The Rise of the Streamers; To Own or Rent Your Music. That…is the Question
I must have been about about thirteen at the time. My allowance wasn’t cutting it. I was fast running out of dough and I needed to make some bread: there were records to buy. It was around this time that I discovered the holly grail of hoaxes…The Columbia Record House.
I had pulled an advert for the club out of Rolling Stone mag. I read it a couple times over to be sure that I was getting this right: “You mean to tell me that one red cent was going to get me twelve free albums? Not only that, but with my subscription, I receive the “selection of the month”…without asking for it?.
No shit.
Shit, yes, my young self. Shit, yes…
I remember thinking that it couldn’t have been right. I was about to ask my old man about it, that is, until the devil in the detail reared it’s timely head. The fine print said there was a monthly charge. Shit. So much for teenage logic…I also chose to ignore the fine print. What to do about that monthly charge for the monthly selection? Hey…I was only looking for solutions to my then current cash crunch, not new problems. Plus, my old man was smarter than me then. He would have seen my wheels cranking a mile away and stopped me cold. I decided I’d keep this one to myself.
I then started in on year long game of hide and seek with The Columbia Record House Club: I would hide from my parents all the cassettes that came in the mail and Columbia House would seek payment via repeated “pay now” letters. It was a viscous but virtuous cycle. The grind of racing home after school to get deliveries and collection letters was unrelenting, but I was doing it for a good cause…for the gain of musical knowledge.
I was thinking about this yesterday when I was replying to post from a music-friend’s blog, “IckMusic“. IckMusic is run by Pete Icke. Pete’s post touched on his brand spankin’ new Rdio account and of how he is using it to stream music. I asked Pete, another voracious music consumer, if streaming music was resulting in an increase in music listening or replacing the means in which he was currently devouring his tunes.
Pete said that he is spending more time listening to music and that Rdio is not only being used for music discovery, but it is eating into his iTunes usage. Pete also asked the question, “if all music is accessible from any device in your life, why waste the time downloading a MP3 or buying a CD?”
Good point, Pete. More so I think that the real question is: Buy or Rent?
This is when I started to think about my Columbia House days. That was a subscription/buffet service, too…but I owned it all (well, eventually after I had to come clean to the old man and he had to pay all those past due charges). The rise of the streamers is upon us and the bait is mighty tempting. Rdio, MOG, Pandora, GrooveShark, Spotify (and Google Music and Apple in the Cloud sorting their shit out)…they are here and they are offering up “millions of songs on demand”, “a world of music” and “free internet radio”. With lures like those, it is hard to resist having a look at what streaming has to offer.
I’m over a barrel on this one, though. My music collection...my rider by my side, bow-down, 1,500+ album music collection….I own all that shit. The damn thing comes damn close to defining me. Owning it is what it is all about…or what is has been all about. I’m no where near a fulltime streamer yet, but what has changed for me is what I own…what format that is. This most certainly will have implications for how I consumer in the future.
Of my 1,500+ albums, about 65% are CDs and the rest downloads. The CDs are legacy items, relics. My shift to digital music has been rapid over the past few years, especially while I was living in Australia where it was hard to get obscure/off the charts CDs. Not only have I been buying more digital, I have been buying a lot more vinyl, too. I’ve gone from no vinyl prior to December 2008 to 100+ pieces of black gold to date. My buying habits, which are well above average, focus on digital and vinyl…I haven’t bought a physical CD in over eight months.
My buying habits are changing, but I am still buying. Do I stream music? Am I a premium member of any services? Yes and Yes. I am a premium Spotify and GrooveShark member and I use last.fm regularly. Because I live in London I can’t access Pandora, MOG or Rdio (or HULU, for that matter). I have free accounts and use them when I am in the States. I like to use streaming for music discovery or checking out a new album. For the record, Spotify is a great service. The mobile access via the iPhone app is very handy. I can see why streaming is so damn attractive.
