Spotify: The Ethics of Excess and Change

I hope no one from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is reading this because there is going to be a lot of honesty about how I get my music. You know what, they suck anyway. This is all their fault anyway for being turds. Forget them. Let's start by ratting out dear old dad.

When I was a kid my dad used to take us to the library all the time (they still have those right?). And while we would be sitting there reading books and looking for good movies, my dad would be going through all the CD racks looking for stuff he had heard about on the radio or from his past. My family was never poor by any stretch, but we didn't always have a lot of cash, so the library was the best place to go for our media fix. Anyway, Pops would come home with no less than fifteen to twenty checked out CDs and record them onto cassette tapes (lots of Steve Winwood, Bonnie Raitt, and other relatedish artists-- man I just can't get into Steve Winwood). These cassette tapes are probably laying around our old house in Greenwood these days gathering dust, or they are now on CD-Rs which will also soon be gathering dust. The point is simple: my dad owns a lot of stuff he didn't pay for. However, my dad has a record collection, cassette tape collection, CD collection, and even an 8-Track collection (though I think that info might be classified). Most of these items simply sit there and inspire one to categorize. Obviously you can't own things forever, so there is a limit on my dad's stuff.

Now don't get me wrong. Pops is not a hoarder by in any way, shape, or form (doesn't an image like that link scare the flippin' poop out of you? What about this image?). This isn't meant to deface my dad's collection (there are some especially cool records in it) because as many of you know I am not innocent of this collecting fetish. Ever since I was a kid I was obsessed with collecting stuff. Here is a short list of the collecting fetishes I have had over the years. Brace yourselves-- it's pretty awful:

- action figures (He-Man, TMNT, Thundercats, Transformers)

- baseball cards (along with basketball, hockey, football, Olympic, and comic book cards)

- comic books (mostly just Marvel and DC Comics-- though I was pretty open at one point)

- all things Star Trek (including everything above, video cassettes, newspaper clippings, magazines, card games, clothing, models, and one of the most intimidating Star Trek book collections ever by anyone except the publisher)

- Native American necklaces (this didn't last long)

- baseball caps (all teams, all sports, at least a few years of wearing one everyday)

- Most things Batman (this is ongoing still-- including DVDs, action figures, comics, and underwear)

- Button-down shirts and ties

- Rolling Stone magazines

- t-shirts

- Race medals (ongoing-- I am reasonably proud of this one)

- this list

- music (VERY ongoing)

Some of the things above are weird, and I don't think I remembered everything. If you think I used to collect something and want to leave a comment on facebook or here about it go right ahead. The whole point is I like collecting stuff and always have. There is something pretty satisfying about putting all your stuff in a nice neat row and staring at it. I got a lot of satisfaction out of that when I was a kid. I also love music about as much as anything on the planet that isn't breathing. So naturally, putting the two together makes sense.

On a side note, I am very frustrated by the fact that when people say they love music it sounds dorky. I don't know why that is and it ticks me off. If you love music, own it. Even if it is just some kind of obsession with TV theme songs, or the collected works of Palestrina, or the United Methodist Hymnal, or anything by Angelique Kidjo, or the third greatest pop rock band with a trombone of all time. I think if people let their dork flag fly higher the world would be a better place. Ok, small rant done.

I remember when I got my first CDs of my very own for Christmas (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Rolling Stones, and...Sara McLaughlin) and the feeling I got from being able to call those discs my own and place them on a shelf. My CD collection went through the normal fluctuating ratio of bad music to good music that most over-emotional teenagers' collections experience. I also had the misfortune of growing up in a time where lines were being drawn between Dave Matthews Band fans and non-Dave fans. Same with Pearl Jam and a dozen other pop artists. But with all that said I stuck by my CD collection, and it grew and continues to grow formidably over the years.

Of course, when I got into college the mysterious and illegal worlds of Napster and the CD-R were hard at work. Don't worry friends, this column isn't about legality. Frankly the legal woes of copyright ownership simultaneously baffle me and piss me off. While Napster and Limewire were doing all that file sharing for free on the interwebs, my dad was freely recording hundreds of hours of music onto cassette tapes; my good friend Ben Syversen was burning the entire genre of free jazz onto just a few mp3 CDs for me; and major labels were keeping more than 90% of the profits of an artist's record. The argument that new technologies and illegal music consumption will stop great music from being made is far too old. Here is a short list of the new technologies that got negative press because artists would not be able to make enough money off the mediums to keep making new music:

1. Sheet music

2. Player pianos

3. Wax cylinders

4. Long playing records

5. The cassette tape

6. The Compact Disc

7. Recordable Compact Disc

8. Mp3s

9. iTunes

10. youtube

11. Streaming online music

It's incredible what people think will put an end to what they do (I left out AM Radio and the Mini-disc). The majority of these technologies caused a creative boost when they came out-- making art and entertainment easier to get a hold of and easier to create. I have read various reports and articles stating that the newest technology-- Spotify-- will be a legitimate end to the music industry. People are scared that, because it is technically legal but still completely screws the artist, musicians will not be able to make enough money in the industry. I am not going to totally deny that possibility. But that is also kind of a selfish attitude. EVERY industry is in financial trouble. Some of the richest men in the entire world are out of work right now. It's just too indulgent to think that your vocation or career are in any more danger than anyone else's.

