if you're constantly cycling I suppose. But the social media/mindless listening experience is something a lot of us are turning away from. I too have convinced myself that the discovery is important, but in reality are we actually discovering that much new music that we want to listen to again? Also, there's always YouTube if you want to listen once to new stuff constantly. You mention it costing you $50 for the music you would listen to this week, but my question is, how much of that is stuff you would want to listen to again? Are you really finding several hundred dollars worth of great new music you want to have every month, or is it that you like to listen to that much, but stuff that actually sticks with you is closer to a cd or two a month?
No - that’s the whole point. I don’t want to listen to most of it again, so why should I buy it? But I did want to listen to it once, which I could not have if I had to buy all of it. This doesn’t mean I just numbly have music running in the background, quite the opposite. But I did want to hear how for instance Madonna’s new version of “ray of Light” sounded (hint: bad) although I would have never bought it.
A few months ago, I was deep diving into different versions of Beethoven’s 9th. Listening to ten different versions of the same music is not something I would have done if I had to buy ten albums to do it. I don’t think that counts as “mindless listening experience”. I would argue that people listening to the same 50 albums their whole life is a lot more “mindless”.
I suspect for most people, it's the latter. (I know it is for me). Honestly, finding 12-20 great new albums a year (unless I've discovered a genre I had no clue about and dive into it, for instance I'm now dancing salsa so salsa music as a whole is new to me) would be a great year in music as far as I'm concerned.
Everyone has different approaches to music. I search for music that I want to listen to now, not music I want to listen to for the rest of my life. Some people only listen to one specific genre, and prefer listening over and over to the music they know. For them, buying makes a lot of sense. Especially if you already had a considerable collection.
Personally, the idea of still finding new music but than deciding if it belongs in my curated collected is something of a new hobby I'm excited about when my iPod parts arrive this weekend. I think
I’m not sure I understand what you are saying here.
To be clear, I am not saying you are wrong, just that for some it makes sense to purchase, for others streaming is better value. For me, even if it ends up being more expensive, I’m happy with streaming because it frees up my listening experience. Before streaming I would listen to the same stuff over and over. With streaming I can hear a cool track on the radio, and go and listen to that artist the rest of the day, without necessarily committing to owning it as part of my collection. My listening is heavily mood-based. I can easily listen to Beethoven, Taylor swift and Rage Against the Machine in the same week.
Also, some math: 12-20 new albums a year will cost more than streaming. If I subscribe to Qobuz for 50 years, that will only cost me 6500 USD. That’s what, less than 500 new CD’s? That means that for the rest of my life I can have Qobuz lossless hi-res streaming for significantly less money than I spent on the CD’s in my attic. For me, it’s a no-brainer.
