this happened because the culture of book lovers made it so. The hard copy experience prevailed, more or less.

(All this is pre-COVID, of course...it’s anyone’s guess how independent retailers make it out of this)

 

[pepedede]

I still like having physical copies of my favorite albums and don't like relying on another service to hold it for me. I even like to download and keep music on my phone and backup on my PC.

Many people I know always stream their music and rely on having internet access anytime and anywhere to get it.

I don't trust that.

 

[Bucksears]

I buy CDs when I want the whole album/disc, and not just a single. Singles I'll buy/download.

The other thing is that with a CD, I can rip it at Apple's lossless rate and not be at the mercy of whatever rate the host decides to apply to their downloads. This hasn't REALLY been an issue like with 128Kb MP3s in 2001, but still, it should be standardized somewhat.

I'll never go to streaming-only; as was posted earlier, the quality is streaming signal-dependent.

 

[pepedede]

Remember a few years back, when the popularity of E-readers lead some to predict the demise of bookstores, even of print itself?

There was a backlash, and bookstores are thriving, physical book sales are climbing, while E-readers are discontinuing and reporting losses, leading some to now predict the demise of the E-reader tablet.

And this happened because the culture of book lovers made it so. The hard copy experience prevailed, more or less.

(All this is pre-COVID, of course...it’s anyone’s guess how independent retailers make it out of this)

I hate using computers just for the sake of using computers. There's nothing wrong with a physical book, it doesn't need charging, is clear in sunlight and won't break. Same with a pen and paper.

 

[GuitarGuy66]

I buy the music off iTunes. I believe in supporting the bands I enjoy.

 

[splatt]

If you use Spotify, or Apple Music you can hear any album by any artist in their library. So why buy any CD or purchased download?

The next question is how do artist make money if you just listen on the music apps....do they get 10 cents every time you play one of their songs on the music app?

they absolutely do NOT make anything close to 10¢ per play.
napster pays $0.019 per play
tidal pays $0.0125 per play
spotify pays $0.0037 per play
apple pays $0.00783 per play

and so on.

if you use a streaming service & want to actually benefit artists because you like what you’re hearing, i suggest purchasing from their own websites (physical and/or streamed), from their bandcamp pages, from merch. at their gigs, etc.

 

[tiktok]

If you use Spotify, or Apple Music you can hear any album by any artist in their library. So why buy any CD or purchased download?
To provide financial support for their art.

The next question is how do artist make money if you just listen on the music apps....do they get 10 cents every time you play one of their songs on the music app?
Realistically, they don't.

 

[NorCal_Val]

I still buy CDs.(and books)

 

[Chris Milne]

1) Because so much great music is missing from Spotify
2) Because the audio quality of Spotify streaming is inferior to a CD's audio
3) Because if Spotify goes out of business I lose my music collection
4) Numbers 1, 2, and 3 may not matter to the average music consumer but they do to me - a lot
5) I am a Spotify subscriber but to me it functions much like radio used to function - I use it to discover things I want to buy. "Back in the day", radio would never be my primary source of listening to music, but it would feed that primary source sometimes.

ironically i use it to listen to 99% of stuff i already own on CD...however...some new releases from old bands or the ability to make tons of expansive playlists for my own enjoyment makes it worth it to have both.

 

[Strummerfan]

I hate these services that analyze my taste so they can target advertise to me. I buy my wife a pair of shoes on Amazon, suddenly the gear page is full of footwear ads. It's obnoxious. If I want music, I try to get as close to buying direct from the artist as I can. Before Covid, I had never even used my credit card online.

 

[Robert Libutti]

What most people have said. I like CDs for the 'collection' as well as the improved sound quality. And not audio snobbery either. I generally rip the CDs in high quality and put them on my phone and a USB thumb drive in my car. I have always done this, but a thing that really brought it home for me was when I bought a song from Google. If I stream it, the quality is totally dependent on the strength of my signal at the time. If it's a slower connection, you get all kinds of obnoxious artifacting on the cymbals; GROSS! Once you stream to your phone, then to you Bluetooth headphones or speakers, the quality suffers from multiple levels of DA/AD/DA/AD. So I will download that stuff to my phone. I have Sirius XM in my car, and the music quality is terrible. I'm always on the fence about cancelling. But I will sometimes stream when I'm on a computer with a good connection. And that has lead me to new bands...whose CDs I will buy.

 

[smallbutmighty]

If you use Spotify, or Apple Music you can hear any album by any artist in their library. So why buy any CD or purchased download?

The older I get the more I realize how important it is to support the things you want to exist in the world.

If you appreciate and consume something, support it in a way that allows it to flourish and continue. Otherwise, it won't.