Last weekend I was about to head off for a camping trip with my family when I remembered that my Dad would have his Bose CD player; we always bring together our latest CD’s and over a few beers we play them. Problem was I had very few new CD’s to let him hear.
So I thought its OK I’ll skim through Spotify at the latest albums I’ve been listening and just connect my phone to the Bose. However when I scrolled down through my recent playlists I could only remember how a few of my recent music finds sounded.
I went back upstairs to my CD collection that is quietly gathering dust in the spare room. As I looked through my records I could see very few new releases, I realised that my collection now has a massive gap thanks to the wonders of streaming.
Spotify is my weapon of choice; premium is a fantastic package that allows me to listen to a vast collection of music that ultimately is not mine. The sound quality is good as well I have the stream and download rate maxed but it is not a patch on a CD through a decent amp. As I write I am listening to a CD that I streamed constantly on Spotify and there is a depth of music that I had not heard previously.
I’m an artist who has music on Spotify through Weird Decibels https://open.spotify.com/album/0RqqqJ6LnoqCjbPdGYuMxL and Morningday https://open.spotify.com/album/15QpqO4q0wT1EP4qV3LnG4 I have another concern. CD’s are hard to sell because everyone loves streaming and downloading (not to mention BitTorrent) and I get that. However my recent cheque of $8 from digital distribution service CDbaby won’t cover the cost of the CD’s I printed!
The future of Spotify is slightly uncertain, it’s losing money at an alarming rate and it is ripe for a hostile takeover. Tidal has arrived at our shores and as much as I love HD streaming £20 a month seems steep; I’m going to wait and see how this pans out. There is something that doesn’t sit right with multi millionaire musicians starting up a service to challenge the likes of Spotify etc. Are they any better? Do they want to control the market? Are they really looking after us, the wee guys?
Ideally I want to own my collection (downloads don’t cut it…) and as an artist I want to be paid for the hours that I toil for music that I hope you enjoy. I’m also worried about the vast amount of bands that I have simply forgotten about and I’m sure the vast majority of music consumers now do the same. Listen. Like. Next. Repeat.
So have had made the decision to buy CD’s (or pay for unsigned downloads) again (my wife won’t be pleased); perhaps not in the volume I used to (I can’t afford that) and I will continue support music Spotify will remain a vital cog in my music set-up but perhaps I will use it as the ‘try before you buy’ like I used to. A physical format is a wonderful way of transporting you back to the time you bought the product and well the love of artwork has been well documented.
Perhaps my music collection won’t be so sparse if the cloud ever starts to rain…
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