The RIAA has gotten to me. Has infected my brain, I mean. With all their file-sharing is stealing and shouldn't be done bullshit.
So now I almost never use any P2P networks, and am almost aghast that others do. Of course, this is starting to drive me insane, because, well. I don't listen to the radio, and I don't watch tv. So lately I've only been buying music from bands that either have mp3s up on their (or their label's) website, and that I take the time to look up, or that I see live and like. My purchasing of cds has slowed to a trickle of less than one new album a month, which is incredible to me. I bought four, five, sometimes six albums a month at the height of my illegal file downloading.
And I'd dismissed the correlation as some kind of spin. After all, why would record companies be against something that helps them sell more CDs? Who would do that? (Okay, so I've never been big on supporting RIAA artists to begin with. Hush, you.)
I want to buy more music. Because, hey, I like owning music. But it's rare for me to hear two or three tracks by a band and think, 'Hey! This is good enough to risk the rest of the album being crap, I think I'll buy the record!' It happens, but only about once a month. If that. Hence my current purchasing habits.
I suppose I could go by Pitchfork's reviews, buy anything that sounds like something I'd like and gets a rating above 7, and be pretty happy. I do tend to agree with their take on things, for the most part, but. Then I'd feel like I wasn't forming my own opinion, and I can't bloody stand for that. Not to mention that a lot of the shit I like never ends up reviewed on the site to begin with. So, what to do? Not buy music? 'Steal' in an attempt to find more shit I want to buy? Take wild guesses on which albums are really worth it?
At the moment I'm downloading the few tracks available by a band (when they have mp3s posted anywhere), and then hunting down reviews to try to figure out the sound on the rest of the album, and that's served me fairly well. But some bands don't have songs posted anywhere, and I'm forced to just go by reviews. I can't buy based on reviews. Too much of a risk. So I wait for them to come here and tour--unlikely--or I don't buy the album. Even when it sounds like something I'd adore.
This is largely irrelevant in any case, because the artists I'm the most intrigued by are generally too small to show up on file-sharing networks to begin with, but for the bigger bands I don't hear due to my isolation, the use of these networks would be very helpful. And there are a lot of bands at the moment that I'd really like to check out, or hear more from before judging, but can't due to my current, media-instilled morals. Ah, well. I guess music's not that important anyway.
And I do hear more local bands this way, which is definitely a good thing. Meh.
revoless.
2:19 a.m.
February 21, 2004.
Listening to: Optiganally Yours.
The parade of addictions or Church without cynicism, take one