How I’m currently buying/listening to music
It’s a complicated mess.
Regular, “you have a new/old album and I want it” type of stuff
I use iTunes. I can buy it from my phone or laptop, it gets auto-downloaded to my other devices, no DRM, 1-click buying and they have iTunes Match that puts all my music in the cloud… to be available anytime, anywhere. If I really love the album (or know I will) I’ll buy it on vinyl or, as a fallback, the CD. I don’t do Spotify, but I will turn on Pandora around the house.
New album in-depth listening/reviewing
I don’t write traditional reviews any more. But if I know you (relatively speaking) and you ask me to have a listen to your album, It’s vinyl or CD only. Something physical. Something I can take time to put it on and listen.
What is my perfect world?
Digital Music & Vinyl. That’s it.
Digital music would have an option for liner notes which would be mailed and not a pdf. Another cool thought is to sell a cardboard CD style case with a download code (3 options iTunes, amazon, LSM) and liner notes. I buy the case, download right to my phone and still get the physical high from opening something new and reading lyrics and stuff.
What about CD’s? Local Music Stores? Don’t you want to support local?
Let it be known that I LOVE local music stores. I go frequently and usually buy something every trip in the Vinyl section or I drift over to the CD’s. These stores are the lifeblood of local music, but could be dying. I’m a little disappointed that a few of the stores have some minimum wage employee that mainly knows the top 10 of whatever you’re looking for. If these stores want to survive, they need to hire a curator. Someone that knows what’s in the store and has a opinion.
Lone Star Music’s digital site is currently pretty great. They have digital version of most the albums in Texas Music and give the highest return to the artists. I’m not sure how this fits in to everything but I think it’s a good thing. My problem is that digital is all about convenience and anything other than iTunes is starting to feel a little inconvenient. Apple spent big money on building hardware that supports music and software that makes our lives easier. This isn’t evil… it’s smart, it works, and it puts more music in the hands of the listener. I wanted to mention LSM here because supporting them is good, but I’d rather just order a album via mail from them than buy digitally. Scary times for our friends at LSM if everyone goes digital. But I don’t think that’s the sole future… especially for local music. And thank the good lord they seem to be investing in the physical product quite well with instore performances, a great inventory and solid mail order service.
If you have any questions I’d love to field them… or suggestions would be awesome.
The ease of digital music is a draw for me. I have not listened to you yet and gone the vinyl route…I’m still young and will catch up =) My biggest bother is trying to get info about who wrote which song off a digital album. If you download through iTunes (or where ever) I’m not getting album cover work nor lyrical info. I love the idea of a cardboard case with all the tasty tidbits inside and then perhaps a QR code or whatever to download the music. I think that is a great idea!
On a side note, I love how Drew Kennedy recently coupled his album + his book together…I bought both from his website, because the concept intrigues me and his marketing tactic is brilliant!
And yes, anything we can do to support LSM is a great place to start! Thanks for post, Ryan!
I have to agree with almost everything about this… I consume music very similarly. It’s hard to find anything easier or cheaper than iTunes, and I’m pretty okay with that. I do buy vinyl, and I do sit in a chair facing my record player and listen to it… I just figure this is definitely NOT the norm for most people consuming music – especially on the Texas/Americana/whatever front…
the way I see it is that let’s say 10% listen via the “face the record player” method. Thru education and growth we can grow that to 20%. that’s a really substantial number. If 20% has that level of love then we have a foothold to take back some of the pop music mentality.
As an artist I would think you have to ask yourself 3 questions in light of money and distribution and what’s important to you:
1) Why Digital
2) Why CD’s
3) Why Vinyl
wendy, you’ve hit the nail on the head when it comes to liner notes.
I would answer those questions like this:
1) Why Digital? Because it’s easy and that’s what most people are purchasing.
2) Why CD’s? I’m really not sure… I guess the tangibility of it all?
3) Why Vinyl? Because it’s MY favorite & it’s what I’D rather be listened to on…
I’m thinking about the download card with full packaging idea that you mentioned earlier & I wonder if there’s some kind of weird disconnect between the soulless download card & the thoughtful packaging… and how to breach that?
I dig it! Totally on board with cardboard sleeve with liner notes and QR code! To me, the biggest downside of digital is not having liner notes! Also, agree on idea of curator at local music shop. It’s like going to a wine festival and hourly volunteers pouring samples can’t describe the flavor, essence of the wine or something to compare it to. I worked a Christian bookstore in high school and the manager encouraged us to “check out” (library style) books from the store and cds so we could make quality recommendations for customers based on our own experience with the product.
My other question is (economically speaking from the artist’s perspective) how much cheaper is it to produce packaging with a download card vs. a CD… assuming the CD accomplishes essentially the same thing as the download card?
If we did not have digital I’d be so lonely on my long drives or long flights. I agree that we all strive to push others to listen (really listen) to music, but it has to be made user-friendly.
CDs are becoming obsolete and that does not bother me, but the idea of not knowing who participated in the making of an album is what pulls the credits away from all who put forth time & love as creators. Not just the songwriters, I also enjoy seeing where something was produced and who all performed on the album. There are so many artists that deserve credit in the making of an album that when a digital download comes only with songs we LOSE this connection and we also lose out on the education factor. Many, many people do not look through the same glasses as do when “breathing in” an album. A connection has to be made. And every artist should have this credit information on their website! Because I go hunting and get frustrated when I cannot find it! =)
I’d be real interested to know what the actually numbers are in
regards to say a run of 1000 CD’s. Like cost of production for a
jacketed CD vs just the jacket. Then return of cost on 1000 CD’s vs
1000 albums sold on iTunes.