- If you follow the data released by Nielsen, you’re well aware that music consumption is distinctly trending away from…well, consumption, with sales of digital files and CDs—the sources of leaks themselves—giving way to self-contained access points like Spotify and Pandora. Even though mp3s don’t trigger the fear and loathing they once did within the record business, last week’s leaks show that the compressed digital files are still capable of causing significant headaches. As for leaks themselves: in their current form as a technological byproduct of demand for music, they date back at least to Dylan: if there’s a strong enough desire to hear something, those with access will cobble together tools to free music from its private, pre-release circulation period, regardless of the artist’s or label’s wishes.
Over the past 20 years, pre-dating Napster and continuing well into the streaming moment, a history of the various rationales and reactions to digital leaks charts the history of the record business itself during its externally-imposed digital transition: tactics of copyright enforcement, technologies of circulation and surveillance, ad-hoc promotional strategies that have sedimented into business practice, and the alternately fraught and symbiotic relationships between music fans and the musicians themselves.
I liked the end of this article, I much prefer to have some sort of possession of the music I have and try to avoid using services such as Spotify and Pandora. Most of the music that I download/purchase comes from Bandcamp, which is great because I mostly know where that money is going. Leaks are dead, long live leaks.
I recently bought all my favorite albums in CD form due to that desire to actually possess the music. I'm not sure why I did this, but it feels better to know that I can pop a CD into my car stereo and listen to some good tunes. Plugging in a phone with an aux cable doesn't give me the same feeling. Why do people get satisfaction from possessing physical things over digital ones?
I feel like kleinbl00 has covered this topic before (if not, sorry about tagging you)? To me there's a lot to it. I love liner notes, I love inserts and album cover art/photography and the personality of the music at hand, a lot of that gets lost digitally. For instance, if I'm just ripping music into iTunes where does the history of that album go? Where are the liner notes? They are mostly lost. Physical copies of music are also nice because they are much more an extension of your personality than digital music. You can tell a fair bit about people by the records they keep close at hand, and it's way of proclaiming "this is what I like, this is part of who I am" whereas digitally it becomes more of a "this is the playlist I work out to" situation. As for books, I've never been quite comfortable reading an eBook, something has always seemed off doing so compared to reading a physical book. And welcome back viceroy/delta, it's good to see you again!
I'm not entirely sure there's an inherent value to physicality. There are certainly a lot more aspects to interact with. You're right in that digital liner notes suck ass, and that it's impossible to fetish over files. I haven't bought a CD in... Uhhh... seven years? but I also haven't listened to CDs in longer than that. For me, music has become an entirely auditory thing and the ability to queue up 22 hours of the Future Sound of London far outvalues the groovy 3D cover of Accelerator. But I'm not much of a "fan" anymore, more of a consumer, that views his music purchases more as business transactions than exercises in adulation. I do great with eBooks but I also spent almost as much on the cover as I did on the Kindle. For me, the "fetish object" is this bitchin' leather thing in my hand. The turning-of-pages lovelysmell has been supplanted by the delicious, delicious odor of dead cow and Bick 4.