#21

Maybe very US-centric then?

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#22

I can only really see a lot of replies from him to Twitter account pgofton (hard to search for stuff in Twitter) where it seems like he’s not exactly show any more evidence than the original thread, but yes, I can see a fair chunk of pushback on it.

Certainly it doesn’t feel like a straight accurate thing.

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#23

Welcome to the boards!

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#24

Like most things on the internet I imagine it’s a mix of truth, guesswork, wild extrapolation from limited facts, and straight up invention to make a point.

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#25

That’s Pete Gofton, from Kenickie(and other bands), who also presumably knows what he’s talking about, too

#26

Yeah, that’s part of the mess of reading the replies TBH.

#27

Purely from an environmental point of view I seem to remember there being some pushback on the idea that streaming/downloads were better than cds due to server electricity usage . I find it hard to believe a single album download is worse than all the manufacturing and distribution of a physical product but maybe if it is just taking up server space almost indefinitely that is the issue?

In terms of physical formats cds presumably should be better than vinyl but if second hand value means records don’t get thrown in landfill as much I’d imagine that outweighs other factors. I have plenty of records that are 50 years old and hopefully could pass them on to a new owner at some point.

Having happily ditched streaming, at least partly to try and do the right thing for the artists, the current situation with vinyl is a pretty disheartening.

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#28

Yeah there are green server farms either in existence or planned (I seem to recall Google had this idea of doing them off-shore and the electricity being generated by the waves they floated on - would be a cool thing) but not that many and obviously you can’t really control that aspect, so even if you’re buying a download and not streaming after that you’re still dealing with the availability costing money.

OTOH it’s hard to know how much space out there is being spun up all the time. e.g. when I put my MP3s into YouTube or Amazon’s music store it seems weird to think they might have 4 million separate copies of Radiohead’s OK Computer sitting on a single hard drive, probably they have one and they assign us all the right to grab it.

And if you’ve ditched vinyl how are you listening to this music when you’re not by a record player? E.g. if you used the download code then that’s still using the same level of environmental impact and, indeed, the fact that all these records come with a download means they aren’t actually more environmentally friendly than buying just the download?

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#29

Im not sure about that, the enviromental impact of having all music ever available to download 24/7 from a server, I would expect to be larger in the long run than producing X number of CDs for the estimated amount of people that are going to want them

Edit: i see this has been covered

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#30

Good point!

I’m 100% guilty of this.

#31

Well, i was thinking of the ethical aspects. There’s the environmental concerns as have been discussed. And how best to give artists money and control, while trying to support the health and accessibility of recorded music in general. I really think CDs are it, and it’s a crying shame to watch them dying on their arse as a format.

#32

I think it’s a good question and a thoughtful one given that a number of our fellow DiSers are recording artists in their own right. Certainly bandcamp of any form seems the best way. Interested in thoughts from @Twinkletoes and others on what they feel is best for them.

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#33

There’s definitely a bit of a cd resurgence going on at the moment.

  • People who like collecting/discovering music through physical media realising you can pick cds up for pennies.
  • Big artists/labels creating a market for big profit margin ‘deluxe’ cd releases
  • Vinyl pressing issues seem to be pushing indies to cds (although I’d say that’s very recent and not sure how viable it is, maybe downloads are the future here)
  • Some backlash against some of the more stupid vinyl pricing.

Still millions of cds going to landfill though and still feels to me like it’s heading towards being a niche sitting alongside, probably selling in very similar small quantities to, vinyl.

#34

As someone who used to love buying CDs, and still has hundreds of them, I’m really not buying them that much anymore unless they’re super cheap, or they look very limited/handmade, or if they’re from one of my old favourite bands (and so I need to keep my cd collection complete) or occasionally a new favourite band.

But mostly I will download albums instead, or sometimes a nice vinyl to own. Streaming (and downloading?) seems like it will stay, and so that seems like that enviromental cost will continue, and so it feels less bad to me to download something as opposed to buy a physical cd (often posted to me) to rip onto my computer and then just file away with my other CDs and never get played…

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#35

The last CD I bought was from Fightmilk’s bandcamp site a few weeks ago.

Before that the only CDs I bought were the ones that gave you entry to Rough Trade East gigs. I thought that model seemed a good one. Even the free entry gigs I’d buy a CD there as it seemed only fair as the artist was performing as well as a sound engineer spending 45 minutes on their desk.

Apart from those it must be 10 years since I bought a CD at a shop.

#36

Re: The Disintegration State stuff, with the exception of the first compilation we did which was bought by a lot of DiSers (as much novelty as anything else I think) we sell more copies of cassettes than we do CDs on bandcamp…

Not really sure why, and maybe it’s to do with working in the genres we do. I know I’ve bought more tapes than CDs in the last couple of years too.

By all accounts vinyl sells much more quickly on Bandcamp than any other physical format, but the outlay is a killer.

#37

I really need to get myself a cassette player. I have stacks of the things from 30+ years ago having never got rid of the originals. Any good small ones (don’t really want a large separate for this)?

#38

Not sure about small cassette decks, but I’ve got a reconditioned Sony double separate deck from the late 90s (I think!) which works really well.

I’ve noticed that decks are getting much more expensive to buy as sellers cotton on to the fact that tapes are selling more again.

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#39

Buying the downloads from bandcamp and paying more than you’re being charged for is probably least problematic. If you are disgustingly wealthy then you could properly redistribute your wealth to the artist. I’d suggest £10,000 as a very ethical price, however please pay more if you feel you can.

On an unrelated note, here is a link I found… https://thesunbane.bandcamp.com

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#40

It’s a tricky one. I usually opt for a Bandcamp download - I’d like to say it’s for environmental reasons, but it’s mostly because I usually don’t want more crap in my house and have ditched all players of physical formats ages ago. I then download all the MP3s (or FLACs if I want something #warm) and stick them on a media server thing in my house which only powers up when I want to play something. Again, this is more by accident than design and we do have a Spotify account too.

I do on rare occasions want to buy a bit of merch online (I used to do this a lot at shows) but do now weigh up whether or not it’s worthwhile. For example I just ordered an Armand Hammer t shirt and it does feel incredibly wasteful paying international shipping for a £20 t shirt to get flown to me. That decision I guess is driven by cost as well as the ethics of it. I mean, the plane is flying stuff here anyway, right…? :grimacing:

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