First music post / rant

I love music. In fact I was a fan of music way before I became interested in fashion. As a teenager I spent all the money I ever earned on records, and then CDs. These we can get all the music we want. We can spend money on other things. True music fans will spend their money going to gigs & festivals. If I could have had 'free' access to music when I was 17 I would have saved up my hard earned Saturday job earnings on going to Glastonbury. The equivalent price of going in those days was about the cost of 9 or 10 CD albums, which is what I spent most of my money on. I never went to Glastonbury.

The problem with music now being so freely available is not only has it been devalued, but it makes people less disconcerting about what they listen to. If I was 17 now I would have so much more music than I did in the mid 90s when I was that age. I would not have listened to the same handful of CDs I owned over and over. Thing is, those albums have sentimental value to me now even if I rarely listen to them these days. To a lot of people music is very disposable - especially when you can get it for nothing most of the time. Why would you pay for something you can get for free?

Here's the problem. Music isn't free. Music is art, musicians are artists. They need money to buy instruments, travel to gigs, have time in a studio to record so people can hear their music to give them more exposure and create a fan base. You could say that some art galleries are free, so looking at art is free. If you use that analogy with music the equivalent is sampling tracks on Spotify or iTunes, when really what you're doing is taking the painting from the gallery and not giving any money to the artist. Ok that's a bit extreme, but with art you still have to pay for a postcard of a painting in a gallery gift shop, they don't give it to you for nothing! 

While the value of music continues to decline, there may come a time when the only people who can afford to be musicians are funded by mum & dad, or a boring day job which will take valuable time away from them nurturing their talent. At some point in the not too distant future the only physical music you can buy will be performed by generic talent show clones. Scary thought, terrifying in fact! Along with the fact that there may not even be any shops left to buy this disposable drivel from. I'd love to know how many people who've bought these records in the last ten years still listen to them now?

The great thing about music is that it's created by people from all backgrounds, wealth and privilege, but the more it's devalued the less that will be the case. We don't need another 7 Coldplays, one is enough, though some may say one is too many!

These days I find listening to the familiar is a comfort of sorts - I enjoy discovering new things but am also happy hearing music I know. Some of it is nostalgia, some of it is therapy and some of it is just plain awesome. I'm someone who now lives in a house where the living room walls are lined with Ikea benno towers full of CDs. The irony being that the music I listen to is ripped onto my computer and stored on my iPod.

Music is still music, and it means a lot to many people in this world. I could not imagine life without it. Unfortunately many people could and that terrifies me. 
We need music. Keep music alive by going to gigs & festivals.
If you really like a band support them whichever way you can; buy merchandise, gig tickets, limited edition records. If you don't, they may not sustain their ability to make the music you love. 

My next music post will be more light hearted, and there will no doubt be some fashion observation before the weekend is over.