I do have a couple issues with not owning and streaming:
Less is more: Just because you have access to the buffet doesn’t mean you have to sample every morsel of food on it. Oh, you can (and you have), but all you get is nasty stomach ache. Buffets are misleading. Everything looks good and every bowl and platter is always full. Not only is food a plenty, its cheap, too….all you can eat for $X.99. Fill up your plate with lots of this and lots of that…you don’t have to eat it all…take a bite and leave the rest. There are too many buffets being gorged and not enough meals being eaten and enjoyed.
Music is so disposable now that people don’t have to get invested in the listening experience. The barriers are gone, scarcity is dead and, unless you are a serious music fan, why should you bother? I am a serious music fan….I am a fan of the front-to-back album listening experience. With the rise of the streamers…and singles…the album experience is an endangered species.
Access: Streaming requires a good service and it requires a broadband/wi-fi (mobile) connection. Yes, the latest and greatest apps have an offline cache capabilities, but that isn’t always to be effective (now)…unless you always plan out your offline tracks and albums. Don’t even start on switching costs. What if Rdio changes policy or Spotify pisses off the labels or Pandora’s good deals go bad? What happens to your rented collection? You can’t take it with you when you go…can you?
Access can also mean the breadth and depth of catalog and features/services. Right now it is a dog’s breakfast of streaming services all with varying degrees of goodies and features. Overtime that will correct itself. While competition is a good motivator for improvements, the end user is going to dictate how to and how much access there is.
Much like any fad, trends or other influencers, it will all start at the edges and work its way in. By the time it becomes critical mass, all of the technology, rights management, inventory, online/offline crap will be sorted. It is safe to say that the physical format is dead to rights. Vinyl will live on, yes, but it is for collectors, sound hounds and album freaks only (like me). Streaming and cloud collections will win out and that is not a bad thing.
Until it is the only game in town, my jury is still out on the Buy or Own verdict. I do like streaming and the thought of having my music (that I own) in the cloud for 24/7 anywhere, any place action is very cool. I love my music collection. It warms my heart, like a good whiskey does, when I look at it and I pick through it (however, I don’t see the need for the CDs anymore). Like I said, I am a serious music fan. Serious music fans are a different beast with different habits and should not be used as the example. The massess, technology and speed-to-cool of the streaming/cloud services uptake will decide the way forward. I’m going to tow the owning line for awhile and keep on streaming on until I reach my breaking point.
Oddly, some of the box sets…cds…that I still own today came from my Columbia House Years. In college and a few years after that, I used the old “hide and seek” model again. This time around I paid, but I always bailed as soon as I got my introductory CD booty. Those precious gems were the germs of what my collection has turned out to be today.
My collection started in New Hampshire, moved on to Rhode Island, got good in Boston, rode shotgun on down to Florida and then followed me to Australia and now to London. It’s been with me every at every turn. My relationship with my collection is older than the one with my wife of nine + the courtin’ years. Putting it in the cloud and streaming it anywhere, anyplace is the killer app, but…not owning and just renting streamed songs…it just doesn’t feel right. Not now, not yet, anyway…
if you are still reading this ridiculously long post, let me ask you…are you an owner or a streamer and how are your habits changing?
20 Comments
Post a comment
@hypebot chimes in w/a timely post http://bit.ly/93WmSC Like I said, Consumers, Technology & the “speed-to-cool” will dictate the music listening future
I laughed so hard at the Columbia House intro… that was ME to a “T.” I own most of the same stuff you pictured there, INCLUDING the box sets!Great post here. I have not used Rdio but am going to check it out right after I finish this comment.I don’t stream as much as I should. For some reason I don’t have the attention span for streaming but I do when I actually own the mp3. Don’t ask me why that is because I know it makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever.But I’ve had conversations with other people on Twitter regarding streaming, and even read that the artist gets paid through streaming… so I probably will start doing that because hey, it’s always good to pay the artist.
By the way, totally diggin’ the new logo!
@thefrontloader SML: yeah, I need to play around with the apps more myself. Too bad that I can’t get access to some here in London. Spotify is damn good, though and that is EU only right now. Thx for the logo comment. The guys are @idesignedyourlogo did the work. Tony is the go-to guy for help.
