What do you do for music?

[shultice24]

I'll be interested to hear your take on this:

I'm sure I'm far from the only music buff here in the forums. From working out to studying (love studying to Mozart and other classical stuff) to throwing get-together's on Friday night, I listen to a lot of music.

Different options for doing so:

1.) Itunes store- only downside is the cost- $1 a song can add up quickly if you want a big library, but isn't bad for a few songs every now and then.
2.) Illegal downloading- ethical issues here, and big problems if you get caught.
3.) Radio- Good for playing in the bathroom while getting ready in the morning, but can't play anything on demand and commercials stink.
4.) Pandora- awesome service (and free up to 40 hrs/month), but again can't play certain songs on demand.
5.) CD's- more expensive than Itunes. Outdated. Filler tracks.
6.) Take from friends computer. Easy and free, but if none of your friends have "Name" by Goo Goo Dolls, you're still out of luck. Plus, still have those pesky ethical issues.

I've done a little of each of the above (no more illegal downloading though), but wondering what to do going forward.


Just curious what other money-conscious music-lovers do...

[GREENBACK]

Call me old fashioned but I like radio, even with the commercials. It's free and sometimes you hear commercials and news that is interesting.

I also have Sirius/XM. It's $12/month but I get every NFL game so it's worth it.

[disneysteve]

I almost never get new music at this point. Most of what I have is stuff I've had for years and years. On the rare occasion when I do get something new, I have bought a track occasionally from iTunes. A year ago, Pepsi had a point promotion with codes on their caps that got you free downloads from Amazon. I got 20-30 songs free that way. Yes, back in the day I did my share of illegal downloading but stopped doing so quite some time ago. I will occasionally borrow a CD from someone to copy. I will also borrow CDs from the library to copy.

One thing I would comment on is #5 on your list. There are plenty of places to get used CDs for a lot less than new. Online, you've got half.com, amazon and ebay to name a few. We have several used CD stores in our area. Then there are yard sales, flea markets and thrift shops.

Just out of curiosity, I just searched on half.com. You can buy "A Boy Named Goo" for $0.75 and get "Name" and the whole rest of the album, too. Personally, I see nothing wrong with copying an album I actually own, so you can then put the music on your computer and you're all set.

I listen to internet radio fairly often, especially at work, but I think that is a separate issue since you don't actually get to keep anything you've listened to.

[MonkeyMama]

Good question.

I personally went through a time period where I did not buy music. The industry went through a time period where singles were no longer affordable, and CDs were sky high. Coincided with being dirt broke in college. My spouse (fiance at the time) had a large collection and gave me copies of whatever I wanted. No moral issues, to me, because I didn't have the money to buy anything. I would have just done without otherwise.

On the flip side, I am becoming a huge fan of the digital music age. I only got a decent MP3 player in the last year or so, and am rebuilding my library. (I am probably a little behind the times, but again, coming off some low income years).

For us, we've converted most our CDs to Mp3 format. There was also an awesome/legal/cheap music site for a time. It's since gone out of business, but we really built our library with that. Lately we have been getting a lot of free MP3 offers from Amazon. So I have been adding random singles to my MP3 player.

I do tend to borrow a lot of music, but I always make a point to buy any album (or single) that I am totally in love with. CDs are still better quaility than MP3s. & I prefer to have some CDs in my library. I usually will just buy those off Amazon - usually good deals. My spouse tends to buy a lot of used CDs, but he likes CDs of everything. Since I buy mine more to support my favorite artists, and I buy so few, I am happy to go new with those.

For the most part, I don't spend a lot on music because I already have a pretty large music library.

Classical CDs can always be found new, dirt cheap, BTW. Don't ask me where - I haven't bought any in a while. But I got a ton of classical CDs that I know cost very little. Probably from music stores or book stores, etc.

[shultice24]

One thing I would comment on is #5 on your list. There are plenty of places to get used CDs for a lot less than new. Online, you've got half.com, amazon and ebay to name a few. We have several used CD stores in our area. Then there are yard sales, flea markets and thrift shops.

