Do you like it physical or digital?
MuffinBlogger Michael and I have been debating the usefulness of 'old media' CDs vs. easy-to-store digital files, be they MP3, AAC or something else.
For a long time I subscribed to the 'he who dies with the most toys wins' lifestyle - I'd use iTunes to get a song or two, but if I wanted the whole album I'd buy it from Amazon or whatnot. But I began to realize that I rarely listen to those CDs. When I got them, I'd immediately rip them into my iTunes library and enjoy them there, streaming to my stereo or on my iPod. For the car I'd make MP3 disks with loads of music, nicely sorted into folders.
What happened to the CDs? For a long time they lived in my 200-disk CD jukebox, and eventually spilled into another. But they didn't get played. And the jewel cases, they didn't receive any attention from me. Yet I kept them. Why?
I think it was something about being able to see them. In my computer, they're just a bunch of lines in the library. But on the shelf or in the jukebox, I knew they existed. It was comforting.
When my wife and I moved into our new place, things started to change. The jewel boxes, well, there wasn't room on the media shelf anymore, since we both had pretty big movie collections. They got banished to the attic. The CDs themselves stayed in the travel wallet home they had made when I moved back to L.A. from Las Vegas. Right now they're sitting on top of the file cabinet.
I'm still reluctant to get rid of them, but growing less-so. I bought a big hard drive to load them all onto and plan to sell the majority of them. Some I still want to keep ... I like the idea of having my favorite artists available at CD-quality, even though my ears usually can't tell the difference.
The next big step is to buy whole albums via iTunes. It still frightens me a little, but not near as much as it used to. Part of it is the fact that I recently uploaded my entire digital music collection to Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) for safe-keeping. I'll post about my experience with that soon.
Of course, I also still buy a number of albums on vinyl, which also get converted to digital. But I love my records and refuse to part with them. I never loved my CDs ... I sure liked them a lot, but never had that kind of passion.
Enough about me. What do you guys think about CDs vs. digital music? Maybe Michael and I are the only hold-outs?
4 comments:
I thought I was at that changeover moment. I pre-ordered the new Bloc Party album through itunes, basically giving up on a physical copy of it in favor of the two bonus tracks that come on the itunes download plus the bonus remix of the first single and a video.
Then I picked up the newspaper ads this morning and there it is ~ Best Buy has the album on Tuesday WITH the two bonus tracks and for two dollars less. OK so I don't get the remix, but I can use my extra two dollars to get TWO remixes. And who needs a video? Just takes up space.
Then I realize Circuit City has it for FOUR DOLLARS LESS. $7.99! For the CD! So I think I will cancell my preorder and just get the CD.
To top it all off I ordered three new CDs (Teddybears, TV on the Radio and Ragina Spektor) from AMAZON for a total of $24.98 with a $25 gift certificate I got for Christmas. It was cheaper than the downloads! I did get Placebo's album on itunes last week. So I guess for a while I'll still do a bit of both.
When I think about it, I agree completely. The iTunes store isn't the cheapest, nor a guaranteed investment in the future. But when searching for music, I rarely think about it.
Lame, yes. But, iTunes makes it so simple and mindless. I can stumble around the music-o-sphere at my leisure, and clicking that "buy now" button is just so instinctual. Logic be damned.
One tip: dumping all my change in the CoinStar machine at the end of the month and getting an iTunes gift card helps mitigate my guilt. It's like free music (though, not).
price is a consideration that i haven't even taken at this point. i don't shop at best buy or stores like that ... amoeba is the only place i actually go to purchase music. otherwise it's amazon all the time. but i'm no longer a 'prime' member, so shipping becomes a factor.
going forward, i'll certainly check the usual suspects before downloading; if it's cheaper overall to buy physical media, i'll save the money and then perhaps sell the used disk later on. but if the cost of digital is less than physical, i'll probably go that route.
i created a new itunes library during the weekend to house complete CDs, which will make that easier, as i'll just make sure the downloaded album lives there as well. i converted 69 of my CDs to digital so far, and a good chunk of those will be sold, i think.
now i just have to decide how to get rid of them. i could take them to amoeba, but i don't imagine i'll get a lot for them. i could try selling them on ebay, but that's a lot of work. or i could try selling them on amazon's marketplace, though i don't know what's involved with that.
anyway, progress.
For me I guess it is a combination of price, convenience and how much I like the band. Radiohead, Bloc Party and the like are probably candidates for just buying the CD, at least for whole albums, because I see them as more important in my collection.
But when I'm making a CD of new songs to share with friends, 99¢ and the ease of gathering the songs sure makes itunes the way to go.
I'm digitizing all my CDs, too and there are quite a few that are going to be sold or donated.
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