Wowee, that is a cool logo. I may have to talk to this Tony.So there are some classic albums I don’t own (I’ve either never owned, or lost along the way). Astral Weeks, some early Band albums, Songs in the Key of Life, to name a few… In the last couple weeks, I’ve had the chance to enjoy these records, and add them to my collection. Sure I’m renting, but I have my Rdio “collection”, and they’re there for me now when I need em. It’s like I’m living in a virtual record store, and I can pull out and play whatever I please… Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
Own. There’s no question in my mind. You get out what you put in. And when you make the conscious effort to invest and procure a particular album, or perhaps one that you’ve been looking for and have never seen until a sudden twist of fate plants it at your feet – it is a far more precious reward. The way I see it – there is far too much music in the world to devour. When you are so overfed and stuffed (as with Judd’s buffet analogy), you will ruin your appetite for something that you might well have appreciated had you been less inundated. Water saves when you’re stranded in the desert. But it can drown you a death when you’re lost at sea.There’s a right time and place for everything and one needs to respect that … the technology and empowerment available these days allow us instant gratification – on demand – for anything you think you want…, but it’s not necessarily healthy or good for you, or what you are really after.I have a constant cloud of names, albums and artists, floating in my head and I respect them all to grant them the right time and place to invest my ears on their works when the time comes, usually by a name reoccurring in day-to-day conversations, or in the words I read… I may order/hunt for it online and wait for it to appear at my door, … or I may see the album in a shop, one I’ve never seen before, or discounted or inspiration… then it’s like the fates conspiring and asking me to listen and I know that now’s the time.I enjoyed the hell out of Sirius XM when I was in the States (beaming as I drove cross the flat earth american Road)… true radio, and a true natural stream of music to discover… DJs telling each artists’ story, letting you in on the secret. That’s the sort of stream (where you have minimal control over what to listen to except for choosing the channel) I think is beneficial… too much power – like Pandora even, I find that it just forces people to narrow and streamline their preferences – instead of expanding them. And you can see the effect of that streamlining in the musical tastes of today’s listening public… the ever-further defined niches, genres, sub-genres, and pigeon hole infinites.
@ickmusic Yeah, Pete…contact Tony at @idesignyourlogo. Great people, great work. Changes, indeed. I’m a fan of change…I’ll change it up on my owner/streamer habits for sure…I’ll just let the technology and speed-to-cool mass consumption help dictate how fast I roll. Right now streaming is my filter for stuff I am on the fence about owning. The anytime, anyplace music is a great thing…I love that concept. Today it isn’t all the way there yet, or half way there for my needs. I agree with it and think what we have today is the best we can get…until tomorrow when someone puts out a new whiz-banger of a product. So much needs to happen…rights management, bigger better broadband/mobile speeds, etc. It’ll come together. I look forward to the day you and I and the rest of the serious music heads can share our entire collections via the cloud and have one big listening party. What I like is that the space is very crowded…the consumer benefits from competition. I’m stil on the fence with switching costs between services. I invest a shitload of time in my collection and if i build out playlists, etc and then I want to switch to a better service…that is a barrier for me. What needs to happen is that the (song)rights to stream can be portable to a new service. The artists needs to get paid would this way. If I stream in Rdio and switch to MOG, I should be able to mirror my collection in the next service. Best part about all of this flux is that we get to experiment by doing what we love to do, listen to music. “If you get confused, just listen to the music play…” http://tinysong.com/ji3O
@idlehead I agree with you on ownership regarding the ‘precious reward’ comment. But…the reward is becoming a very solitary thing. A lot of what I have bought (CDs) over the past 5 years I have bought in one place…my fave record shop in Sydney. Buying the music there was never transactional. It was an extremely engaging and involved experience…that was marketing speak. What it was, a shit-hot time hanging with likeminded people talking about music we love, having a few beers, telling stories, sharing sounds, etc. That was the real ‘precious reward’. I can stil pull some of those out of my collection and remember the night I bought it. I think this fits in with your XM thoughts. See, we don’t just want the music, we want all the extras that come with it…stories, camaraderie, insights, etc. I’m no luddite nor am I a purist. I love what new technologies offer…so long as I still get to buy vinyl and have a degree of control over my rented/streamed tunes…I’ll find a way to keep it close to the bone.
