1745.
That’s how many CDs I own. Yeah... that is quite a lot, isn’t it? Whilst prices vary enormously, at a rough estimate that means I’ve spent around £10,000 on music. Of course, that ignores the cassettes, CD singles, and vinyl 7”, 12” and albums.If only there had been some handy way of just paying a sum each month and listening to whatever I wanted – I wouldn’t have a wall full of shiny silver discs.
Just to depress myself, let’s assume a streaming music service (like Spotify) costs £10 a month. On that basis, I could have used it for 1,000 months for the same outlay as the CDs alone. Or about 83 years. Ah.
Still, there’s something nice about having a physical product, and I’d always presumed I was the righteous one – until I got the calculator out a couple of minutes ago.
For those of you fortunate enough to be growing up in the time of streaming services for music, and video content, you can get just about anything recorded, ever, to enjoy whenever and wherever you want.
A youthful colleague at work told me today that she hasn’t purchased a CD or DVD for more than a decade. I purchased a CD last week.
It seems I’m part of endangered species - more was spent on pay-as-you-play in 2018 than on stuff you can hold in your hand and shove in a player. 62% of money spent on music went to subscription services, whilst video on demand took 55%, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.
Music and movies weren’t the first to reach this tipping point either – they were beaten to it a few years ago by the gaming world, and the monthly fees gamers pay for online multiplayer fun.
Even within my own family I’m the dark-ages sibling – both my brothers use music streaming services, and donated/ebay-ed their physical formats years ago.
I have to scan the racks to track down the particular album I want, or remember that a track is on a particular disc, then load and listen. It’s pretty tricky for me to shuffle my favourites too, although it would probably be good exercise – my collection is currently in a different room to the player.
Maybe it’s finally time I went digital and ditched the discs. I could have a fresh coaster for my cappuccino every week for the next 28 years.
This post first appeared as my "A wry look at the week" column, in The Mail, on Friday the 8th of March 2019. The version used on their website was re-titled as "Is it time to ditch the discs?". Good title, actually. Why didn't I think of that?
It's 1747 now, by the way. The two that have expanded the collection yet further are KT Tunstall's "Wax" and Within Temptation's "Resist". Will I NEVER learn?
(Tape time: No 094 - a sterling collection of recordings of mainly white label 12" singles, from when my friend Dave's mum was dating a DJ, who got 2 copies of records sent out by a label, but after moving out one set still arrived. Includes Talk Talk (mentioned just last week) Gloria Gaynor, Matthew Wilder and the brilliant "Self Control" by Raf - which is miles better than Laura Brannigan's version, but wasn't a hit. Phew. Carry on.)
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