Just out of curiosity, I just searched on half.com. You can buy "A Boy Named Goo" for $0.75 and get "Name" and the whole rest of the album, too. Personally, I see nothing wrong with copying an album I actually own, so you can then put the music on your computer and you're all set.

That is a really good point Steve; one that I've never thought of. I'm guessing now, with may people getting rid of clutter, raising cash, and storing music only in digital files, one could get almost any CD for dirt cheap (as you proved with one of my favorite albums ).

The one thing I really like about Internet radio (Pandora especially) is that you'll likely hear some songs that you've never heard, or haven't heard for many years and forgot about. It's sometimes a nice change from the same songs in your music library.

[am_vanquish]

I've tried all kinds of things. I did illegal downloading back in the "dark ages." Used Pandora in the good ol' days (before it got too popular). Shared tons of CDs with lots of friends in college (lots of logistical work). Tried an mp3 service where you pay a flat fee per month & get unlimited access to "rent" songs (not compatible with iPod). Paid for legal iTunes songs (gets expensive pretty quick).

All in all, Pandora was my favorite because it was the cheapest with the least amount of work (and I was always at my computer). Now I figured out I can get the same thing but pick my songs by making playlists on YouTube with music videos and playing those. Doesn't work if you're not at the computer, but that's pretty rare for me & I've still got an old iPod with a decent selection of "classics" from the days of downloads & CD-sharing.

[shultice24]

Classical CDs can always be found new, dirt cheap, BTW. Don't ask me where - I haven't bought any in a while. But I got a ton of classical CDs that I know cost very little. Probably from music stores or book stores, etc.

Glad to hear- I recently discovered how much I enjoy studying/writing/etc with classical music. I also plan to build up a library of classical stuff with CD's from my school's library, as they have a good collection of the stuff.

[jasonnoguchi]

I use the free service at baidu MP3.

[Caoineag]

Our favorite is a local used store. Their prices are great. Like some others here, we convert the CD's to mp3's so that we can listen to them on the
mp3 player. We also have started with downloading newer or rarer music from amazon because they usually have deals we like. We do listen to music all the time, so variety is huge for us. We also listen to the radio on the weekends for the new music.

[Broken Arrow]

I don't take the illegal route. If I like the music and the musicians enough, I want to support them financially anyway.

However, I also don't want to support any formats that attempt to restrict my music in any way. It's disheartening to me when I have a song I bought, but can no longer play it because I'm on a different computer or music player.

The result is that I am entirely on MP3 and only MP3. I recommend going to amazon.com and emusic.com, which sells music in the MP3 format. amazon.com has most of the popular tunes and the widest selection, but emusic.com generally has better prices.

I'm sure there are more, but those are enough for me.

[feh]

I still buy CDs. Not often, but that's how I acquire music. Then I rip them for playing on my PC or MP3 player.

[elessar78]

I do the iPod thing and the Pandora thing for music. I also listen to podcasts at work (Clark Howard, Dave Ramsey, ESPN). But when I want to hear a certain song, I go to YouTube! They usually have the video, so I just listen to the audio when I'm at work. It's like music On Demand.

[cptacek]

4.) Pandora- awesome service (and free up to 40 hrs/month), but again can't play certain songs on demand.

I did Pandora for a while, but it usually turned out that no matter what I started out with (I started with Cher once) my playlist turned out to be George Strait and Garth Brooks songs...which I already know I like! It didn't really turn me on to anything new...

[GREENBACK]

I should mention that I have a good old Turntable and tons of vinyl albums from as far back as the 60's. Serious good time listening to the scratchy oldies from then.

[Mjenn]

Don't know if it's been launched in the US yet, but it might be, we use Spotify here in Europe, it's free, you design your own play lists, there are just a few commercials now and then, but we play it via bluetooth from computer to stereo. The sound quality is great and we have an instant music library of miliions.


Stuff I really like I buy on Itunes for my Mp3 player....