Music and Commerce

Obviously, as with anything where everyone is trying to make a profit, the business of making and selling music has a lot of problems. But what stood out to me, as Danny Goldberg writes in The Ballad of the Mid-Level Artist, is that almost all of the solutions to those problems come from the same source-technology. Goldberg writes that "some Web executives and tech savants have claimed that digital distribution will lead to fairer and more generous contracts for artists", but I think that there is also a lot to loose because of this new technology. While internet technology will provide some cuts in expenses by lowering recording costs and eliminating the middleman, I think that a lot of the best things about buying music will be lost. By making the change to selling music solely on the internet, the CD will be lost. Personally, if I really like a band I buy the CD. For me it means so much more to have the official CD in my hands, to get to see the cover art, read the liner notes and have a concrete object that represents this band, this music that I love. Also, although this may sound bad, buying the actual CD is my way of showing my support for the band-spending the extra money for everything a CD includes, showing that I felt the music was good enough to go through the system and, in my own mind, legitimize their work. If I don't like an artist I'll just download a single song, or find some free way of acquiring it-my own personal blow to their career. So for me, the CD signifies more than just all the songs it includes. For me it shows my admiration, like I'm giving my personal blessing. Another reason I don't want the CD to disappear is the value of finding new songs simply because they are hidden in a CD, and the value of hearing music in the order it is supposed to be heard. While great songs always sound great, hearing songs on a CD in a certain order can give life to a song or allow you to understand what it's really meant to be about. If music is only available on the internet the personal, tangible qualities that I love about CDs will disappear, and I think that is a larger problem than the extra money spent on creating them.