I used to love CD shops, back in the 90's and early 00’s, when I was younger and CD shops were a cool place to spend time and the only place where you could buy music.
Time used to fly in CD shops, looking for rarities, bargains and sometimes both. CDs were expensive at the time and you couldn’t afford many, so when you decided to buy one, you wanted to buy something worth the money.
But nowadays, things have changed so much that the 90's and early 00’s are ancient history.
I went to HMV recently, only because I had a voucher that I received a year ago and I wanted to spend the last £8 remaining. I ended up spending half an hour undecided between Led Zeppelin, Piazzolla and AC DC. I must say, in the last three years I have been in CDs shops only because I had vouchers given to me for my birthdays.
The problem is that I don't enjoy anymore buying CDs in a shop, especially in megastores. First of all, the CD section is shrinking by the day, and soon you will be able to buy only games and DVDs. Secondly, the music I like, rock and jazz, is dying out and the majority of music in the store I cannot make out what it is. Maybe, it's called getting old I suppose, but anyway, what's the point of making the journey to a shop, getting bombarded by loud music, sandwiched between people and then queuing to buy your purchase, when the Internet can do most of the work for you?
If I have to buy a CD I would rather buy it online. On the HMV website, for example, I can listen to 30 seconds of most of the songs, and there and then I can decide to buy the album or not. The price is also generally cheaper than at the store. There are also other websites, like Kazaa (is it still around?) or some others like E-mule where you can download music for free.
However, I recently discovered the best website of all, called Spotify. This site is free and you can access thousands of tracks apart from Beatles, Pink Floyd and some others who have not signed up (yet).
I personally love jazz and at Spotify I can find lots of albums that would cost me a fortune at the shop. That's the thing about jazz, in a shop it's expensive because not many people listen to it but online instead it is, together with classical music, the easiest music to get, maybe because most of the artists are dead or maybe their copyrights did not include any Internet clauses.
With Spotify, like everything else in life, there are downsides too, but only two that I can think of. The first one is advertisement, but the ads are every four songs or so, and they last just ten seconds.
Time used to fly in CD shops, looking for rarities, bargains and sometimes both. CDs were expensive at the time and you couldn’t afford many, so when you decided to buy one, you wanted to buy something worth the money.
But nowadays, things have changed so much that the 90's and early 00’s are ancient history.
I went to HMV recently, only because I had a voucher that I received a year ago and I wanted to spend the last £8 remaining. I ended up spending half an hour undecided between Led Zeppelin, Piazzolla and AC DC. I must say, in the last three years I have been in CDs shops only because I had vouchers given to me for my birthdays.
The problem is that I don't enjoy anymore buying CDs in a shop, especially in megastores. First of all, the CD section is shrinking by the day, and soon you will be able to buy only games and DVDs. Secondly, the music I like, rock and jazz, is dying out and the majority of music in the store I cannot make out what it is. Maybe, it's called getting old I suppose, but anyway, what's the point of making the journey to a shop, getting bombarded by loud music, sandwiched between people and then queuing to buy your purchase, when the Internet can do most of the work for you?
If I have to buy a CD I would rather buy it online. On the HMV website, for example, I can listen to 30 seconds of most of the songs, and there and then I can decide to buy the album or not. The price is also generally cheaper than at the store. There are also other websites, like Kazaa (is it still around?) or some others like E-mule where you can download music for free.
However, I recently discovered the best website of all, called Spotify. This site is free and you can access thousands of tracks apart from Beatles, Pink Floyd and some others who have not signed up (yet).
I personally love jazz and at Spotify I can find lots of albums that would cost me a fortune at the shop. That's the thing about jazz, in a shop it's expensive because not many people listen to it but online instead it is, together with classical music, the easiest music to get, maybe because most of the artists are dead or maybe their copyrights did not include any Internet clauses.
With Spotify, like everything else in life, there are downsides too, but only two that I can think of. The first one is advertisement, but the ads are every four songs or so, and they last just ten seconds.
The other downside is that you cannot download music from Spotify into your Mp3 or Ipod.
I am personally rather suspicious of the idea of free things and at the beginning I thought the ads were during the actual songs, similar to when I was a kid and the radio hosts used to talk over the songs to discourage you from recording from the radio and at the same time persuading you to buy the cassette or the CD.
The benefits are, however, more substantial than the downsides and what I like the most about Spotify is, apart from the selection of music, the fact that you don't need to download the music into your computer! You are practically borrowing a CD shop every time you log in and then giving it back.
As far as I am concerned, CD shops do not do for me anymore but, I must say, I still like the very small ones or the ones I visit while I am abroad. I like the feeling of looking through random titles instead of going to a shop where everything you know is where it is supposed to be.
By the way, at the end of my shopping I bought AC DC, maybe because they are not on Spotify... yet.
I am personally rather suspicious of the idea of free things and at the beginning I thought the ads were during the actual songs, similar to when I was a kid and the radio hosts used to talk over the songs to discourage you from recording from the radio and at the same time persuading you to buy the cassette or the CD.
The benefits are, however, more substantial than the downsides and what I like the most about Spotify is, apart from the selection of music, the fact that you don't need to download the music into your computer! You are practically borrowing a CD shop every time you log in and then giving it back.
As far as I am concerned, CD shops do not do for me anymore but, I must say, I still like the very small ones or the ones I visit while I am abroad. I like the feeling of looking through random titles instead of going to a shop where everything you know is where it is supposed to be.
By the way, at the end of my shopping I bought AC DC, maybe because they are not on Spotify... yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment