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How much money do you spend in music?

H

HarryPot

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 5, 2009
1,089
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Recently I've been debating wether I should ditch buying music in iTunes and using instead Spotify.

I gave Spotify a try this month (Premium account), and long story short, I didn't liked it. So I went and added all that I've spent in the last three years in music in iTunes just to see how much more expensive buying music is.

I spend, per year, around $230. Double what I would pay with Spotify. But being able to keep the music forever, I think I still prefer buying music in iTunes.

But now I'm curious, how much other people spend in music per year.
 
About 0€ a year (that's around $0, give or take). Sometimes a bit more, but never less. I'm old fashioned, I put the radio when I'm driving, and that's it, and I'm not a very musical person, to say the least, I prefer a good talk show.
 
I buy quite a number of CDs a year; now, I have never worked out exactly how much I have paid (because my main aim is to buy music rather than pay heed to, or monitor what I spend), but it would - probably - come to several hundred euros worth of CDs annually.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
I buy quite a number of CDs a year; now, I have never worked out exactly how much I have paid (because my main aim is to buy music rather than pay heed to, or monitor what I spend), but it would - probably - come to several hundred euros worth of CDs annually.
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I have really never payed much attention to how much I spend in music, until recently that many people started telling me how much better Spotify is.
 
HarryPot said:
I have really never payed much attention to how much I spend in music, until recently that many people started telling me how much better Spotify is.
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You can use it for free to see if you like it. The subscription only gets rid of the ad banners and advertisements between songs, plus a few other perks on the side.

I have to say, since discovering these streaming services, I barely spend anything on music these days.
 
I spend a stupid amount of money on music per year. i'm always discovering new bands or new artist and am one of those people who choose individual albums over greatest hits, so that adds up. I'm also in the process of re buying albums that I couldn't get good rips from for one reason or another. I really am addicted to music.

I tried Spotify, Beats and Rhapsody at one point or anther and didn't like the experience. I also like having all my music in one app instead of having to switch between a streaming app and the music app on my phone.
 
Near zero. I don't like new music in general. My 1000 plus CD's and 500 or so vinyl collection keeps me busy these days. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I have a vast collection of Reel to Reel tapes as well.
 
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$0.00. I haven't spent a dime on music in probably a decade. I can't even remember the last music CD I bought.

I think the closest thing to it was a stand up comic CD like 2005-06. Pretty sure it was Jim Gaffigan. Since then I lived off pirating, Pandora, Last.fm, and now a bit of Spotify/Pandora (free). Streaming replaced pirating, which replaced buying music.

Edit: Now that I think of it, I may have purchased (digital download) a friend's band album in college. Don't use that computer/iTunes anymore though, so I can't remember if I have it.
 
Actually, it is not just the sheer pleasure of the physical experience of heading into a bricks-and-mortar music store (you know, the old ones with incredibly enticing and fascinating music shelves where you could while away hours browsing music and examining stuff you had hardly ever heard of) that I enjoy when buying music, it is also the whole experience of exploration, of discovering new groups, sounds, styles of music while browsing.

But my musical spending goes further than that; I also like to listen to street musicians, and, if they are good and sound unusual, striking and interesting, I will quite often, on a whim, buy whatever CD they are offering for sale. Some of my favourite CDs have come from this sort of source - for the street is a place you will never find online, and sometimes plays host to the sort of unusual (and often unknown) music - often played by (and written by) exceptionally skilled and gifted musicians, played by passionate enthusiasts that no online corporate behemoth would dream of stocking (or have even heard of).

This is where you will often find fusion music - a situation whereby the traditions of various countries have inadvertently come together as wandering, itinerant musicians travel and trip over one another, like what they hear and want to explore and develop it further and often end up travelling together as they improvise and weave new sounds from traditions that they are familiar with as they craft something new.
 
I love music of many genres. I buy from a few different sources, some of which is streaming.

Google Play All Access has an interface / management resource I really enjoy, especially on my Nexus 5 that is the hub of entertainment via Bluetooth in my voice / audio, nav center / steering wheel controlled premium system in my M4.

I spend more than most only because I listen to a lot of music daily.
 
