Cutting the chord

Randall

About a month and a half ago I decided to cancel my spotify account because of their awful politics and terrible pay structure. Beyond that though I feel like the endless options has played a large part in music's disposability. I've been using the money I save to buy digital albums from bandcamp or buy CDs. It feels much better to be giving my money to a band directly or a small local store. These days the car is the place where I listen to the most music so its been nice to buy a CD throw in the car and just listen to the same thing over and over again for weeks on end. It harkens back to the old days and has been making me feel more connected to music again. It's also led me to reevaluate CDs as a format. For a long time it has seemed like a dead medium to me but now I excitedly go to the used CD store curious what I'll find. Plus its got me back to the staples. I've been listening to Marquee Moon on repeat for the last few days. Anyone else cut the chord? I highly recommend it. Any other CD hunters out there?

Afteryourbrain

I’ve cut the chord many a time (I use Bandcamp when I do) but keep coming back to Spotify or Apple Music because my job requires me to have something playing in the background all day. I feel you about the disposability, it’s something I think about quite a bit. But as far as CDs being a dead medium, I’ve noticed that my friends in the metal scene are huge CD heads. The format seems to be thriving primarily in the death/grind world with bands offering new releases on disc often. Makes sense, with current constraints in vinyl production and lack of tape players in most newer cars.

Afteryourbrain

Another note on disposability: we’ve all seen a movie where someone throws a CD out the car window, so there’s that haha

Allez Al

I work in a record store. CDs are still super popular. They're cheap for us to buy, so the profit margin is solid on them. They're still cheap for customers to but so lots of young folks (say 20 and under) are buying them. Unsure if it's on cost (vinyl ain't cheap now) or that they actually like the retrofuturist Jetsons aesthetics. Or both.

I still like CDs esp, for quiet music I listen to in bed.

Randall

Allez Al yeah the costs on CDs are crazy cheap. I’ve thought about doing cd versions of a few total punk releases but not sure there is a market for them.

filthqueen666

Randall I do feel like there’s a market for them especially if it’s easy to do a small run in addition to records. I have not mustered the courage to cut the chord, but I do have some CDs in my car and they are mostly from bands selling them at shows.

Allez Al

Second hand prices are still reasonable. We have loads of used CDs for £3.99/3 for £10. £100 could put you an insanely good jazz collection together or whatever. Used prices are sneaking up, stuff that was £4 a few years ago is £6 now.

My feeling is that CD releases are maybe better for extras/supplementary music. Demos, live stuff etc.

Vinnie Vacuum

Used to love doing homemade CD-R’s for people! Bring this back!

The Touch The Feel

Vinnie Vacuum

I just bought an external cd drive to burn cds for the first time in idk 15 years, or whenever apple took them out of laptops. The .rar blogspot 00 days were glorious and I've still got hard drives full of folders. It's a little overwhelming going back and trying to find the "choice nugs" to put on a cd for the car, but so it goes.

BARELY HUMAN

cut the chord a while back, but reattached it with a youtube premium account that is more or less spotify, but removed YT ads .,. best part about it is it lets you watch youtoob vids in the background as music, so pretty much spend most of my listening hours on bootlegged uploads of stuff, live sets, etc.. doesn't really solve the ethical conundrum, even if it's arguably a fraction of a lesser evil than spotify (all roads run thru google sadly..)

CD's fkn rock tho! the rekkid shop i work in just has a AUD$5 CD section and it has pretty high turnover.. i drive an '06 subaru so can only play CDs in any case, and usually just dig thru the bins when i put stock out for CDs. mostly blues, country and folk stuff that no one wants... Dick Dale for drivin to the beach etc haha. it's nice to not be beholden to "what do i like the most" type search terms for streaming services i guess?

Sukebe_GG

BARELY HUMAN And you get YT music, which I imagine is basically the same stuff as Spotify, although I run across some obscure stuff that isn't on Spotify...
I bailed on Spotify early on for various reasons, relying on Bandcamp and my prodigious digital music files for a few years until YT successfully quashed all ad blockers, and I have come to rely on YT for a lot of my musical entertainments, so I gave into a subscription...

