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  mark, 17 Jul 2003 @ 7:52am

  
  

  99% of everything is crap

  As I pointed out in your download poll a month or so back, I have downloaded 1000s of songs and subsequently tossed nearly all of them. I am constantly amazed that someone could take the time to master an instrument, write a chord progression, refine it and produce material and not recognize that it doesn't have a farking melody or hook.
  
  I have been a music fan since my uncle bought me a Petula Clark 45 for my 4th birthday. I faithfully followed AM radio's top 100 all through grade school and actively sought out punk/new wave groups through high school & college. I own a couple 1000 CDs and 100s of records. If a song is good. I do get an emotional attachment to it. I do find that I no longer associate the songs with a particular time in my life because I have the option of listening to them any time I like instead of when the radio allows me to.
  
  Most of the music I hear these days leaves me cold. It's not that I just got old and jaded. I have played the New Pornographer's 'Letter from an Occupant' to death and then ponied up the bucks to see them play the Metro a week or so ago. Most of the stuff I download isn't worth keeping around and when you consider the side of hard drives these days vs the size of an mp3 that says a lot.

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  Anonymous Coward, 17 Jul 2003 @ 8:29am

  
  

  It could be age

  While I agree there is more crap out there today, I think the "attachment" issue is also an age thing. When some late 70s or 80s tune comes on - and it doesn't even have to be a good one - I am wisked back to the salad days of my youth. A more recent tune might bring me memories of my first wife, a failed business, or losing my savings on antfarm.com so I tend to forget those songs.

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  Precision Blogger, 17 Jul 2003 @ 9:07am

  
  

  The rhythm of life does affect everything

  This complainer may be right; simply having more choices could prevent him from spending enough time on each song. Here's a similar experience that I had: I wrote a program in Basic to play 4 dimensional tictactoe. The game played well but not perfectly; it spent abut one minute calculating each move, and I could beat it about half the time. Then I changed the program. It had the exact same logic but it ran faster and made every move within five seconds. I could no longer EVER beat it, because I lacked the patience to take that extra 55 seconds to study the postion before making my move.
  - The Precision Blogger
  precision-blogging.blogspot.com
  

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  sbdwestpac, 17 Jul 2003 @ 11:10am

  
  

  prices

  I don't download music, but I don't buy much anymore either because CDs are too damn expensive. I listen to the radio a lot, in my car and in my workshop, and if something really catches my fancy I'll buy the CD. But I'd buy a lot more music if the RIAA would wise the fuck up and distribute music via the internet. I'd pay a buck for the new Radiohead tune I'm hearing on the radio, but I'm not sure I'm ready to pony up close to twenty bucks for the CD.

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  Newob, 17 Jul 2003 @ 11:17am

  
  

  an interesting phenomenon

  I've downloaded thousands of songs, some good, some bad, and I do not get attached to many of them any more, but it's only because I don't listen to them as much as I used to listen to songs. When I make a mixed audio CD, take it to parties, that kind of thing, then it becomes more significant to me. If I am forced to listen to a song repeatedly, whether it is good or bad, I will attach memories to it. But now that I have more to choose from, including old songs I didn't hear for years until I found them online, I am not forced to listen to the same song repeatedly as much. I can still take the time to appreciate good music, which I often do, so I tend to think that the increased availability of different music is a good thing. I have always found that it's good to have variety in one's life; even before MP3s I would make mixed audio tapes with drastically different types of music side by side, for contrast. And after listening to that arrangement a few times, I could easily remember the order of the songs. I still do that with CDs and the contrast becomes attached to my memories. So, it doesn't matter how much of the music I download sucks, I still have the option to listen repeatedly to the good songs I find. Anyway fielding more music gives me a better chance to find good stuff.

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  Arnold Layne, 17 Jul 2003 @ 1:59pm

  
  

  No Subject Given

  It's true... the more you download, the less the tunes mean... That's how it goes with things that come too easily. I agree with the person who talks of how the music meant more earlier on. If you can get the stuff for nothing, that's what it can eventually mean to you, nothing.

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    mark, 17 Jul 2003 @ 3:24pm

    
    

    Re: No Subject Given

    So what exactly was the cost to you when they used to come to you over the radio - I mean besides having to sit through the morning show morons and a buttload of commercials for products you had no interest in.
    
    I have worn out 3 copies of Rumours - 8 track, album & casssette in spite of hearing 1/2 the tracks on the radio for free. If I had climbed a mountain to hear the pap my local station plays I'd still think it all sucks.

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      LittleWolf, 17 Jul 2003 @ 6:20pm

      
      

      Re: No Subject Given

      Don't forget that the RIAA would love to see radio go away too...there are just way to many people out there with tapedecks recording the stuff off the radio for free, and thus, in the RIAA's opinion, cutting into the RIAA's profits. Ok, so this was really a satire piece from the Onion, but given RIAA's current tactics against internet radio, how long before it spills into the real world.
      
      And yes, I have three copies of Rumours too, but I wasn't around during the 8 track days, so one is on Tape (which is now dead,) and the other two are on CD (one a friend bought for me not realizing I already had it, but the CD is prestine, so if the other one breaks, I'll be able to still listen to it.) Oh, yeah, like the MPAA says, CDs are indestructable, and if they do happen to break, I can always go out and pay the $20 to get a new one...yeah right.
      
      I am sure the ultimate goals of the MPAA and the RIAA is to have us "rent" a movie or song from them, at $1 a pop for a song and $5 a pop for a movie, each time we wish to listen to the song or watch the movie (like Disney is already doing.) Yet they don't see how unbelievably destructive the effect this would have on the economy and culture.
      
      Of course, what do I care, when there is always a good book to be read, and even though the book publishers are as fascist as the RIAA/MPAA are, there is always BAEN books...

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