Does anybody buy recordings anymore?

[marcwhy]

Yes

Me, too!

[enalnitram]

It’s not an option. If you’re an active discerning listener, on a quest, you have to.

[jameslovestal]

I still buy CDs from the actual musician. E.g. went to a jazz camp and Bruce Forman was one of the instructors: he made jokes that he had thousands, upon thousands of CDs and the clutter was getting to him. Thus, he was selling them for whatever one wanted to pay.

[sgosnell]

I don't use iTunes or iAnything, nor Amazon, but I do purchase some music. I prefer Bandcamp, because AFAIK the artist gets most of the money, and I always buy there if it's available. I have bought some music via Google Music, but it's not my preferred source. I buy from the big sources only as a last resort. YMMV. I don't buy physical media, though. They just take up room and don't let me listen from wherever I may be. I prefer digital files, which I can upload to cloud storage and access from anywhere, anytime. My vinyl LPs, reel-to-reel and cassette tapes, and CDs are just taking up space, and I should really get rid of them and free up the storage space for something useful. I'm lazy, though, and just let them sit and gather dust.

[AllanAllen]

I have a spotify subscription. I used to buy CDs for the car, but the last car I got doesn't have a cd player. Now it's just records or spotify and I only buy a record if it's not on spotify. The Benny Goodman's estate isn't getting commission either way if I stream or buy a used record.

[rpjazzguitar]

When I want to hear something that I actually own on CD, I still am likely to go to youtube first. It's usually quicker and easier. I'm no longer as sensitive to playback quality as I once was.

The most recent CD's I bought were all from musicians that I wanted to support -- often, people I know.

[yebdox]

I still buy what I consider "significant" CDs, then rip to my computer, then to my phone. By "significant" I mean my favorite artists: Wes, Bernstein, Lage Lund, Kreisberg, Metheny, Van Ruller, etc... Tried and true masters I admire.
- I will purchase downloads of lesser known artists, or those I think I might only listen to a handful of times, until I'm a dedicated fan.
- I like to purchase on BandCamp when possible, but mostly from Amazon, because there is no limit on the number of machines I can play from, unlike Apple, which limits you to 5 machines... only as a last resort, as occasionally, Apple has something I can't find anywhere else and is out of print.
- I use Spotify mostly for background and meditation music, a couple of podcasts.
- I like to support the artist, which Spotify doesn't really do.
- I like the option of the higher quality on a CD. I have a nice system, but 99% of the time, I rip the CD to my computer library, which now sits at 40,323 items, 156 days of playing time and 413 GB. That does not include around 900 LPs and maybe half of my 2000+ CDs that have not been ripped to my computer.
- There has never been a better time to be alive and listen to music from everywhere and everytime. It is a luxury as wonderful as a great big wall of books, an amazing wife and 2 fabulous dogs.

[JazzPadd]

I already have so, so many LPs and cassettes (some I been lugging around since I left the US 25 years ago), plus CDs and FLAC/MP3s, that I think I'm covered into the foreseeable future. So, for the most part, I have ceased buying recordings.

Once in a blue moon, if I come across an old LP in a record shop, I might buy it (e.g., a 1970s Japanese pressing of a Jazz Messengers double live LP, or stack of 45s of Japanese folk music in a junk shop). Very rarely, if an old recording comes onto my radar, I might buy it on a CD. The last CD, ordered from France, was of some Egyptian "belly dance" music that actually has some pretty rockin' grooves.

When we have dinner guests, I pop in a CD of jazz or world music; when driving I use a free Spotify account for a few playlists (not enough to subscribe, so I have to tolerate commercial breaks, but it's not unlike how radio was back in the day). Current playlists include Hard Bop, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall.

Perhaps I'm stuck in a music time warp, as I haven't developed an interest in any recently recorded music, and the few recent things that I've heard have not been interesting enough to want to buy a recording to listen to it again. The except is perhaps Bill Frisell, whose CDs I bought up to the film music one.

There's already a lot of music out there, and nowhere near enough time to listen to even a tiny fraction of it.

When I need to hear something specific, like for a learning purpose, I might hit YouTube. For example, when I am learning a new tune, I'll pick ten more or less random versions (rarely a live video, often a picture of an LP cover with the music playing) to compare versions from different times and players, but I don't buy it. Similar to Spotify, it harkens back to the old days of AM/FM radio with commercial breaks, although YouTube seems to make them LOUDER to shatter listening bliss.

Reflecting further on this question, I realized that I might prefer to spend my time actually playing music with others, rather than consuming music made by others.

[DawgBone]

I gave all my records, tapes, and CD's away.

CD's were supposed to be forever media. We know how that worked out. Also, CD's sound like shit. They just do. I didn't have a ton of stuff so most of it is locked inside my head anyways so I don't miss any of that stuff.

[jazzereh]

I still buy CD's and sometimes a vinyl as well as doing downloads when I can get a digital copy from a good artist or label site. Got a CD on the way right now from the Cellar Live label as I'm in the camp of wanting something physical in my hand - also for the booklet info that you typically don't get with a download. While I generally rip what I get so that it's on my computer so I can listen while I'm doing things, like this, I'm still in the 'old' school category of listening to a whole side at once. I'll sit down in my listening area and put on a CD or LP to relax and listen.

