Do you buy music anymore?

Mrs. preach and I just had a conversation about paying $15 for an album "back in the day". Mostly about spending that amount and possibly only getting one good song.

Now I'd not think of going to a store to get anything. We pay for YouTube and can find almost anything there.

There was a place on Liberty Ave in Pittsburgh,PA in the red light district that was the only place to get punk rock in the '80s. It was special to risk my life and go there. You'd spend 2 weeks saving up $20 and possibly get mugged on the way to get some tunes.

I still buy CDs for music I like, often something I discovered on YouTube.

Maybe I'm old school, but I'd rather have physical media than a "license" in a format that might disappear sooner rather than later, or that the "vendor" can delete off my device at a whim.

I buy concert tickets at non live Nation venues so the artists actually get a little money from my being a fan vs it all going to record companies and live Nation. 

But also one of my favorite artists is rereleasing his entire catalog this year for free, so that's been filling up my playlists.

Spotify only these days. I pick songs I like, not complete albums, as a lot of performers don't have enough compelling music for me to want an entire CD. I also prefer the variety of lots of single songs played at random vs a complete CD of songs by one talent.

I've never understood the fear of only getting one good song, which people say a lot. If you're worried about it, then just wait until you're sure there's more than one.

I've bought albums where I don't know any songs, but I know the musicians and trust I'll like it.  I'll probably buy this new Jack White album unheard.

In answer to the question, yes, I still buy music, but given my tastes of the last 5 years the amount is down a bit. I also prefer to have physical media rather than straight download. I've lost enough things that I legitimately paid for that I will hang on to my "OK Xer" status for that.  I do try very hard to listen to artists' own streaming channels, ads and all, rather than find bootleg versions online.

We do also go to see our favorites live regularly, because touring is the last best way for artists to earn money.

I was buying MP3 albums on Amazon for awhile until recently, now it's all Youtube Music.  I did buy a CD at a concert last year, saw Galactic Empire and an opening band Black Signal sounded pretty cool so I bought theirs after their set was over.

I primarily used Spotify, but recently switched to Deezer.

I'm not afraid to admit that the convenience is really nice, and I've often found that I only prefer one or two songs from most artists.

However, if I enjoy an artist enough that I can listen to an entire album without skipping a track, then I feel comfortable putting down a little more money to buy the album on vinyl.

I would like to get out to see more music live, but too many of my favorite musicians don't tour close enough to Florida (I can't blame them) and I don't really want to go to concerts by myself.

I still by music. 

Yessir! Vinyl and CD's.

I use Spotify but the more I think about it the more I want to go back to buying albums because of how little money the artists see from streaming platforms like Spotify. 

From what I hear, the streaming services pay nearly nothing to the artists. And I’m assuming these bands have bills to pay like the rest of us. If the can’t make it, then they’d have to get straight jobs. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Streaming royalties paid by popular platforms:

• Spotify: $0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams.
• Apple Music: $0.006-$0.008 per stream. Artists can expect $600 to $800 for every 100,000 streams.
• Tidal: $0.0125-$0.015. Artists can expect $1,250 to $1,500 for every 100,000 streams on this platform.
• YouTube Music: $0.001-$0.003 per stream. Artists can expect $100 to $300 for every 100,000 streams.
• Amazon Music: $0.004-$0.007 per stream. Artists can expect $400 to $700 for every 100,000 streams.
• Deezer: $0.005-$0.007 per stream. Artists can expect $500 to $700 for every 100,000 streams.

In reply to Duke :

That was one of the main reasons I switched to Deezer, the payout is a little better.

That being said, it might be worth trying out Tidal for as much as they pay out.

In reply to Duke :

Yeah, that’s not much. My guitar teacher tells about the checks his band gets for their album–and it was on a major label, too. It’s like $4 bucks here and $6 there. 

In reply to Duke :

I recently switched to Tidal from Spotify and the artist pay was half the reason. The other half was supposedly better audio quality, which turned out to be quite noticeable, even for a casual like me. The app is sometimes pretty glitchy though, requiring you to skip a song or several until it starts playing again. Very annoying when your hands are dirty from cooking or car work. 

From my son who's in the biz:

"You may or may not be surprised to hear that these figures vary a LOT, lol. There are lots of different subclassifications based on things like Spotify's 'discovery mode' campaign that I am working on. Basically they have a program that makes music more 'discoverable' by prioritizing it on the algorithm and in playlists, and labels/artists can 'opt in' or opt out for eligible songs. So in exchange for this higher discoverability, they get 30% less revenue per stream. There are tons of little nuances like this, such that the payout rate for even a single artist on a single streaming service can vary quite a bit."

