In these days of “free” music, there are a few views i’d like to present. These are views of my own and about how i like to spend money on music, and on musicians.
First a confession. I do … no wait, i have pirated music. I just realized that it’s been quite a while since. Services like Grooveshark and Spotify have effectively cut away my need to steal music. But yes, i do have bits of music on a few hard drives somewhere that do not belong to me. I’m not sure exactly where because i haven’t listened to them for a while. Maybe they’re on one of my hard disks that have crashed and the crime is prescribed.
That said, i also buy music. I don’t have the numbers, but we’re talking about maybe thirty CDs a year. Used to be more, but then Frans Keylard put his Rogues’ Gallery show on hiatus, which has been a blessing for my economy. But here’s the deal. Especially during my Rogues’ Gallery-induced shopping sprees, i often chose to buy music from artists i listened to on the shows, knowing that i probably won’t listen to them too much off-line. It was a conscious decision, not just to get a CD of music i liked, but primarily because i wanted to support the musicians making this great stuff! Yes, i could still hear them for free, but i wanted to put my money in the direction where the good stuff is made. 
Here’s another hook. As far as i can, i always try to buy the CDs from the artists themselves, or from their own label or outlet. And if there’s a Special Edition of any kind, as long as it isn’t stupidly expensive, i buy it. I’ve long thought about the economics of music and just a few days ago, i stumbled across this beautiful graph about just that. In short, if an artist wants to make “minimum wage” in the US, s/he needs a monthly sell of 143 self-pressed and delivered CDs. Sold in a “high street” shop or on iTunes, the number is between one and four thousand. The artist would need to sell 12’399 tracks on iTunes or Amazon to make US$1’160 a month, or stream 0.8 million times on Rhapsody, 1.5 million times on Last.FM or a whopping 4.5 million on Spotify. One album purchase straight from the source goes a long way.
I do realize that that much of my music money goes to artists who aren’t with a big honking record company, making it possible to buy from the artist themselves (case ex point, Radiohead, whose In Rainbows download i bought as well). The most financially successful artist i buy records from must be Porcupine Tree and Peter Gabriel. I bought pg’s Scratch My Back from WOMAD, and received a download of the album while-you-wait-for-delivery and a download code for a 24 bit rendition of the record.
Just the other day, i received the new The Alarm album Direct Action. I saw it on Last.FM, checked it out on Spotify, liked what i heard (a lot!) and bought it straight from the source. I received a special CD+DVD edition and got a interview+live CD as an extra surprise. And a warm and fuzzy feeling. How can i not honk my horn about a service and a delivery like that? And i’m waiting for Anathema’s “We’re here because we’re here” CD+DVD+book and Pineapple Thief’s “Someone here is missing” CD+book+sticky-notes bunch, both from the Burning Shed label store. The Marillion Weekend 2009 CDs arrived a few weeks back and the DVDs will as soon as they are pressed.
And just as extra icing, i tend to have them delivered to work, just to make my day 
