See If This Strikes Any Chords: “Why I Still Buy Music in the Age of Spotify”

How much physical music did you buy last year? A couple of CDs? A few pieces of vinyl? When speaking to people over the holidays, I was surprised at the number of people who answered “Zero.” When asked why, the answer was simple: “Streaming, dude. It’s far more cost-effective.”

Fair cop. But there are still many of us that will continue to buy music–CDs, vinyl of all shapes and speeds, digital tracks–even though streaming offers much, much greater selection and convenience. This brings me to an article from Digital Music News.

Whenever anyone walks into my house, they generally notice one thing: the huge record collection that takes up an entire wall.

I’ve been collecting for around ten years now, and it shows.  Not only on my shelves—on my bank account.  According to my Discogs account, my collection is worth somewhere around $15,000 (to my wife’s chagrin).  I probably spend anywhere from $50 to $200 a month on records.

But, I also spend $10 a month for Spotify Premium.  This subscription service gives me access to almost every record on my shelves (except for So by Peter Gabriel, which is a crime), plus millions of other songs.  And I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t really tell that big of a difference between analog and digital sound.

So why do I do this to myself?  Why do I waste all of this money on a clunky outdated medium when I can already listen to that music through my Spotify account?

A few big reasons.

Keep reading. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of part of my music library. It occupies many, many linear feet.