I’m on Spotify all day every day and not too ashamed of that - it’s just the best way to get straight stuck in to an album (can’t bring my record player to work) and you can also check out a lot of different music very easily.
I see buying vinyl as the same kind of approach to voting in the top 5 albums of the month thread on here - I’ll tend to wait to see what I have listened most over a month (listening stats from last.fm) then try and buy it. The exception being releases I am very excited about (the recent Weyes Blood for example) - then it’s nice to get down to Piccadilly records on release day.
Also unlike CDs, vinyl seems to retain quite a lot of it’s value, so if I did want a small clear-out each year, I could still recoup some of the costs.
I also like waiting until seeing someone live and picking up vinyl there and then, which is nice too, more cash to the artist for their work and it’s only same price as a few (well overpriced) beers.
I kind of wished I had one of those, or at least a CD changer in my car, when I went through the THRILLING DANGER of changing the CD to The Glow, pt. 2 while driving. The pride of managing to do it one-handed dashed by the dramatic twist that I’d got the CD of offcuts and demos that I definitely didn’t want to listen to while driving.
I have always downloaded a lot (not paid for, sorry) but also bought tons of CDs and vinyl. This has fizzled out in recent years, now it is the odd LP as a treat, down to new releases that catch my eye. From 1-2 a week to more like one a month depending on what is out. Mainly as I have filled most holes in must-have older music to fill gaps in the collection, anything that is missing is when I catch it on Ebay or second hand for cheap. Spotify is OK but I haven’t yet paid for it, I like how I have curated my collection of mp3s over pretty much 20 years now and it is what I am used to.
I’ll say the benefit of buying more stuff digitally is that I’m getting more weirder ambient music that I probably, for whatever reason, wouldn’t want loads of in physical form but that I find better suited to owning digitally
This is definitely a factor for me now having sold some stuff on discogs over the last year. CDs are practically worthless second hand whilst vinyl seems to pretty much retain it’s value (on average) as long as you don’t trash it.
new CDs are mostly from HMV, occasionally Fopp on visits across the water. if i can’t find something in HMV and have to order it online i usually order from Norman Records
buy quite a lot of second hand CDs from a couple of different indies, occasional charity shops and online/ebay sometimes. trying to cut down on online ones cos i’m worried about cluttering my house up too much, trying to restrict second hand bargains to ones found in shops, getting them online is a bit too easy and they often turn up in broken cases, so now reserve that for things i really want.
don’t buy vinyl very often but occasionally if a record shop is having a sale or it’s being sold pretty cheaply at a gig or whatever. also if vinyl is the only physical release and there’s not a massive price chasm between the download and the record. rarely buy second hand vinyl, unless it’s very cheap.
buy downloads sometimes, often from bandcamp if it’s a decent price. don’t buy album downloads much elsewhere although occasionally something will turn up bizarrely cheap on one of the bigger download sites. most of my bought downloads are probably EPs. if i’m buying from a non-bandcamp site i’ll try to favour 7digital over Amazon or Google Play because i’m not aware of them being an awful company, but i will use one of the latter if the price is right.
rarely buy cassettes cos why would you, but will very occasionally get one at a gig or from bandcamp for the right price/lack of other physical options
use free Spotify on my laptop at home for checking stuff out, at work i stream stuff off bandcamp when i’m not listening to my own library on my phone/SD card
always been reluctant to get Spotify on my phone as having instant access to pretty much anything wherever you are sort of kills the thrill of the chase for me. can see why people stop buying music and do this, last time i was moving house it was a killer moving all those CDs and books, but building up my own curated collection over years and years is like a primary hobby that i really hate the idea of letting go of.
when i used to drive to work i very much enjoyed picking out a CD to listen to every day. i guess you can do the same with mp3s, but i tend to scroll past stuff on my phone/computer all the time whereas when i’m digging through my CDs to find one i’ll generally come across 3 or 4 others that i think “oh i haven’t listened to this in a while, i’ll keep this out for a play too”
I’m still really tied to my iTunes being ‘my music library’ and the fact you can add anything to it consolidates this. I’ve generally fallen into a pattern where I’ll buy music when I really want to support the artist, stream/obtain it if not.
I’ve also developed a minor hobby of buying cassettes which is great because lots of classic old albums are £1 on ebay / discogs and occasionally current releases surface on cassette
Wrestling with something similar right now - basically all the CDs I bought up until 2011ish are boxed up at my mum’s.
I’ve got my own place (ie not house sharing in a tiny London room) for the first time in forever now, and… it’s got a fair amount of space and almost nothing in it. I kinda want it all back. A music collection has always been a key part of how I envision my home.
But also, there’s the hurdle of getting all that from SE England to NE England. And also I don’t even own a CD player these days ffs. I’d probably still just use Spotify. Plus I’m still renting and might end up moving next year. Dunno really what the point would be? But I still want them…
i’ve got quite a lot boxed in my wardrobe in my old room in my mum’s house, i still like hunting through it when i’m home for a weekend. got an ever growing collection in my own house now too though
i bought a new CD player a while back that sounds like shit so i mostly play CDs through my housemate’s Xbox when he’s not around. i do enjoy the ritual of sticking a physical album on and will insist on doing so regularly
Yeah, got well into listening to vinyl on Friday afternoons when working from home. Even if it means getting up about every fifteen minutes to flip it over
I used to buy tons of CDs but Spotify and Bandcamp are my two main music sources nowadays. I had a long running emusic subscription but I cancelled that a few months ago as they barely had anything worthwhile on there anymore.
I will buy albums on bandcamp to support the band and also a lot of the metal releases I get off BC aren’t on Spotify or streaming services. If I really love an album I’ll usually try and get it physically, either vinyl depending on cost and my finances or CD if the vinyl is just too pricey or it’s not been released on vinyl.
Personally I still like having something tangible even if it’s just the mp3s on my hard disk!
Back in 1989 I got a small redundancy package and then landed myself a job at HMV so decided to take the plunge and switch from vinyl to CD. Gave away about half my vinyl collection after replacing it with CD. In 1992 that CD collection was stolen and never recovered, so I had to start it all over again. By 2001 I purchased a record player on a whim and then dug out the remainder of my vinyl collection. It was then I really regretted giving half away. The point I realised was that all music purchased over the years, no matter how shite, comes with attached memories, the physical being of all those records and CDs somehow makes tose memories exist in real time.
To that end whilst I stream and download, I still purchase physical releases of things I like. Streaming is useful, I do it a lot, but only to back up buying the stuff I like - it’s a useful listening tool, saves having to endure the egos of DJs and the tedious structure of radio shows, but not a collecting device. I’m not sure I’d like digitising a collection with the possibility of perhaps losing it should whatever platform cease operating. I’ve already lost two collections which was enough.
Keep your collections, box them if necessary, but don’t ditch them as you’ll lose those associated memories that spring into your mind on looking, touching, feeling as well as listening to that physical product.
Kinda reached the same point. Carted CDs round from flat to flat, but couldn’t justify having them out on display when I moved into my gf’s house. Once I got a car with an AUX input I was basically ripping them and never playing them again, so moved on to streaming. It’s a space/clutter problem more than anything else, especially as I’m a natural hoarder with numerous cumbersome hobbies.
Everything is in the loft now, which really does feel pointless, but I see it as a collection from a 20-year span of my life, in the appropriate format (none of which holds any weight with my other half).
