Addiction advice

Uhm, rip the shit off the internet?

Don't rip it off the internet. That only causes the big dogs to pound the hell out of perfectly fine companies like xDrive.

I tend to only download music I already own. Case in point: I am downloading Kernkraft 400 right now. I own three or four comps with the damn track mixed in, so I do not see any issue in my flipping through limewire's catalogue.

Also, sometimes you just can't get any Romanian Electropop in your local record store, so no problem hitting up the net.

As to CD and music purchase addiction, I am there with you man. Not as bad, but there. When I was not a student I was picking up 2-3 albums or box sets a week. I would go into HMV and grab 3 things, sometimes at random. Especially with the electronic stuff, I was just getting into it so did not have a clue what I liked. Got some gems, got some duds.

And I can tell you for sure that when I get back in the work force I'll be back at it. Good thing my girlfriend was a librarian!

Too true BB… but then you would never find gems like Naan Commercial Hits. Check it out, it is a great album, and I would never have found it if I would have stuck to my tastes at the time. And who can ever forget my B*Witched phase? I know I can't!

I'm with Iga on not just downloading shit.  I have a bunch of MP3's of CD's I don't have, anymore.  I've had my cd case stolen three or four times and lost a bunch more CD's in people car stereos.. I see no wrong in downloading those songs and making myself a new cd.  On the other hand, if I download an artist I don't know, and I -like- the music, i'm likely to purchase the actual album, or keep a look out for the persons new album and pick that up.

As for addictions and buying sprees.. It's DVDs for me.  Which are unforutunaly much more expensive.. even used.  I've got 300-400 DVDs in my hosue right now.. and god knows how many loaned out.  For about a year I saved no money and just bought movies.. it's too the point now where I can't go out and buy like 10 DVD's, because there just aren't that many older movies that I want to see and don't already own.. So now I can just look out for the new releases.. it's a bit harder too apply that to CD's though..

I still don't understand why people pay for things they can just get for free. Is it the cover art??

No, really, sombody please tell me why you would go out and run a huge fackin bill for CD's and DVD's when you can just jip everyone and rip them off the internet??

Heh BB, you're largely against downloading pirated music off the internet but you're all for purchasing it in a physical form?

…actually, I could be wrong. Your ChinaTown might sell legit CDs, but here, anything you find for less than maybe a $5 margin either side of the average price is generally a parallel import. This means they've made a copy of it in an Asian country (largely - I'm in Australia, it's close), and then are selling it on to the consumers and making a profit.
I guess technically it's not piracy, but when you spend your money and buy a CD only to find out that the insert is just a folded piece of paper with no lyric book (Hello, my copy of Mechanical Animals…) - or worse - it's missing a track (same disk), it's hardly the same as buying the real thing for your $30 or whatever.

My stance is that I download music from the internet. A lot. I download stuff I already have on CD because I don't know where the CDs are (or I do, and they're not in the same place as me or my computer).

However.
I love my local Adelaide bands. I go out of my way to support them whenever I have the money (go to gigs, buy CDs, buy other merchandise). I do not download local artists (except from free/legal MP3 sites such as MP3.com.au which is designed to showcase such acts). I rarely download Australian artists, unless I have the intention of purchasing the record at some point or if it is unavailable for purchase (meaning - deleted, not just that my local CD shop doesn't have it in stock).

The bands and music I do download are primarily larger, primarily American bands, who have made it through this struggling phase.
Originally it wasn't quite as moral a stance, it just evolved.

(Of course I do also download the crazy whacky stuff that is not available anywhere around here (or on import) - bizarre tribute compilations, crazy pop records and mashups of artists I never thought possible.)

I'm an artist. I've worked in the music industry. This is how I'd like people to treat my work - I'd much prefer it to get out there, rather than people not experience it because they don't have the cash in their pockets.
Some times, it's just more important to eat.

Support your local trades? Hell yes.

Unfortunately it's a well-known fact here that if you buy a CD in an independent record shop and not in a department store, you'll pay extra for the privilege. That's because the departments can import a kazillion CDs and get bulk discount, which they then pass off to the customers and undersell the local competition, while the independent shops don't have the money behind them to buy in quite as large amounts.
(There's also an argument that the department stores use a somewhat more decent parallel importer so the CD you buy in Target is made in Taiwan, while the CD you buy in the local music shop is made in the US… with no really noticeable decline in quality.)

