My policy lately is to grab whatever I can that is free, sample all that I can through Spotify and Bandcamp, and support artists at shows by buying a ticket and merch or music in person as often as possible.
However when I do make a decision to buy new music, it’s often because that music is connected to a memory or space through that sampled listening experience I got through streaming it or seeing someone live. So when I shell out cash and it’s $30 for an LP, this happens because I wanna have a piece of vinyl that will forever remind me of that NYC subway ride in a lightning storm last October when I listened to Quantic’s Atlantic Oscillations a few days after seeing him at the Good Room and it hit just right.
In the past when I’ve been more into djing home listening on big speakers and collecting tunes for sets, anything more than $15 for an album was about my limit. If I were to buy some studio monitors, which I’ll probably do in late winter after traveling, I’m sure I’d prioritize high quality music over streaming and start shelling out $2-3 a tune on bandcamp. But even then, the tunes I buy might get lost in the stream and I feel like I’d regret paying that much for anything less than vinyl.
I would like to create a 25 track high quality Bandcamp bought playlist every 2-3 months or so that would be mostly bass heavy 120+ bpm stuff but honestly its time consuming and these days I spend money elsewhere for other experiences so it’s low on the priority list. But if I were nerding out again and digging that’s what I’d be into.
For me, it’s about the relationship I have with the music, the space I’ll enjoy it, and the permanence or physicality of the media I choose to cop. Ive had files full of digital tunes I paid hundreds for that became forgotten, lost in the archives of my hard drive, and then found that once I do find them only one or two are actually meaningful and I kinda felt like I wasted my money.
But if I were playing parties and creating memories for other people in spaces, I’d probably shell out $40 a week to do so. These days I far more often buy old music than new music, because it’s more enjoyable to me to learn about older scenes through context.
I don’t have any problem with artists charging extravagant prices for their work, it’s about finding your market share and audience and lane, working in it, and succeeding. Sometimes that’s streaming, sometimes Bandcamp, sometimes 7inches and sometimes limited edition 180gram holofoil pop up usb charger dongle merch.