It's all very complicated and annoying :)

Edit: And:

"Another thing to think about is that the stream payout rate is the largest possible figure an artist could expect, and artists will pretty much never see 100% of this. The label, distributors, any other third parties involved in marketing and getting the music out there - they will all receive a cut of this base amount. Lot of mouths to feed unless an artist is somehow doing everything 100% on their own which is pretty rare. Effective pay rate for an artist would be a fraction of that fraction per stream. That being said, these platforms generate way more streams than you could ever get distributing vinyl. I'd be curious to see net effects on artist pay in different scenarios.

Yup, I still buy music and I buy it on CD before ripping it to my own collection. That way I know I'll still be able to listen to it in a decade or two or three or four. And yes, I have a couple of CDs that are very close to being four decades old. Plus, you can't get an artist to autograph a stream :)

The only music streaming service I pay for is the Tesla one, which is bundled in with other "enhanced connectivity" options. When Janel's driving the car, she doesn't want to have to deal with the extra friction of Bluetooth ("why is it connected to YOUR phone?", "why won't it connect?", "this is stupid"), she just wants her favorite songs to start playing immediately.

I still buy a lot of physical music media. Records are the most common purchases, followed by CDs and the occasional cassette here and there. I feel there's more connection to the artist and the music with something tangible to hold in your hands, and nothing does that better than vinyl IMHO. 

I also subscribe to Spotify (I know, it's the devil, but it's so convenient) and use Bandcamp a lot to support the smaller artists I like. I buy digital music as well, mostly through Bandcamp. They have a day every month that skips the royalty fees and the funds go direct to the artists, which is cool. 
 

I still buy CD's, but then I format shift them to my Plex Amp server and put them on a shelf.

With a DDNS service, I can access it from my car or phone the same way I would access Spotify.

I heard the other day that cassettes are back in vogue for local bands. Which seems weird to me.

We like to watch live video concerts on our giant home stereo and big screen TV but most of the band's members we like seem to be averaging 75 years old so they definitely aren't producing anything new. Hopefully the old concerts are getting re-engineered and being released as DVD or Blu-Ray disks and not just on YouTube.

I don't need great video, it's the audio that we care about because there's something special about a live video concert that the canned technically sterile studio versions just can't compare with.

Over the years we find new bands we like after being introduced to them by our adult children 10 years after they where first popular...

Our home video live concerts sound better than live live. 

Edit: we also use Spotify and YouTube. Spotify is very low quality (MP3?) and reminds me of the good old transistor radio days. YouTube is a lot of low quality (MP4?) but a lot sounds high quality and was tolerable until they started injecting commercials at twice the volume into the video concerts and I'm just not ready to pay $14 per month for commercial free.

Duke said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Streaming royalties paid by popular platforms:

• Spotify: $0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams.
• Apple Music: $0.006-$0.008 per stream. Artists can expect $600 to $800 for every 100,000 streams.
• Tidal: $0.0125-$0.015. Artists can expect $1,250 to $1,500 for every 100,000 streams on this platform.
• YouTube Music: $0.001-$0.003 per stream. Artists can expect $100 to $300 for every 100,000 streams.
• Amazon Music: $0.004-$0.007 per stream. Artists can expect $400 to $700 for every 100,000 streams.
• Deezer: $0.005-$0.007 per stream. Artists can expect $500 to $700 for every 100,000 streams.

A lot of the Spotify streams listed for me are .001 still.  Apparently an old album we did is on TikTok randomly and gets less than that.

I have a whole $11 and some cents check waiting for me from a lot of streams. Not really retirement money is it?

All of the bands from my youth are retirement age, and several no longer perform. It's a struggle finding new music I like, but it IS out there. Spotify and the like make it easy to search for it without massive monetary commitment/risk. YouTube also occasionally suggests new talent I might like. These formats are really helpful in this regard, whereas terrestrial and satellite radio are about worthless. YouTube has made 'stars' out of normal people who otherwise probably would never have gained national attention. It pleases me when I find young people who make music that appeals to this 59 year old hair band fan.

Never would have found these if not for YT.

Sadly, I don't remember the last time I bought music. I stream music heavily, though - it's just a heck of a lot more convenient.

I haven't touched my CDs in years.

J.A. Ackley said:

Sadly, I don't remember the last time I bought music. I stream music heavily, though - it's just a heck of a lot more convenient.

I haven't touched my CDs in years.

I'm in this boat.  I pay yearly for Pandora.  I haven't even recently (last 5-10 years?) touched my collection that I ripped from CDs over the past few decades, it's still on the NAS, though.

I genuinely do not miss anything about physical media.  I had a hard-drive based stereo hacked into my car back in the early 2000s.  I've had CDs stolen, scratched, degraded, etc.  Tapes were horrible for audio quality and reliability.   Vinyl is just a PITA.