I do both. If I really want the album, I'll buy it. But if I'm unsure about it, then I'll download it and give it a test drive; if I end up liking it, then I'll buy it. Some albums are hard to find in stores. I have plenty of music on my computer that I won't find at my local store.

I'm a big fan of LastFM for that kind of thing, but it's true that my local store won't have much Blind Lemon Jefferson in it. Well, my local store is pretty eccentric, so it might!

I'm glad I grew up in a generartion that apprechiated the local music stores. Now the newer kids would rather download compared to purchasing an actual album. I still buy Lps and CDs, however, most of my music is out of print and have to resort to purchasing mp3. When I do inport my older CDs into iTunes it doesn't reconize the album and have to label tracks and find artwork myself. So rarther than doing this manually, it's less stressfull to just buy the mp3 album. One final note, not everything is available on CD nor is everything available in mp3 and then there is the mp3 album that is partcially available.

you can order it online - he didn't make that many recordings so a 2-CD set is a pretty good retrospective

I'll have a look around. Make a nice Christmas present, I think.

Unfortunately my local music store is one of a large chain of stores. I've been to some more privately owned music stores and I must say they are much cooler.

I do both, but currently I don't have much money so I can't get 10+ albums a week.

I think playing for Spotify is a good compromise.

Definitely. There is a tiny one in the town centre about ten minutes on the train from here (although "town" is not really the right word for something so ridiculously tiny), which is run by a hipster who must be at least 80, and he must be the biggest music nerd I've ever met. He's got the kind of knowledge a teenage shop assistant can't possibly match, and his store is full of old memoirs from the 60's, 70's and 80's.
I think I greatly prefer this kind of shop.

i never really got the allure of last.fm and RYM, tbh

RYM is a shlong-a-thon, but last.fm can help you find out millions of new bands and listen to them for free.

Hey now, RYM is the best resource I've ever had for new music.

as if I have all that time

i haven't even gone through the backlog of stuff I've accumulated from recommendations for the past four-five years

Lately, I've mostly been fine with Spotify, with a few exceptions of albums I've really wanted to download / just weren't on Spotify. When I do download, though, I usually delete it fairly quickly if it doesn't strike my fancy.

I'll buy music from time to time - people love giving me iTunes gift cards for holidays - and that's always me buying the work of independent artists I really enjoy. I mean, if I have to buy something on iTunes, it's going to be that. I'd like to have more disposable income and be able to buy more music legitimately.

not sure if I've said this before but i only download when the physical copies aren't available here, if they're out of print, or bands with discographies that are just daunting and i don't wanna pay for the bad to mediocre albums

That sounds awesome. I'd like to go there. The coolest record store I've ever been to is about 20 minutes from where I live. It's a sweet little shop owned by this cool old guy who is real good friends with Ben Harper. Ben even invited him to join him on his tour of France. He had multiple pictures of him and Ben, so I'm sure he's telling the truth.

Bands like radiohead, RHCP, and people like Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Densmore (drummer of the Doors) have been there for record signings.

I can't promise that he knows any of the people this guy does!

He's just a safe old English hipster!

i used to chat with the bass player from My Chemical Romance (he used to hang out in the Yahoo! rock room) - that's my only claim to fame

he was a boring fuddy-duddy, though, every other sentence is either a plug for a show or a song

I enjoy it too, but I have found it harder to find new music on RYM than any of the others.

Here's an interesting story...

There is a band that I like called 16Volt (Industrial, Coldwave, Machine Rock) who have been going since the early nineties and were one of the first bands to have their own website. They released their entire back catalogue for free on their website, along with an optional donation button. Funny thing is, they actually made more money through donations than they did from their entire back catalogue when they were selling it.

I think the customer has been screwed over for a long time by the record industry. As a broke college student, I can seldom afford new CDs, and when I do buy them, I don't want to spend my cash on a CD that turns out to be awful. People appreciate goodwill.

The guys at my music store think artists will go independant more and more.
The top 40 big money monsters will always be there, but the music most of us like wil probably only become cheaper.

This is actually quite interesting. I think it might support Steven Fry's idea that when people are able to pay for music, they will.

And of course, when there's a fixed price for the music, people will either pay it or decide against it.

With the optional donation, people will probably pay more if they like the band and enjoy the music, which with fixed price records is not possible.

I remember back in the day when I would purchse three or four CDs a week. That was before the days of internet. Life was much simpler before the high technology. Today's world is as simple as clicking a mouse. You don't have to travel to get the latest album. Most of my music is out of print and if I do find a certain album it's going to cost more than it's worth. I would prefer a CD copy but it's not always available. However, everything isn't available in mp3 format and iTunes offer some partial albums as appossed to full albums-who want's to buy half an album anyways. I'll purchase a CD or two a month but most of my music collecting is done through iTunes purchases. And I'll inport the music that isn't available on iTunes. Times are changing whatever we like it or not.

I tend to download a lot of my music, as not much of it is available in stores here. Not to mention there are not that many stores who sell CD's any more. The online digital world is becoming bigger by the minute. My main reason for not paying for the downloads is that if I have to pay to download a song, why not give me the exact quality of the rip, not just some bogged down version to save space at the extraction site. Itunes gives out crappy quality tracks, and FLAC and Wave websites do not offer a great selection of titles as of yet.

However, I do support my artists by going to concerts and buying merchandise directly off their website. I also buy CD's when I get the chance off their website if its available, but as usual some bands are just so hard to get. Another issue is that CD's will once become obsolete, and I am not as ease with that, hence me preferring digital. I just wish there was a website (trusted and legit one) out there that offered high quality digital downloads of a vast collection of artists at a fair price. When that comes around, I will gladly repurchase all my downloads.

as long as mediafire is not shut down, i'd happily download

The only money I have spent on music in the last 4-5 years has been $2-3(at a time) on name your own price albums off of Bandcamp. I simply cannot afford to pay for a full priced album with the small amount of money I have left after paying bills. And if I'm going to spend money on records I like to know that my money is going(mostly) to the people who actually made the music.

well i do both

most of the time if i DL for free its just one or 2 songs just so i can get a feel for the artist ya know

i do buy cd's still just becasue i grew up on cd's and i love them ..BUT i only buy cd's of bands i REALLLLYYY LOVE

if its just some lower grade bands i DL that two



hey what do u want from me i dont make alot of money ...****

^^if you want to get a feel of an act, you might as well watch a youtube

infinitely more variety and more tracks available

I do enjoy picking up magazines, reading about artists I have never heard of and then listening to them on Youtube. I have discovered so many great artists this way, its incredible.

I don't have enough money to go and buy the 20+ albums I listen to per week. I do have Spotify, but I am not quite sure if that counts as "buying" music. More that you are paying to listen to it, I suppose.

If I truly LOVE an album, I will always try and buy it, but I am not going to spend £10 on an album that I will listen to once.

^^you can cite me as a total wastrel when it comes to purchasing music

i used to spend about 500 quid on albums every month

I never download music and just listen to all the albums I want through You Tube (they seem to have everything on there) I mostly buy cd's and have a large collection, but always look for bargains and rarely pay over £5 for a CD, there are loads of great buys around both new and second hand. Its a pity the big boys like HMV don't reduce their prices as I would buy a lot more.

Got a $50 iTunes card and I don't even have iTunes anymore. I'm seriously considering selling it to a person with an iPhone for $30 or so.

I seriously download like, everything. Except for VERY extreme exceptions, a la my favourite bands.

I used to have a crippling music purchasing habit. I was spending ~500 USD on albums a month. That was when I had disposable income.

These days I just download. It saves me a step anyhow. Ripping cds is goddamn time consuming.

I download everything, but I'll spend up to $200 on vinyl most months. I rarely if ever buy CDs anymore, I only do if it's an amazing deal, I can't get it on vinyl/the vinyl is impossible to obtain, or if it has special features (like a bonus DVD).

This. But I have too many favourite bands, and most of my (entirely disposable, apart from my irrefutable drug habit debts) funds go to music. I really only buy albums if it is something that I cannot find online or if it is such a brilliant album that I cannot live with the fact that I do not own this album.

Plus, I play the album on my stereo system (which kicks ass), my iTunes library, and my iPod all whilst listening to the same song through headphones. It becomes an insane compilation of delay study, and I fucking love it.

yeah but i like putting all my songs on my IPOD and listen to them at work so yeah...

i used to spend vast amounts of money of deluxe boxset CDS and super deluxe editions

The biggest problem I find when I download music is that I end up with so much I never ever listen to. It's not just a problem with music -- wrestling, comics, TV, anything can pile up that way for me. :o:

Even buying iTunes/amazonMP3/etc, which is how I get the bulk of my music now, leads to albums being un-used because it's so easy to buy 3 or 5 or 10 at a time.

I am seriously considering going back to CDs and Vinyl, just to slow down my acquisition and force myself to appreciate what I buy.

I prefer to download music, as it gives me a chance to find out if I really like the records or not. In the past I've made mistakes buying CD's that end up being rubbish. I do try and buy New Zealand music as it's such a fragile industry but produces amazing stuff.

unless the artists are so anal that they hunt down every rip, (e.g. a-ha and Meshuggah), i rilly have no scruples about d/ling everything