That said, the department stores don't sell the music I like, so I don't buy from them. (Okay, when they have the racks of $2 CDs then I'll peruse them, because we all know how good random $2 CDs are...)

Yeah like 14k…also them two groups of scary fellas who used to wear black tops and white pants and kill the guys who wore white tops and black pants. *blink* goodnight

Chienne, you must have Yakuza, you are close-ish to Japan… support them!

Bio: Why not jip people off? (even if these people are large souless corporations who are evil and I hate with a passion beyond words?)

I present to you, 10 reasons not to rip of music (or movies) of the net:

1. Ethics and Morals.

Come on, is there anyone left in the world who still has morals? Or even a shallow understanding of ethics? No? Well...I guess you all can start with MP3's and work on up to bigger issues, like murder and politics.

2. Collateral damage to the technology industry.

The RIAA has clout. And money. Lots of it. And they like nothing more to come smack the hell out of a dot-com. Napster isn't even a real blip. The RIAA will hit anyone they think they can hit. xDrive brings out MP3 streaming ability, uh-oh, here comes the lawyers. If Sony Records takes a dislike to your little dot-com for having streaming to cellphone technology, BAM! Here comes enough paperwork to bankrupt you. The little fish gets killed, the big fish makes more money, all because a few million mp3's are moved about.

3. Damage to your computer.

Viruses. Windows. Peer-to-peer trading. Come on people, it's only a matter of time before someone sends something out that kills your box. P2P is like having sex with 100,000 people a day, no jimmy-hat.

4. Spyware.

You know, you'd all save yourselves a ton of paranoia if you didn't have all these bits and parts of software cluttering up your computers. And, frankly, if Sony hasn't started dumping out MP3's with tracking software and spiders built into them, they need to hire me as a marketing and product loss agent.

5. You have 60 gigabytes of MP3s...and you listen to how many?

Really, people, can you honestly listen to 60 gigs in a lifetime? Well, yes, but, gods... next thing you know you'll just be collecting MP3s to swagger around telling people how many MP3's you have in GIGABYTES. 'I have 120 gigs man, beat that!'

6. P2P file quality

I still find that 90% of the MP3's I find on the P2P systems very low quality. Why the hell would I want a shitty 22khz mono 96 bit rip of a song? Oh, boy, listen to the hiss... yippie. Music is to be enjoyed, and shite quality gets in my way of enjoyment. (wow this LRCN stuff is good....thanks Johnny!)

7. The wrath of the Gods (ie: Corporations)

Sony, if they get bored, WILL come stomp you to death. They have entire teams of people who get paid gobs of money to send out cease and desists and confiscate your computer. For no real reason that Sony feels like being a bitch to you for having a few thousand Sony Music MP3s illegally on your computer. At least Zeus is cool and used a thunderbolt, Sony just sends a wage slave in a suit.

8. The Artists

It may only be 11 cents an album, but that is eleven bloody cents. P2P doesn't really hurt the top 40 stars, P2P is just free hype for that new fiddy cent album. But to a small or medium artist, P2P can be crippling.

9. Culture Gulf

Culture Gulf is the distance between haves and have nots as well as portions of society. The Technocrats vs the Lowtechs. The Rich vs the Poor. The Record Label vs the MP3 downloader. The gulf gets wider and wider with each download, and Sony gets closer and closer to doing something really insane, like copyright litigation on 16 year old kids... oh, wait, they did that... The gulf gets bigger, stranger things  happen. You think riots at G7 meetings is all about the third world? It is about cultur gulf, between the ruling elites and the plebian masses. And, as a member of the plebs, I see it as counter productive to poke at the beast with a million small thorns a day. Best to use energy elsewhere.

10. Health and Fitness

Unless you've set up a program to seek and download the song you really want, with just a thought, you have to sit your ass down in front of the glowing monitor and click about for MP3s. Now, if you have 60gigs, that means you've done a lot of clickin an sittin. I know I have, and my mid section is the evidence. Burn some calories, walk to the damned record store.

