Quote:
Originally Posted by orangeakira
I selected every option except:
I am... against piracy and illegal distribution!
I have lots of discretionary income!
I'm pretty broke but I really like buying cds. I'm (kind of) an audiophile. I like all my songs in 320kbps, flac, or wav. If I rip the cd myself I know for sure that they aren't going to be transcoded. I'll start buying music digitally when itunes start releasing music in that quality. Also there's nothing special about clicking on the "purchase" button. There's a real visceral experience in owning a physical cd and I feel like I get my money's worth. Holding the cd, taking off the plastic, flipping through the booklet, putting the cd into your computer or cd player to listen to. It's just a personal experience you can't get if you digitally purchase a song.
Also I've argued many many MANY times the bullshit that is "illegal downloading hurts the artist". I almost did a presentation on it in school cause someone pissed me off enough to want to prove their ass wrong. Only for small, local, or indie artists that have music that's really hard to find and really deserve to be noticed do I purchase and not download. They're usually the ones that hold tours where about 100 people show up, and sell all their music on the bandcamp website and always sell their albums as "name your price".
I buy cds all the time. I buy them when I can. If I really really love an album or single, I'll buy it online at cdjapan, yesasia, or best buy. I download a lot, but I also buy a lot of cds too.
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Wow, all of this is almost like I myself wrote it. It's exactly why I buy CDs, too. I agree on everything, especially the audiophile and piracy parts.
I love the experience of ordering and looking forward to the actual album coming to my door. Then actually getting it, feeling it in my hands, and opening it slowly, saving the plastic wrap, and looking at every small detail on and in the case. I usually comment to myself stuff like "Wow, this looks so amazing!" or "They seriously could have put more effort in the overall design of the album". And it's not just the one time when I receive album that I look through it and admire it. Sometimes I go through my library of CDs and choose one to open and look through again. And I love doing it. I love knowing that I own them and see them sitting right there. My family has never understood this because they think everyone must buy CDs just to *have* the music and be able to listen to it. But it's far from only that.
I admit that the aesthetics of an album/single became of great importance to me lately. But still, if I really love an album, and even if it has an awful cover/packaging, I'll STILL buy it. Because the main reason I buy CDs is to, in a way, show that such and such album really does mean a lot to me. In a way it's saying that music means a lot to me, so even spending $40 on one CD is justified for me. I own the original physical copy because whatever is on that CD is my treasure! That's how I look at it. And after all these years of buying CDs, I don't regret buying even one of them. And God knows I spent tons of money on them.
Even so, what put me off a little from buying CDs when it comes to Jpop is that I know all of it is squashed to hell, even on CDs, and I know that the songs really suffer from this kind of production and almost all of the dynamics are gone. It's not that hard to hear, but I can't help that over the years I've really gotten into Jpop and there is no way I'm abandoning it just for these technical reasons. Music is still music, after all. So yeah, I'll still buy CDs.