i resisted getting spotify for some time now and finally caved. i knew i wanted it and i liked the idea of being able to listen to a lot of music that i knew i didn't want to spend money on, as much as i felt that it was music worth spending money on. i couldn't figure out why i thought it was wrong and now i think i do. there is the obvious reason- that its monopolizing the music listening industry because its free. duh. (and its better than pandora even though it still has ads. i can't seem to convince them that any band i wanna listen to that isn't from america DOESN'T sound like the strokes...as much as i like the strokes. but i digress.)
i think the biggest problem that i have with spotify stems from the same part of my personality that gives me too much of a conscience to spoil surprises at christmas. i know that i could cheat and find out what im getting, but whats the fun in that if i ruin it for christmas morning? maybe that was a bad analogy. but i just cant help but feel like im cheating. not the music industry or my favorite bands but my soul. back in the day (aka, not that long ago) there was something really great and torturous about having a song stuck in your head all day and having to go home and sift through all your cd's or pull out my moms old records and find the song that i really wanted to listen to. its so satisfying to do something so deliberate. YEAH ITS INCONVENIENT. when was the last time something was inconvenient? like seriously inconvenient. not saying we are never inconveneinced, but when we are its like the worst thing when it just deserves a firstworldproblems hashtag. even something like having an itunes where you still pay for your music gives us a sense of entitlement. the classic i want it and i want it now thing. i have 8,000 songs on itunes and i dont want to listen to any of them. so i feel like i deserve to have spotify so i can ingest more and more of less when i could be satisfied with having less of more.
lets think about this.
i can pay 10 dollars for an album i bought at a store
or
i pay nothing for 10 different bands i can listen to in an hour and then forget about.
this is sad because all of those bands have music worth listening to. their music isn't necessarily forgettable, its just that i'm forgetful. they probably got a record deal and accepted an advance in order to pay for recording their music and got way in debt and everything just so they could only make a little money liscencing their song for a jeans commercial. meanwhile the option to use this music as a facebook status is available, as if anyone cares. it makes me think of going to a college fair and seeing how much free and useless sh** you can fit in your bag of goodies.
anyways. you can and will do whatever you want regardless of what i have to say, just don't forget what it was like when listening to your favorite music required ridiculous amounts of sacrifice. back in the day, people actually had no other option but to get off their arss and flip the record over if they wanted to listen to the rest of the album. so we have it pretty good now. when you have to make a sacrifice get something, you actually appreciate it. maybe the reason why we want more is cause we don't let ourselves think that we don't need it. buy an album. just one. listen to it over and over again as if that was the only music you'll ever have. listen the crap out of it and get your moneys worth. it feels good.