I have an iTunes library of more than 68,000 songs, but I have bought very little of it.:eek:

I was of the generation which switched from vinyl to CD, and had over the years built up a good sized library.
When I bought my first iPod 2004 with 20GB, I just started ripping my own CD collection. I have also in that period used nearly all my friends libraries to do the same.:p
The last physical CD was a gift from someone back in 2008, (Complete works of Charlie Parker.):cool:

Since 2009 I have only used iTunes because of the ease of use. I some times hear a number played on the radio, I note the song and later download it, just that number not the whole Album.

My iTunes account remains pretty constant at € 60 per year.
 
I'' probably spend maybe 9 dollars a year. I've mostly transitioned over to streaming and between pandora and iTunes radio, I've not had any desire to buy any new music.
 
Happybunny said:
I have an iTunes library of more than 68,000 songs, but I have bought very little of it.:eek:

I was of the generation which switched from vinyl to CD, and had over the years built up a good sized library.
When I bought my first iPod 2004 with 20GB, I just started ripping my own CD collection. I have also in that period used nearly all my friends libraries to do the same.:p
The last physical CD was a gift from someone back in 2008, (Complete works of Charlie Parker.):cool:

Since 2009 I have only used iTunes because of the ease of use. I some times hear a number played on the radio, I note the song and later download it, just that number not the whole Album.

My iTunes account remains pretty constant at € 60 per year.
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My situation was similar in that I am also of the generation which switched from vinyl to CDs, and mostly ripped my own to iTunes, which is what my iTunes library mostly contains to this day.

So, like, Happybunny, I have tens of thousands of pieces of music on my iTunes.

Indeed, I still have shelves of excellent quality vinyl, and a purchase over the next year or so all be a new turntable, (of excellent quality), amp, speakers to be able to use them. Precisely because I have always liked my music, and enjoy listening to it almost daily, I have always been willing to spend money on high quality musical equipment, speakers, stereos, headphones, and so on.
 
How much money do you spend in music?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-70 per year. I haven't purchased a CD since 2008 and if there is a song or two I hear on the radio that I want, I just go to iTunes and buy it. Rarely is the whole album worth purchasing, so the ability to buy a song here or there is wonderful.

Oh and by "radio", I mean Pandora, Spotify, or iTunes Radio. While I am in the car I always stream something from my iPhone. No more car radios for me. Why? I can customize the radio station to fit my current mood. It really is that simple.
 
~$20/mo. Half of that goes to Spotify, the other half to Sirius/XM.
 
I spend about $100/year. I'm jaded. We need progress in audio. I need a system with flat response from 2 Hz to 50 KHz. Right now.
 
On a scale of $0 to $Torrent, I spend Demonoid. Realistically it's about $20-$40 a year.

I grab it on Demonoid first. If I sample the album and I like it, I buy it cheap on CD on Amazon and keep the downloaded copy - or rip the CD if it's an album that needs better quality. It's win-win: I don't waste money on music and yet I'm still paying for my music. I wouldn't buy anything if I didn't sample it first, so it works out okay all around. If it's a lone song I like, I'll buy it in iTunes. I give Amazon as little of my business as I can... Jeff Bezos is a turd and Amazon is the Walmart of the internet.

...since buying my good AKG headphones I will say I tend to prefer higher quality music whereas before I never really noticed the difference except on certain albums. :)
 
£9.99 per month for Spotify then perhaps another few pounds buying random tracks on iTunes for my younger siblings iPods.
 
In all, the money I use on music is about $900 / year.
From downloading on iTunes, and Bandcamp, songs direct from bands, also merch and concerts.

Biggest expenditure is Hammerfest http://www.hammerfest.co.uk every year
 
kazmac said:
Less than I used to, probably about $55-70 a year. When I look at all of the iTunes content I've spent money on in the past decade it makes me cringe. Now to cut back on the movies.
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I also think that in the future I'll spend less money. Eventually as I get old I guess I will have enough music and maybe the new releases won't appeal that much to me.

I've been buying music for around 4-5 years now. Previously I must accept that I downloaded my music from torrents and before torrents became popular from LimeWire and one other program which I can't remember the name right now.


rctlr said:
In all, the money I use on music is about $900 / year.
From downloading on iTunes, and Bandcamp, songs direct from bands, also merch and concerts.

Biggest expenditure is Hammerfest http://www.hammerfest.co.uk every year
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Concerts do increase the amount quite a bit, quite a lot maybe:eek:.
 
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