All jokes aside, mp3 technology was a band-wagon that the corporations really missed. They were fools not to jump on it and monopolize it. And they could have, easily. They could have partnered with the ISPs and governments, seting in place taxes, levies, and service fees (look at your damn cellphone bill! over half service fees!) to cover any MP3 loses from illegal downloads. The could have taken the market and controlled it and made a fortune. But, well, eighty year old advertising executives at Sony Music are a bit slow on the uptake.

iTunes? Too little, too late. I love it, it is a good service, but p2p killed it before it was born.

My favorite:

Sony Electronics = making MP3 players
Sony Music = filing lawsuits against MP3 traders

I think I just caught this addiction bug, but I've been buying stuff I used to listen to in high school that I lost or that got completely scratched up, or albums that I wouldn't have considered buying only because I only liked a few songs on the thing. and theyre so cheap now too because its old.

But it made me reflect, because 21st century music I find to be mostly all crap. Maybe my tastes are just locked into a certain period. Except the rare exceptional stuff that, or at least that used to be 'exceptional'. Then that gets jumped on and cut to pieces and milked to death and the cycle repeats itself. Thing is, it can't continue for ever. I mean, I remember when I was in  a Kmart once and they started playing a 'scratch DJ song' in the store. It was complete shit, but whoever was scratching was lifting samples from all these 'classic' break records, samples that were already used on every second routine, even by serious people. It really pissed me off, not because it violated the idea that something was 'underground', but just because the DJ was complete trash. If they're going to exploit something, they don't actually pick up on what's really good about that thing. They just pick up the image.

So I was kinda thinking, even though this is off topic.. is there a future to music? Or are we just looking back on 'older' music because we are getting older? Turn on the radio, and shit, it's just variations on the same theme. Or something that is popular now, you were listening to the beginnings of it five years ago or whatever and only now it's suddenly a phenomenon. It gets slicker and bouncier because the producers are using incredible equipment… and when genres get mixed its interesting up to a point, but that gets played out just as quickly, if not more so.

I guess where we're heading is just.. throw away music. Its kind of like taking a hit of something. You get the song, put it in the stereo, listen to it a few times, then throw it away because it has no replay value. Then you get some other shit and listen to that, then throw it away. Then it becomes a novelty to listen to 'older' throw aways, e.g. ohh isn't this old school electro-funk so great, just because its a little different.

MTV? Man my TV is sitting in the fucking closest and I dont even pay the bills. I'm not saying there's no good music coming out, I'm saying at least in the kind of music I listen to it's kind of like the way painting/art went in the past century. Nobody knows what to do anymore, so they try and do weird stuff or just be different and it just doesn't have much heart anymore. Whatever the genre, I'd think, there are a lot of good people that are getting enough attention at least that I come across them. Of course, there are people that are serious and you can feel it in their music, but what I'm saying is, the genres are getting tired. I mean, you have to admit it, the punk music reached its peak like what, during the 80s somewhere? and rap in the mid 90s? and now I listen to a lot of more exotique stuff, electro dub, ethnic precussion drawn into it, like Thievery Corporation for example. But I just bought their recent album and they're just changing it up a little from last time.

I really think its over.

Shit I guess I'm just tired heh. I did for a brief period of time actively search out new stuff and try and know about new developments, releases, whatever. But it's all just lost it's magic now. Some of the stuff is good yes.. and some producers who were considered 'underground' really refined their styles and techniques and have been successful in producing enjoyable music. Mad Lib comes to mind. and some people just keep producing good music like Pete Rock. Penut butter wolf and charisma. MF Doom is wild and somewhat original. Some go down hill. Mos Def's voice since I heard so much I now find irritating, even though some people would hate me for saying that. Handsome boy modeling schooling, I don't know what they've done recently though I have that one album on wax and there was some good stuff, the one track with Del was good, even though most of its kind of 'comedy hip hop' or whatever. Dan the automator is a talented producer obviously and he's making lots of $$ these days. But when it comes down to it, in the whole scope of things, everybodies operating in these set boundries. Same with graffiti artists and their styles. You have tons of people with lots of skill and technique, but little originality basically copying certain styles over and over again, so it's hard to tell people's work apart unless they add some little motif or little bullshit to the piece. Yeah its cool, but when I want to find something -really- different.. aint gonna cut it! I'll look back to the classic artists for that and it's incredible how -outdated- contemporary shit is compared with say Max Ernst or someone. Same with music. Likewise in music, Mozart is without doubt a hundred times more advanced then the smartest most 'avant garde' bullshit around today.