Lammie

There has been no cord to cut for me. I don't use Spotify and although I listen to music on Youtube sometimes, I don't particularly like doing so. I'd rather steal the mp3/flac files and listen to songs in some media player or on my head phones. I am still playing cd's in the car, but am not treating them well. They've definitely become more disposable. Most cd's I buy are second hand and very cheap. I'm yet to throw one out of my car window though.

I used to listen to most music on my way to work during train rides on headphones. I miss that, hearing the music in different environments during different activities. I'd steal mp3's of the internet after reading or hearing about a band online. If something was cool I'd try to get physical copies for myself and maybe the mailorder. I still download music illegally, recently updated Soulseek to Nicotine. I hate change, but have to admit it's an improvement. Most stuff I want to hear is uploaded on Nicotine, which is great.

I think these convenient ways of accessing music are just that, convenient. I personally think they are extremely unattractive ways of presenting the music. Furthermore the platforms 'offering' the music add nothing to 'the culture' that spawned it. I feel it has made people lazy. That laziness has led to the hollowing out of DIY culture. I guess the platforms aren't too blame, the people using them are. Guns don't kill people, people do. Who's that? Charlton Heston? I'm not from the States. Our oppressive government doesn't allow us to own guns at all!

I've often considered using social media to promote releases I get in, but hate the platforms so much that I'd rather sell less, which at this point is near nothing. I like hunting stuff down. Didn't we all? It's weird to me that people who used to be extremely nerdy over obscure music for misfits all got on the big tech bandwagon so enthusiastically. Maybe that's me? I just got myself a new phone today: a Nokia 2660 Flip. My previous phone was an inheritance from my late grandmother.

I like getting lost. To each his own...

Randall

Lammie I've often considered using social media to promote releases I get in, but hate the platforms

This has been the other big move I’ve been contemplating.

connie v

the soulseek life treats me well. down with spotify- besides when they pay me.

Al Dorado

I miss the heyday of mp3 blogs.

We subscribe to a streaming service. We also buy digital music from bandcamp and apple music. We buy physical releases. I find streaming useful to keep up on new releases (there's just too much music coming out - which as much as I love how technology has enabled anyone to release music is a topic for another time) as well as listen to stuff we own on physical that we don't want to spend time to rip / manage files for. Also for stuff there's no way I'd buy (like the good song on Too Fast For Love \m/). We go to shows and buy merch.

I do wish streaming services would pay artists better. As in the olden pre-digital days, the people making the most off of music are the labels/services (and publishers, etc) not the artists. But at least back then artists made some money on their record/tape/CD sales. Now it sounds like it's touring and merch that put the most money directly in an artists pocket.

Not sure where I'm going with this. It's something I think about quite often so very interested in everyone's thoughts here.

Al Dorado

Al Dorado should qualify that to say "big labels" making the money back in the day

Randall

Al Dorado just to be clear I’m coming at this from the perspective of a music fan rather than a label/ artist, and I am not trying to shame anyone for streaming. I just feel like having everything available at all times has affected the average person’s ability to fully appreciate and ingest an album. As a kid I remember buying a CD/ LP and even if I didn’t like it I always would get back to a new purchase over and over to see if there was anything I was missing. Now if something doesn’t grab you immediately it just gets turned off. I grabbed Marque Moon on CD last week and it hasn’t left my car stereo for nearly a week now. It’s been awesome.

That being said from the perspective of a label I used to think well the model sucks but it’s free money so it’s better than nothing. I’m not so sure I still feel that way. After splitting the streaming money 50/50 with bands it comes out to about $100-$150 a month. That’s for nearly my entire streaming catalog. This also requires book keeping every month for all of those releases, some of which are making less than a $1 a month. For all I know I could end up making more money just setting low digital rates on bandcamp and not even putting my releases on Spotify. Something Joe and I are gonna try for the new Simps LP. On top of that there’s the political argument. Is any of this really worth it?

Al Dorado

Randall oh I get it (the fan vs. label perspective). I don't feel (too) bad about streaming. We have an assload of CDs and vinyl here (and this is after a massive downsizing several years back). And it's growing.

