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Suddenly, I Don’t Think I Want To Own Music Anymore

This guest post is by Brenden Mulligan, founder of ArtistData. ArtistData was acquired earlier this year by Sonicbids, where Brenden is now the VP Strategic Development. Follow him on Twitter @bmull.

image from www.oreillynet.comSomething weird happened last week. I realized that I no longer want to own music. 

I've always loved my music collection. It helps define me. I was one of those people with an abnormally large CD collection, mostly filled with non-major label music that none of my friends had heard of.

I've also always loved technology. When CDs were on the way out and MP3s were on the way in, I quickly digitized all my CDs into MP3s and then gave away my CDs. I still owned all the music, but didn't have the clutter. Giving up the album artwork was tough, but the positives outweighed the negatives.

I hate clutter.

My digital music collection has served me well for years. I've been able to load it onto computers, portable music players, and game consoles. We even have two Apple TVs so we can access it in different parts of the house and through high end speakers.

But now, years later, I'm starting to experience a similar feeling as before: my MP3s feel like unnecessary clutter. As I move from device to device, and set up home audio equipment, I'm finding that my iTunes library is one of the more annoying pieces of the puzzle. Everything can connect with internet radio and services like Pandora, Last.fm, MOG, and Rdio, and they have 95% of the music I want to hear.

It's weird.

I'm still a bit far away from erasing my MP3s, but I'm just finding more and more that when I want to listen to music, I fire up Pandora or Rdio (each service has unique qualities which I love). When we have people over, we don't want the music limited to what we've purchased, and instead put on a Pandora station.

Of course, there's the feeling that I'm not supporting the artists by not buying the music, and I hate that. I'll still buy CDs at shows, but at home, it's mostly streaming. That's just where my usage is going, and as it becomes easier to use and understand cloud-based music services, I bet the mass market isn't too far behind.

What are your thoughts? What percentage of your time is spent listening to local MP3s vs cloud based services?

This post originally appeared Brenden's blog.

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29 Comments

  1. Hypebot page is now taking extraordinary long time to load, almost 15 seconds on cable line. I’m guessing it’s due to the advertisements. Please fix.

  2. I’m a control freak with somewhat left field tastes so my listening is 99.99% local MP3s. While the randomness of Pandora and Last.fm is nice I still find myself wanting to listen to a whole album from start to finish. That said, I haven’t looked beyond the surface with something like MOG so maybe that is closer to how I currently listen.

  3. I still listen to mostly mp3’s. I have enough music to satiate me. I love pandora for what it offers, but as for on-demand, RELIABLE music, not subject to the whims of an internet connection / cell phone coverage, nothing beats my collection.

  4. I wholeheartedly agree with this! I have cases of CDs sitting in a storage space & countless Gigabytes taking up valuable space on my computer(s) while on a daily basis I listen to Internet radio (for music discovery), and create playlists on

    This is how Rdio/MOG/Spotify can work. You should give either Rdio or MOG a try and see how that changes. If you email at b@bmull.com I’ll send you an Rdio invite to try. I think you can sign up for MOG without an invite.

  5. This happened to me last year. I also have loads of CDs, but they are stashed in boxes somewhere. Most of them are ripped to MP3s that exist on hard drives that are connected to the Mac Mini I never bother powering up. There are times when I want to listen to music I know I have ripped, but can’t find at Spotify, but rather than powering up the Mini I find something else on Spotify or Last.fm. Now I get angry when I want to watch a movie and there is no way to do so without either buying a physical disc or torrent it and I don’t want to do the latter. There is a new Swedish video on the demand service that even works on PS3, Headweb and I trust them to gradually add more of the narrow movies that I prefer.

  6. I’ve always been a radio person, so even when I was buying CDs (and tapes before that) I was still listening to the radio whenever I was in the car.
    Now I listen to a lot of stuff online and never bother to download it. The other day I needed to free up some hard drive space so I went through the relatively small collection of MP3 I have stored on my computer and deleted about 2/3s of them. I had downloaded many songs because they were offered for free by artists and labels, but I decided I wasn’t likely to listen to most of them again so I trashed them.
    I want to check out what everyone is talking about, but rarely am I impressed enough to own the songs. A few years ago, before streaming was so widely available, when I would buy CDs it was often “Best of” albums from career artists who put out enough great material to make a collection of 20 songs worth buying for $10 (e.g., Beatles, Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Carly Simon).
    If I am going to own an album, it’s most likely from a local artist who I know and may have written press releases for.