People need to step out of the mold, and I don't mean just mixing shit together and cutting and pasting. I like just pure head bobbing nonsense but I can't handle it all the time, and human beings can't handle that forever either. I'm just saying artistic production needs to blow up in a new direction or its over for good.

There really are a lot of new things going on, but you have to look for it.

I don't think this can be emphasized enough.

Btw, Reef, in the 80's, don't ever forget the Misfits. That's blasphemy. You can forget them now becuase Jerry only sucks. But not Glen Danzigs misfits. rawr.

Werd!  Danzig Misfits is the best Misfits by far.

I still want to punch Michale Graves in the face.

Quote: from BuddhaBrand on 10:28 pm on June 7, 2005[br]Contemporary 'classical' music is from everything I've heard is just straight garbage. and you have that 'noise' music and 'sound sculpting'.

So what contemporary 'classical' music have you heard?  Have you actually heard any modern (post)classical music and formed an opinion, or does "from everything I've heard" mean you are letting other people form your opinions for you?

Maybe what you are looking for is music that you can instantly understand, that requires no effort on your part to listen to, which is fine…but when you can't find satisfaction in the music around you now, you have two choices:  hold on to the music you know and love, and call everything you don't understand crap, or make an effort to search out something you haven't heard before.

One big musical trend that I think bucks the garbage argument is globalization.  You may not appreciate Javanese Gamelan music, or Japanese Gagaku orchestras, but music from all over the world is intensely influencing each other.  Sometimes the results are horrible, but there are some amazing musical examples.  Check out the late Lou Harrison for some examples, or google the examples above, not to mention classical musics of Iran, China, India and countless other countries.

You may not like the pre-packaged crap that is being fed to you by mindless corps, but in today's world there is literally a world of choice out there.  You just have to look for it.  It seems like you are trapped in a very small world of music - the Western pop world.  If you don't like it, just open the door (and your mind) and leave.

All of that being said, I do think that there is a limit to what we have done musically as a race, and we may be reaching it.  I see two distinct ways to move forward - synthesis of disparate styles (and not just overlaying two styles like country-techno, but creating a new style from the elements of others), and a kind of musical fundametalism, where the very basics of sound sought out - this could be the 'sound sculpting' you were talking about, and you may not like it, but that doesn't mean that a true genious won't come around and make something universally apealing out of it.

And regarding corporate pre-packaged music in the 21st century, I do think that particular genre will get much worse before it gets better.  But I think there are cycles of integrity and vapidness in pop music.  I hope that pop music will eventually get over this teeny-pop manufactured sound and get to something real.

Anyway, my ultimate point is - if you don't like the music around you, there is far too much music - accessible music - in the world for you to write off everything that came out after you graduated high school.

(Edited by n8n at 11:58 pm on June 7, 2005)

I really don't see why everyone gets all riled up over this topic.

If you hear something and think it's crap, then turn it off, change the station, use the CD as a drink coaster, ignore it,whatever.

I like all kinda of music, and I listen to them when my moods change. Like say for example me and my pals are cruising Beachside in our rice rockets , we listen to that wannabe gangster fifty cent, or related hip hop/Rap
I listen to alot of metal, like Danzig, some punk, Misfits, oldies, The Doors, and all that.  And I wouldn't say you're a fucking monkey for not listening to bach. I find him to be quiet boreing and well, lame. It's friggin music you hear on hold or at a dinner party. blah.

" if that was directed at me"

Buddha….and maybe it was Mozart. Either/or i don't like either. And I was half asleep when I wrote that.

Quote: from n8n on 4:42 pm on June 8, 2005[br]Bach's music is 300 years old, so it makes sense that it sounds tired and lame to most of us.  You start studying it, looking at where it came from, it starts to hold some meaning, but most of us don't have that luxury.

Brandenburg Concerto #3.
Studied (and analysed) that sucker for a whole semester. Still listen to it by choice today - on both CD and MP3.

And yes, they do use it as hold music at a few places I've called. I'd prefer to listen to that than mainstream contemporary music, personally - but that's me being 'odd', apparently.

"nd about turning into monkey, I was thinking of uh.. Lil' Jon."

Hey, don't sweat the king of crunk. The guy made a career out of yelling three words over and over again. He's my hero.

Ba Na Na