mr dave

i prefer buying albums but it all depends on availability. like Jack White sang in Store Bought Bones - you can't buy what you can't find.

even though one of the first things i do with new albums is to rip them to my pc i still like having the physical copy. especially when there's worthwhile packaging, liner notes that offer insight into the artist and their compositions, photos, posters, stickers, patches, etc.

while i used to defend downloading based on the idea that limited availability justified the piracy i've changed my views on the matter. sites like youtube, myspace, and lastfm make it incredibly simple to sample music legitimately. if it's something i'm going to want to listen to more than a handful of times then it's worth my eventual dollar, and if not then i don't need the mp3 as some kind of e-music collection competition.

although in one of my most bone headed moves of the last decade i tossed about 300 cd cases and booklets because i was moving and didn't know what to do with them. horrible horrible mistake.

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