Buying albums in 2014

[Sixes]

No option for zero?

Question to those that buy a lot of albums, do you buy them after listening to the album and deeming it to be good? Or do you just buy out of respect for the artist? If it's the latter, how often do you find that you just bought a shitty album?

I don't mean to sound condescending, that's great if you buy albums while fucks like me just steal them all, but my thing is that out of all the albums I downloaded this year, I'd only want to pay for a few of them, while the rest I didn't find good enough.

When I was younger, I used to buy albums based on how cool the album cover looked. That was really hit or miss because usually, I've never heard any song on the album and a lot of times, never heard any song by the band ever

[gunsfanoldie]

No option for zero?

Question to those that buy a lot of albums, do you buy them after listening to the album and deeming it to be good? Or do you just buy out of respect for the artist? If it's the latter, how often do you find that you just bought a shitty album?

I don't mean to sound condescending, that's great if you buy albums while fucks like me just steal them all, but my thing is that out of all the albums I downloaded this year, I'd only want to pay for a few of them, while the rest I didn't find good enough.

I pretty much agree with that. The bottom line is really that I don't have a CD collection. So buying the physical copy, only for me to burn it to my iTunes and hear it on my iPod from then on seems kind of worthless to me. I LOVE having physical copies of things, which is why I loved records and deluxe edition CDs. But now with my iPod, I truly rarely pull out the CD anymore. I'll pull out a record every now and then if I have it, just because I can, but why pull out the CD when I can hook my iPod up to my speakers.

I don't like that thats how it is, but I feel thats just the time now. I bought 2 CDs this year. Slash and Ace Frehley. Both because I heard the albums enough that I thought "I should buy this." Which in the end was stupid because I put them on my computer and they will now forever be in my basement. Maybe it'll be cool to have in 10 years, but probably not. Otherwise, I unfortunately do download all my music from torrents, and on top of that most of what I heard this year I didn't like. Foo Fighters was underwhelming, as was U2, as was the Bruce Springsteen album at the beginning of the year. The fact is I like to listen to the albums ASAP, which usually means online on a stream or illegally. So if I hear it that way before I can go out and buy it in a store, and the album sucks, I'm not just gonna throw down $12 for moral reasons.

I justify it by saying I see the bands live. I'll see Foo Fighters live even if I don't like the album. I saw Bruce tour the album I didn't like. And most likely that money is going more towards them today than buying an album at Best Buy, which they likely see little of. But I know its wrong. Its just kind of the times right now that I don't see a reason to own a physical copy. Its a generational thing on a level. My dad is also a big music fan and still buys all his albums on CD, and finds out once he gets it whether its good or not. Unfortunately, I don't think with the internet, or unless I become rich, I'll ever be like that. I'll see them live, but until something changes, I don't really see a reason to pay for music anymore, least of all physically. Mainly because I don't trust artists anymore. This isn't the 70s anymore where you could buy a Rolling Stones album, or any band's new record, and have a good feeling it would be worth it. Most bands these days aren't consistent enough, at least to me.

Edited December 17, 2014 by gunsfanoldie

[Zeppelin]

I just love having the physical product. I download a lot of albums and rip all of my purchases onto my iPod, but listening to an entire album out of the package is still something I love to do. Do I buy everything I listen to? Nope. I'd say I buy about 75% of what I download. But that's a rough estimate.

With artists I love, I still usually sample a bit of their album before buying it because of the anticipation, but still end up buying it 9 out of 10 times. That's because they're usually redeeming to me. But it has saved me from a few stinkers (Megadeth's Super Collider and Yes' Heaven And Earth come to mind).

I use the internet as a means to find a lot of artists I had no idea about the previous day, so I usually discover plenty of new stuff. As a result, I hear a lot of songs outside the context of the albums, which is fine. It's all about appeal. If they appeal to me, then I'll put the money down to have one of their albums in my collection. So, really, I don't really buy many albums on a whim. I use the internet as a valuable sample source.

[CheapJon]

No option for zero?

Question to those that buy a lot of albums, do you buy them after listening to the album and deeming it to be good? Or do you just buy out of respect for the artist? If it's the latter, how often do you find that you just bought a shitty album?

I don't mean to sound condescending, that's great if you buy albums while fucks like me just steal them all, but my thing is that out of all the albums I downloaded this year, I'd only want to pay for a few of them, while the rest I didn't find good enough.

Listen to it a couple of times for a week or so to deem it good enough. Don't really buy albums if I think there's a bad song on it since my car stereo won't skip songs so I have to listen to albums all the way through if I'm driving. Sometimes I pre-order the album before it's been released but I've been pretty lucky with that as well.

Listen either on Spotify or Youtube. Never download.