Oh To Be A Giant Floating Ear!

During the past few months I've been struggling with a particular quandary. A completely self-inflicted quandary. A fairly inconsequential first-world problem which I often inflate to gigantic proportions. It's importance is directly proportional to the volume of Thom Yorke's whining. Yes, we're talking Spotify and the blockbuster issue of 2013. The Music Consumption Wars: Streaming Vs. One-Off Purchases. So much has been written recently from the artist's side of the argument maybe it's time we got the opinion of a consumer...that's me.

First thing's first, as we're talking about the various options for the personal imbibing of music, I'm going to eliminate some of those options right from the off. I'm going to ignore digital purchases through sites such as iTunes and Amazon. For me this is worst of both worlds, the ephemerality of a digital file with the cost impact of a physical object. No thanks, not for me sir. I'm also ruling out the whole notion of illegal file-sharing, partially because that's like so last decade but mainly because it's actually easier to get obscure gems like Rashad Becker's Traditional Music Of Notional Species Vol.1 through legal streaming software than illegally through Russian data dumps found around page 20 of a Google. This then leaves me with two options for listening to a piece of music, buy the physical object (be it CD, vinyl or cute box of loops) or stream it online. Thus we reach the quandary.

This is the time of year that a lot of music gets released, the high-point for me being some weeks ago when 3 albums I was absolutely desperate to hear by three radically different musicians were all released on the same day. I was so excited that at the first opportunity I jumped onto my chosen online retailer of choice (All hail Boomkat!). But just I was about to give these fine independent retailers my money, I paused. Took a step back and said to myself, "Why not just wait one more day and see if they get released to Spotify on Monday morning?". Lo and behold, one full rotation of the Earth later, Spotify produced a little red circle of joy claiming 3 new albums were available to stream. I never bought those albums but I felt very guilty for not supporting an independent music supplier and a few fringe musicians .

Ending my guilt-trip early, the economic machinations of the music industry should not really be my concern. Sure it's nice to be informed of the various arguments for and against streaming but, despite many delusions of grandeur, the future of music distribution does not rest squarely on my shoulders. I'm sure one day I'll look back on these arguments with the same "Ha, those were the days!" attitude to which we now view the whole Napster saga. So when it comes to how I spend my money I have one golden rule: If you can't stream, Buy. As may well be expected the easiest and cheapest option pretty much always prevails. That doesn't exactly mean I'm happy about it though.

So, if I've decided I don't really care who gets my money and how much of it (which, I've learned from speaking to a friend with music on Spotify, is shockingly little) why does this feeling of doing the wrong thing still persist when I opt to double click an album rather than hoof it to central London with tenner in hand.

Well, I miss the physical object. The joy of searching for and discovering something unexpected or long sought after. The effect of picking up one of those purchases from my shelf now is utterly Proustian. They are time-capsules, shards of memory depicting not just where I found the CD but who I was at the time of buying it. Each disc signifying a desire to own and explore an assorted collection of sounds, intimately tied with my personality, childish naïveté, teenage angst, student discovery. All I can say whenever I re-visit an influential artist I discovered through Spotify is "Oh that time I was sat in front of, or next to, a computer. Let's see, what was on my browser at that life-changing time...". Hardly the kind of story one would tell their grandkids. Actually no grandchild would want to hear about discovering a limited edition Yellow Swans CD in deepest, darkest, crate-digging-est Soho but what do they know.

Hunting for CDs was, and still can be, an adventure, albeit a very mild, Sunday afternoon strand of adventure. There is no excitement to be found in typing into a textbox, apart from that small glimmer of hope, "Hey I wonder if they have...Nope." It's not just the CDs that fill me with joy but the stores they came from. The best of these are ingrained in my mind. Spending hours browsing through promos in Manchester; the sheer warehouse size of Amoeba in San Francisco; lamenting the loss of Sound 323 a beacon of experimental music in North London sadly lost forever. I know the exact locations of every avant-garde/experimental section in every Soho music shop.

That pang of regret I occasionally feel when I deny myself the opportunity to venture forth and try and hunt down a rare gem in favour of the easy option of streaming it at home is the loss of that adventure. That sense of community of like-minded souls, frantically flipping through racks of the good stuff. Thankfully, the recent resurgence of vinyl (both second-hand and ludicrously expensive new release) seems to be keeping that spark alive...just...that...little...bit...longer.

This is all of course without considering the incredibly saddening state of an album's artwork in the digital environment. A low resolution JPEG is never going to cut it, nevermind the fact that you're unlikely to be even looking at your stream software while listening. Can there be any other future eventuality other than having no album artwork at all? Oh and say goodbye to being able to follow along with the lyrics or enjoy unusual design feats like including stereoscopic glasses to further augment the experience of album ownership.

It's not all rosy for physical media though. I believe the democratisation of the stream through subscription services is truly an amazing thing and a potential wonder of the 21st century (despite its potential flaws). Every tweenie-bopper and punk rocker should have access to the po-faced classical and the secret language of cosmic jazz. Tear all those elitist walls down, Comrades! The Beatles liked Stockhausen so why can't you?
And as for Mr Yorke's assurances that no-one will discover new bands through Spotify. Well various levels of fuck you, because the amount of music I've discovered is almost immeasurable. It's almost completely changed my current musical tastes, without it I wouldn't have discovered a whole swathe of genres such as noise, footwork, krautrock etc etc. I've also seen so much more incredible live music through bands I was given the chance to explore through Spotify... well the situation is by far more nuanced than his bare bones arguments seem to suggest.

Current trends in physical sales are also suggesting a somewhat unwelcome turn. With vinyl sales being higher than they ever were post-iTunes a few of our indies are still staying open but it is ever more likely that the vinyl trade will devolve into simple novelty or trendy consumerism. Collector's editions. Special editions. Limited editions. As much as I love a well designed box-set, it's about the music people!

I guess in some ways, I want digital to win (Oh, no Luddite me). In all fairness, it most certainly will. The grand irony being that I write this while listening to a stream, proudly contributing probably less than a penny to the hard-working artist's coffers. If I had the CD, I like to think that instead I would be contemplating the album art while mulling over the origins of the track names. Oh well. Maybe this is the start of the change. No longer shall we be required to walk for our music; to hold an album in our hands; to see carefully designed artwork with our eyes. Oh to be a giant floating ear and to let it all just come rushing in.