  7. Hey Brendan,
    I’m with you on this, although it looks to me like we are still far out from a solution that is hiccup free. I’m using Rdio too (thanks for the invite!), and the licensing issues really throw a wrench into a seamless listening experience. The partial clips offered by some of the majors on the service (Warner I think?) drive me crazy. I don’t want to listen to 30 seconds of When the Levee Breaks, you know? There’s also the issue of sound quality. The mobile capability of Rdio is great, but the quality of some of the streams is really rough.
    I think we’re moving in the access model direction. I’m optimistic that these bugs, the licensing issues in particular, will hopefully be worked out down the line.

  8. I myself almost never buy music anymore (free streams, mostly, + some mp3s, my own rips and friends’).
    Except that maybe once every 2 months I’ll buy 3 or 4 vinyl LPs of albums that I know I absolutely love, and that have been on contant rotation for a while (or sometimes old favorites). I do that mostly because I want a keepsake of the music I really enjoy, a small but quality collection that I know my daughter will check out 15 years from now and (hopefully) remember just how cool her old man is.
    I also find that the ritual of having to stand up, pull the disc out of the sleeve, put it on the turntable, align the cartridge, etc. and then listen to all of A-side, without skipping tracks, I find that this ritual is a great balance with the mega-shuffle-playlist-internet-radio-millions-of-tracks-in-the-cloud way of listening to music that has taken control of the rest of my life…

  9. I try to get into streaming services like Pandora, but the audio quality is too poor. If that problem can ever be solved I will use streaming services. Until then, I’ll stick with owning everything.

  10. But when you buy that album from the local band, are you buying it to support them or because you can’t get it anywhere else? And if just to support them, what do you do with it after you buy it?

  11. As a musician and producer I need to listen to specific styles. The Napster 5$/month streaming is perfect for this purpose.
    I don’t mind paying a fixed sum of money for full streaming. Wish there were more similar services for that price. More than $10/month will not cut it.

  12. My personal experience is split between my favorite “legacy” bands (which is 4-5) where I will continue to buy CDs, vinyl and digital, no questions asked, and with “new” bands I’ve been discovering.
    Basically, if I can stream new music that is what I will do. I am gladly paying for online streaming services that offer a strong (new/back) catalog, is extremely convenient and can be accessed from multiple devices.
    Most of this stems from the fact that I don’t want to collect physical artifacts anymore it. My physical music collection is large enough and has been untouched for years now. And, I’m so utterly overwhelmed with music, that I do not spend as much time scouring and discovering new artists/music. I rely more on my close “music circle” of friends to filter and recommend music that I should listen to.
    Over and above any royalty payments that a streaming service will ultimately payout to a band whose music I like and stream, I have supported artists directly by buying their music, even though I didn’t necessarily want to download anything. This is where it will be interesting to see how the donation/patronage startups out there can fill this financial support gap.

  13. In many cases they give me promotional copies because they want me to hear what they have done. And I usually do something in return for them — spread the word, write a bio. publicize some shows, etc.
    Once I have the album, I keep it. I actually listen to the albums by local artists far more than by anyone else because I want to become very familiar with and like the songs. I keep the CDs for my car, and also uploaded the songs on my computer.

  14. I’ve supported a few artists as a patron. In fact, to such an extent that most of my music spending has gone that way rather than being spread out over a larger group of artists. I’ve focused on a few that really need the help, and also have the potential to go somewhere, rather than making sure a bunch of artists get $10 – $20 from me.
    I came to the same conclusion with environmental groups. I was being hit up by all of them. Then I decided my giving would have more impact if I picked one and supported that rather than small amounts to lots of groups.

  15. I agree the quality is lower, but for the average listener, I bet they don’t notice. It’ll be really interesting to see if these services up the bitrate, or just accept that the high end listener might be put off.

  16. I’ve been a Rhapsody subscriber for 2 or 3 years now and I love it. I stream Rhapsody through Sonos and can listen to pretty much any album I can think of from start to finish whenever I want. That includes everything from old classics to new obscure stuff. Almost everything I search for is available there and my tastes run largely to unknown and emerging artists.
    I want to support artists but I see no reason to buy cd’s that clutter up my house and downloads that clog up my hard drive when I easily stream anything I want to hear.
    The only time I listen to cd’s is when they are label advances that are pre-release date.