All of these comments should be taken with a grain of salt. The people that care to won will have their option, I’m sure of it. Subscription > stream > option to own > store in cloud > access either rented or owned library anywhere.
Wow! Great post. And my answer is old school. I rent music by way of XM radio and my fave channel, the Underground Garage. The DJs are the best and truly tell the stories of the music they play. Also they are familiar, since Kid Leo who used to be here in Cleveland in my formative years is one of them. It was truly crazy the first time I heard him while driving home from work one day. As he played (Ain’t Nuthin’ But A) Houseparty I was transported to 1982. UG plays garage and punk rock mixed with the classics, so I rent music from them, explore it more online, and then buy what I like best at my local. In vinyl if possible. Which is exactly what I used to do in the old days. Minus the online part. Hmmmm. there may be a blog post from me coming from this… Also I like the new logo. But I really liked the old one better. Probably the Beatles fan in me. Ha!
@jukebox65 Thanks. I haven’t written a long form one in a while #cobwebs. Yes, it is a polarizing discussion to say the least. I’m more old school when it comes to my fave music, but I am a gadget and tech freak, too. Nothing beats the hanging out and buying found in the indie record shop experience (if it is authentic). So, void of that…I will own and stream and make friends with people like yourselves and @ickmusic & @idlehead and @horringbone and we’ll share tunes and figure this shit out together. (we’ll always have vinyl, Stacy)re: the logo…Beatles fan, graphic designer…go figure
A few good words on the impact of Grooveshark’s new $3 all you can eat buffet streaming app thx @digitalmusicnws http://bit.ly/dCKD5t
Fab new logo, Judd!I own and rarely stream. Largely because most of the competing services don’t offer diddly down here in Oz. Sadly, we always have to wait until a year or two after the R&D stage down here. World Wide Web? Really? The other reason I don’t stream is that the idiotic ISPs in Oz are still stuck on the broadband cap plan model. Streaming, methinks, should be a no-brainer. Logging-in to check the available juice level on the ludicrous usage meter before a streaming session is a concept killer. Simple as that.I wholeheartedly agree with idlehead’s view and your buffet analogy, Judd. “when you make the conscious effort to invest and procure a particular album . . . it is a far more precious reward.” But, as you point out, we music-heads are not the norm.I’ve been MP3-only (laptop and 220Gb of aural bliss connected to my stereo) for the past 6-7 years. My massive CD collection now just a dormant wall feature. I’m waiting for the day a friend’s kid enters my apartment, points at my wall and asks, “what’s that?”As you’ve rightly observed, Juddster, we are now in the middle of the transition or R&D phase of music listening. And all the disparate options and rabid competition should ensure a fair new model for both the artists and the fans. Eventually!After resisting for years, I now ‘steal’ (SoulSeek P2P and Torrents) most of my new music. And I honestly see it as a duty. I figure, the more we do it, the more likely the industry is to fix THEIR problem. It helps that I still follow a credo from my days as a cricketer: never give a sucker an even break.Like most of us here, I’ve happily spent an insane amount of money on music (since 1972 for me) but the industry now insists that I’m a thieving villain who should be sued. Just like that! I would have thought my track record makes me a damn good customer . . . but what the fuck do I know.We’ll reach a streaming musical nirvana one day. And I’ll be the first in line to open up my wallet again. Until then, I’ll continue to grow MY own collection on the backs of the idiots who are driving this once beautiful wreck down the S-bend.