Have never gotten into the habit of streaming anything. Don't care to have someone else decide what I want to listen to since I've got so much choice on my selves/computer. I'm not sure the streaming services do much for most musicians given the pittance a 'play' provides to the artist. I will buy direct from the artist web site when I can or from Bandcamp that apparently does pay reasonably.

[pauln]

I think the last one I bought was Sonny Rollins, Way Out West.
I still have about 40 albums I have yet to hear for the first time.

[Mick-7]

About 20 years ago on eBay there were a couple of dealers who would list thousands of new CDs of all different genres and sell them for $1 each. Because they were so cheap, I'd buy CDs of artists I'd never heard of that sounded interesting, and thus was introduced to a lot of good music I would not have known about otherwise (YouTube did not exist at that time). It's left me with a somewhat bizarre CD collection. Online thrift stores like that are extinct now, I really do miss them.

[jim777]

I still do. If you can believe it, I buy CDs, burn them on the PC, and then copy them to my brown 2010 Microsoft Zune and then listen to them in the car I think i have about 500 albums on the old Zune at this point!

[daveg]

I bought 2 cd's of Louis Stewart and Louis Stewart/Jim Hall in the last couple of weeks. Both are previously unissued material made available by Livia.

DG

[2bornot2bop]

I’m still purchasing Vinyl recordings, and not just jazz records. There are so many older recordings being released as upgraded releases. Music from our generation from 1953 to the 90’s was unlike anything being recorded today. I’ve been listening to Kamasi Washington lately and he’s the only current artist who moves me. But I don’t listen to today’s pop music. Nothing tops the soul and pop music of yesteryear. All my opinion and yours could be entirely different, as it should be.

[AllanAllen]

Kamasi Washington is the best.

[henryrobinett]

You're talking about two different things.

You can subscribe to Apple Music, which means you can stream anything from their cache. Or you can buy a single album for 11.99 or whatever. The artist is going to get very little from the former, and is going to get a pretty decent chunk of the latter.

But Mr. B's point is still the salient one ... very very very few people buy music any more (why would they) so bands really don't make any real money at all from that. For a jazz musician, a recording is marketing material, they're probably just hoping to break even after a year or two. People who actually make money from streaming aren't being paid per stream, they're getting a huge lump sum (probably per year or something) for the rights to include their music in the service. So for someone like Beyonce or Ed Sheeran, the streaming service is just paying the label or whoever owns the rights to the music, rather than actually paying them per stream.

This. Buying online like iTunes musicians get a good chunk. Streaming virtually nothing. Marketing. Plus if you want to get your music on jazz radio you’d better press CDs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[AllanAllen]

Plus if you want to get your music on jazz radio you’d better press CDs.

Something I hadn’t considered.

[murrayatuptown]

I buy CD's from artists at concerts.

I may have to rip them via a portable USB CD player to get into the laptop, then put on a flash drive for use in my car.

I bought 5 CD's from German artists on a US tour, and found some of them are (not yet) in the two streaming services I use.

I have heard some artists say they pretty much only sell CD's at their shows.

I have heard others say they make more on educational materials than CD's. I guess YMMV (is that YKMV in metric countries?).

I also look for CD'son line that I find 'accidentally' on Spotify. They may be new or used, depending what I want or nont.

[gvurrdon]

I'm still buying things, from various sources:

- CDs from artists at their gigs.
- MP3s from various sources, such as Bandcamp.
- CDs, both new and second hand.

All of this goes onto my Plex server for streaming. Luckily, my mobile data allowance is sufficient to not run out when listening in the car.

Recently, I bought a second hand CD on Ebay as it was the only way to get a particular album. Within, I found a ticket for a gig where it had originally been sold. A shame I hadn't known that gig was on - I'd have gone to it.

[salishsea]

I did notice that you said iTunes, by "streamed" I meant a digital download. But my point still applies: do musicians make any real money from these? A single CD sells for more than a one month subscription to one of these services.



Well, that's a much higher purchase price, over twice what an iTunes/Amazon monthly subscription would cost.

FYI, Okazaki's WORK is actually a six CD set, so $25 is a pretty reasonable price ($5 an hour)

[Alter]

Me buying music ended about 20+ years ago. I was still buying Cds here and there, and I mentioned to my sister that I like R&B music, so she gave me about 500 mp3 albums on a disc. Then I gave another friend a list of names of Brazilian music, and they got me another 500 albums. Then a Spanish guitarist friend gave me 1000 flamenco albums, etc..

So I realized times had changed. I maybe bought 10 albums as digital downloads since. You could still sell your CDs at gigs though up until before Covid. These days no one has a CD player anymore, and music is a free commodity. I have two Spotify subs for me and a nephew that likes music and that's it.

However most of the time I listen through YouTube, cause it has all these classic era Jazz albums, and it also has info on the CDs, personell, etc. I still must have about 1200 vinyls (gave a bunch of them to friends), maybe 1500 CDs, tons of mp3 stuff on disks. I should get to selling them really. I like being free from material things, and just enjoying the music.

Musicians got really ripped off by the turn of events, and will stay that way for years to come. Wait, with AI things will probably get a lot worse financially speaking .. Shame really..