"having everything available at all times has affected the average person’s ability to fully appreciate and ingest an album"
this is so spot on. there were so many releases I bought back in the day which were not great but the limited number of albums/cassettes/cds you had made you revisit it over and over (and sometimes grew to enjoy - see Fetchin' Bones 'Love Crushing' lol).

Lammie

Randall My 'problem' - not pointing any fingers, just trying to have a dialogue - with this is that the platform makes the money, while the artist creates the product. The 'worker' sees close to nil of the fruits that his labour bears.

I'm afraid I'm a Marxist at heart. There's no such thing as free money. I don't want to believe in Marx's proposition that all profit is theft, but with platforms like Spotify it's hard to see it any other way. Ultimately the internet is built on making money of other people's efforts. Most content is created for free by 'users' and the platforms get rich off it. There's a handful of 'content creators' who are filthy rich of course, but most don't ever see a dime.

I remember English comedian Stewart Lee bringing this up in a podcast and mentioning Jared Kobek's book I hate the internet in that context, which is worth a read if this interests you. Lee's show Content Provider, which I downloaded through Soulseek by the way, is great and taps into this subject matter in a smart and entertaining way. He might be too European/English for Americans though.

I am a big fan of Stewart Lee. He is a genius and I am too, because I like him:

Sukebe_GG

Lammie
Stewart Lee is dope although he lost some points for admitting that he didn't know about Billy Childish until the mid-90s but he gained them back when I found out he was married to Bridget Christie. I know Bill Hicks was kinda more popular in the UK and I think Lee shows a bit of influence of Hicks.
Not to get too into it but I think Marx is definitely being vindicated today as far as the character and contours of late-stage capitalism - I don't know if he used the term "private equity" but he certainly described it other terms. Yanis Varoufakis' concepts of "Technofeudalism" and "Cloud Capital" are also highly relevant in describing the mechanisms of our modern malaise.

tldr: Buy records, buy merch, see bands live - our time here is...brief.

Randall

Lammie I don't disagree with any of this. For the new Simps Joe and I decided to skip streaming and just make it available digitally for cheap on the bandcamp page. If nothing else its an interesting experiment to see if having it unavailable on streaming leads to more digital sales on bandcamp. Ideally I'd like to move completely off social media as well, but its a scary proposition because it seems like the easiest/ most effective way to make people aware of my releases existence.

ever/never

Streaming sucks ! ! my record , CD & tape collections + YouTube fill the space daily just fine. And yes, like Randall says , its great to put something in/on and just have it stick around for however long , things open up this way constantly . Bought Lou Reed's 'Magic & Loss' on CD for $3 somewhat recently , finally decided to throw it in the CD player and its all we've been listening to for the past week and all of a sudden it's my favorite Lou Reed album . Of course this leads down a Doc Pomus rabbithole and YouTube comes in handy & I'm listening to a rather 'interesting' Shawn Colvin cover of 'Viva Las Vegas'. This doesn't even take into account that music sounds like SHIT on streaming services.

Lammie

Sukebe_GG Stewart Lee is a product of the alternative English comedy circuit supposedly. I don't see much Hicks in Lee's material besides social criticism and sympathy for counterculture. Lee is a better comedian to me, because he makes fun of himself a lot. Hicks seemed to take himself very seriously and in a way was more of a preacher than a comedian. Most of his stand-up is basically him expressing his frustration. He was really angry, which I think is funny because it is so sincere. When Hicks is saying he wants people to die, he means it.

I don't know Bridget Christie.

Every so many years people start saying Marx was right after all. I guess it sounds edgy. I never read Varoufakis. I did try reading The age of surveillance capitalism by Shoshana Zhubov, but put it away. My attention span is shit, but I remember that her points were good and interesting. I am reading World without Mind by Franklin Foer in Dutch at the moment. It is easier to digest, just gives a broad sketch of the big tech companies, their founders and their vision.

I remember thinking something was going terribly wrong when I heard musicians saying Steve Jobs was a visionary and an idol.