@horringbone kipster: I knew you would want to have a say on this one. I also know that would be in the “own” camp….at least for the time being. For those that don’t know, Kip’s music collection is Massive. It is a rich collection, curated with a knowing set of ears and a discerning taste that is equal parts depth and breadth. Kip, you are also a staunch completist; a condition of being an “an album” guy. You NEED to own. Of course, at this stage, I do too. The precious reward that @idlehead speaks of is the collection…for me it used to be the buying (when I wen to Mojo Music) or when actual record stores were the way to discover. Online sharing and faux-record shop community are a copout when it comes to discovery and experience, but that is where the mainstream, the labels and artist will go to find tunes and make a living respectively. As a pas t inhabitant of the (truly) Lucky Country, I know all too well about how the laws of scarcity apply tp Oz. Bandwidth issues, ISP issues, no-access-to-cool-new-shit issues…they make it hard to play in the global sharing game. It does suck that we have (had) to wait so long to get the good stuff. But, then again, the joy of living in Australia goes far beyond bits & bytes.I’m not a P2P guy. I don’t “steal” music. Not because I am against it, because I do think it helps the artist’s other rev streams now that there is no money to be made in paying in selling actual music, but because if i opened myself up to that firehouse, my music filters would get washed away.The obsessive compulsive in me would be pulling everything within a click-shot off the wire. I would end up having a massive music listening backlog that it would become a chore, not a joy to listen through it all. I have two main filters that i use. One filter is that i try to stay within the family tree of my musical tastes. I am a blues, (true/early) country and gut bucket soul guy. I’m R&R, too…but as direct descendants of the afore mentioned flavours. That filter at least keeps me focused. The filter also includes old school principles of recording and making music. Case in point: Arcade Fire.I had no intentions of listening to Arcade Fire’s new one. The too-fucking-cool hipster vibe threw me off. Then I read an article on them in the New York Times. The profile was about how old school these guys are…how much they respect the album, the way it was recorded, the road, the fans, etc. Couple that with the way they are leveraging the latest tech & distribution channels to enhance the fan/listening experience and you have a band straddling the line between old soul and new age. After i read that article, i downloaded their album…AAC lossless…straight from their site (via Topspin). The story behind the band/songs/music has always interested me. Because of that, these guys made it through my filter.My other filter is that when ever i get a new album, I listen to it straight through, front to back, at least 10 times. It doesn’t have to be consecutive, but it does have to be start to finish when i put it on. It keeps the album/listening experience alive for me and i find a great appreciation for the body of work. My first filter, hopefully, hedges my bet that I will want to listen to the album 10 times.The buy or own question is still not answered for me yet…and I’ll join you on the S-curves. The music industry may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least we’re enjoying the ride.
@horringbone Kip & all: here is the NYT article on Arcade Fire I referenced http://goo.gl/4Xix
BTW: to those on this comment string, this conversation is the type of stuff that happens in indie record shops. This is the “precious reward” that makes (made) the buying experience so damn cool.
Great NYT piece. I can see how it got a raised eyebrow out of your learned forehead, Judd.So many issues in this string. And you’re right, it’s the kinda stuff you’d hear being bandied about a cool indie record shop.I really struggled for a long time about the stealing vs. paying the artist thing. Figuring this is a temporary era (ten years??) of flux, I eventually settled on using my own arbitrary system of getting my money out to those I want to give it to. Filthy rich oldsters only get my gig money if they’re still around and I go to the show. Up ‘n comers get paid for as much as I can buy. Am particularly big on buying the CD and some other merchandise at a “struggling” artist gig. And in the past two years, my iTunes account has been used exclusively on new artists.I love your filtering system, Judd. It definitely guarantees a fat-free collection and it avoids owning stuff you’ve never listened to as well. Since I started ‘stealing’ in earnest, I must admit to getting obsessed with filling perceived holes in my collection. It is so damn easy! I revisit a fave artist in my library, then suddenly realise I’m ‘missing’ 3-4 classic albums from their back catalog. A visit to Pirate Bay and an hour later I’ve filled that hole. I may not even listen to 2-3 of these ‘new’ albums in my collection straight away, but I now ‘own’ them and can access them whenever want.One of things I love about being a music lover is being able to accommodate almost any taste. I love the simple question I pose to visitors: “what do you want to listen to?” Then the inevitable, “well, what have you got?” is answered with “whatever you want, what’s your mood?” Ubiquitous streaming, of course, is what this ‘visitor’ scenario is made for. And when it truly is ubiquitous (including Oz!), my owned library of bits and bytes will be about as useful as my CD collection. An ashtray on a motorbike springs to mind.
@horringbone Nice one, Kip…ashtray/motorbike. I just envisioned all of my digital files floating out of my computer and then out threw an open window. Bring on the future…
If he can curate streaming services, I’m paying attention