The Right To Music?

Everywhere one looks these days you see a proliferation of music playing devices. iPod etc in the small portable line and now cell phones with 2GB+ hard drives to store all your favourite hits on. I wish I knew what I would do with 10,000 songs on my cell phone, personally not much would probably be my answer.

As the record companies go loco over file sharing and cd copying and all of our radio stations are loosing listeners, our culture seems to be more and more based on music, well, portable music that is.

I don't know where the trade off will end, free music from the net vs. record companies. I can only imagine in 10 years record companies output of music will be far smaller in terms of big international acts and quality recordings, which doesn't matter to the millions of consumers as they will just reduce the quality to 128kbs and think nothing of it. While it may sound good, sound quality of MP3 is reduced and sadly, being a music lover, I can hear it...

So where will it all get us? CD's get more expensive because all the middle men can't make thier bucks, local bands shrivel and die because they only released 1000 of their cd but everyone just downloaded it, meaning they sold 4 to their mums, and the quality of music gets steadily worse and worse as record companies go for easy bucks and flag nurturing good talent.

I find it sad that people won't buy cd's and dvd's any more and then expect that they have a right to music on the bus, in the car, in the bath, etc. Why do you need to portability of 10,000 songs and 100 movies, when are you EVER going to get through that? What happened to buying a record and appreciating it for weeks and weeks until you could save up for another one? While it is said 'bands make their money from touring', bands only tour where their record sells well, why bother anywhere else.

My case is the new Jack White band The Raconteurs and their first album "Broken Boy Soldiers". I really liked this when I heard a low quality downloaded version so I bought the vinyl, it's 100 times better and the case+poster for 30 mins of music is an awesome bargain. But then what gets posted on the website, NEW TOUR DATES which sees them not even bothering to come as far as east Australia. I know so many people who really like them, so why not? Then I learn with great dismay that one of the most downloaded albums of the moment, you guessed it...

The digital revolution will certainly give us great advances, but it may be choking the one thing its advances are for. Who needs an iPod when there's nothing good to listen to... RIP decent music.