  17. I agree – even my mp3s feel cumbersome these days. I’m surprised no one has mentioned Grooveshark – operates exactly like your iTunes library would if you had every album you could ever think of. Create playlists, send them to friends, or just listen randomly, all for free. I’ll support the artists I love by going to their shows, since I know they’re barely making any money from most downloads and CD purchases anyway.

  18. Agreed. Since Spotify came online I haven’t bought an album off iTunes and I rarely listen to my local MP3s. So much simpler to open Spotify, search for the artist/album/track I want and press play. And it works on my iPhone with no syncing required.
    And I’m betting that a search based streaming music service from Google would do much the same and possibly fill some niches Spotify doesn’t.

  19. I spend the whole time on Spotify. I pay the £10 a month so I can also get it on my iPhone and have the better quality. I tried going without it for four days – couldn’t handle it, resubscribed. Won’t be leaving any time soon, listen to more music than I have for years and share lots of stuff with all my friends. Awesome.

  20. Sadly, if you actually care what music sounds like your position is untenable. Pandora and Rdio soundalikeass, as they kids say. I’m not a snob. 128K artifacts are ugly and clearly audible, but that’s the best-case scenario streamed. They sound like chalk.
    THis is fine for background listening, and for many people that means it’s good enough. But if you listen on a decent system, not computer speakers, the current streams are not ready for primetime.
    If one accepts your postulation, wither Sgt. Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon or Exile on Main Street? Concept albums and bodies of work are less accessible as sound, but we also give up the liner notes and packaging with the services you’re pimping. When you move to this new paradigm, the act of listening to music purely for its own sake becomes more difficult. You can’t invite a bunch of friends over to hear the new Flaming Lips record, unless the record is background noise for drinking and yakking – drop outs and re-syncs are part of the experience, along with the $hitty $hitty sound.
    Keep in mind, once you board this train there’s no going back. It will disrupt and destroy the old paradigm entirely. As the physical purchase market shrinks, economies of scale go away (vinyl sells for a permanent premium, because manufacturing capacity is capped and shrinking – no mfg has sold a new press or lathe in 20 years!). While it’s fine to discuss new models, cheering radically different and clearly weaker ones is dangerous, if not dumb. Be careful what you cheer for – if you get it, you’ll have creative blood on your hands, and be working a new, lamer music market. The whole paradigm is purpose-built for stars and bottom feeders, putting sustainable “jobdom” (new since the 90s in music biz) on the ropes.
    Ultimately this article feels like a surrender to garbage and noise, trading a rich heritage for ephemera. It’s weak on facts and analysis, pitching a scheme to move music permanently into the background of our lives. I don’t see it as visionary, merely dystopic punditry. The fact that so many responders are willing to give up on concept albums, sound quality, liner notes, tangibility, and a broad license to flexibly enjoy their music is alarming to say the least.

  21. How are musicians supposed to support themselves if people don’t buy their music? How would you feel if no one wanted to pay you for the one thing you are good at doing on this planet? It may be convenient for you to listen online and not download or buy CDs, but by doing that you are hurting the artists you say you enjoy. They can’t afford to keep making music for you to listen to if you don’t buy their products.

  22. I want a cloud solution, where I can upload my files and files I have purchased and it would automatically sort it out, clean it up, properly file. Then it’d be made available for streaming and downloading back on my computer. Also can be combined with features similar to last.fm and itunes Genious for suggestions.

  23. For me, it’s all about being able to access what I want to hear, when I want to hear it….and at a quality level (both audio and user interface) that is both fun and easy. Rdio is as close to a service that I’ve used that captures all that, and allows me to share and “borrow” from my friends collections. I agree with other comments here regarding catalog reach (missing the indie titles as well) and quality of the streams, but with time, those will be addressed I’m sure. I’m guessing Apple and perhaps Google will tackle these issues within the next 6-12 months and music fans will flock to the subscription model as CD/MP3 sales begin to dive further down. At the least, my kids I’m sure won’t even think about dealing with the hassle of keeping up with digital files or artifacts like CDs to experience music, it’ll be a whole new, and entirely different, experience for them than what we’ve known in the past…which is exciting to me!

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