So though the legality of Spotify seems to be quite shady (just to be clear the musicians are only getting about .0001 cents per song play), it doesn't really bug me on that level. If I wanted to preach against Spotify in terms of it not making the artist any money I would be a hypocrite. I legally download free tracks off various websites (Noisetrade, One Track Mind, and Paste Magazine)that don't give the artist any direct cash. I have a program called iRip that can put people's iPod playlists into my computer. I have borrowed songs and burnt CDs for countless hours of illegally owned music. But I possess that stuff. In a strange way it is yet another collection (even though I didn't earn it and don't deserve it).

No, what makes Spotify such a scary proposition for me is that I really don't need to own or collect music anymore. I don't need to invest in music anymore (in all fairness this also means I don't have to rip or burn music anymore and can go back to legally buying things and just Spotifying the stuff I don't have the money for-- in other words, legally NOT investing in good music).

Last week I downloaded Spotify onto my computer with the hope of studying it and figuring out what it was made of. I had no doubt what the first test would be. Radiohead is one of my favorite bands and I have slowly been collecting their albums over the past decade. I own all the super important ones-- The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows-- and a few others. However, I have resisted on a couple other albums and one of those is Amnesiac. I've wanted to own it for quite sometime, but I have been reticent to purchase it. When I got on Spotify I found Amnesiac and began to listen. The album is good but certainly not on the same level as it's predecessor Kid A. Now that I have listened to the album at my own leisure in my own home on my own computer, I see no need to buy the it. This is unfortunate on a couple levels. For one thing it's not great for Radiohead. They aren't dependent on selling one more copy of an album from a decade ago, but making money off the music they created is kind of their livelihood. And the other issue is that my collecting bug just got swatted. I don't need to buy another Radiohead CD, record, or mp3 for the rest of of my life.

I own hundreds of CDs (possibly in the thousands but it seemed lame to actually count them for this post) in almost every possible genre you can think of (including two collections of classical music that I inherited from family and friends). I have dozens of records in a quirky collection that I am trying to beef up. And I have thousands of mp3s; many of which are on my computer yet I haven't actually sat down and listened to. But now with Spotify do I really need any of it? I played a game with my fiancee' the other night where she picked a random song and I found it on the program. And I found everything. I am sure there is some music that you can't find on Spotify, but that music is probably so obscure that you don't know it anyway.

There has been a fundamental change with the way we consume music. Instead of a having to wait to hear songs on the radio, we can listen to anything we want right now. We aren't talking about sampling a song or waiting a certain time to hear it. If I want to go listen to the entire catalog of The Hold Steady I can take my time and do it anytime and anywhere. There do seem to be some unwritten rules (I guess they are actually written) developing now on what a collector or casual music fan should buy versus what they shouldn't. I doubt any person who doesn't feel some kind of ethical attachment to the career musician will care about these rules, but whatever. The first rule seems to be that new material should be bought. In other words if you want to listen to Kanye West's Late Registration feel free to get your Spotify on. But you should definitely purchase Watch the Throne because Jay and Ye need the money. Something tells me that this rule doesn't flesh out very well.

The other rule makes a little more sense. For the artists who basically hope they can sell a CD or record while on tour since they don't have a record company, you need to buy their record. (At first I wrote that this rule would be hard to break since your favorite local band wouldn't even be on Spotify, but I just found Bloomington favorite Rodeo Ruby Love on there, which scares me because they really do need the money.) This is one rule I won't be violating considering my involvement with a fledgling indie record label that needs to sell actual records just to sustain itself, and going to shows (you've heard of live music right?) where I can get a band's music is the most fun thing about collecting tunes.

These rules are great, but they still don't stop Spotify from deflating the great journey of going to the store (or even iTunes) to find the perfect music to go into your car whether new or old (not to mention deflating artists' banks accounts). Now you can put that music together yourself from the entire collected works of the planet Earth and just plug your iPod into your car for that extended cross-country trek. Other than the creative cover art, what's the point in owning music anymore. The less stuff we have the better right? Is there really any great value to having something to stare at all the time?

For me there was. I'm not saying that collecting and listening to that collection of music filled my soul, but it got as close as any non-sentiant being. And now that's gone. As I reflect on what I am trying to say here I realize that it is simple. Spotify represents a change I am not ready for. It takes the excess that I was searching for and puts it in one nice neat package for the whole world to access. I don't want to have to end my life of collecting. You know what happened to all those Star Trek books I had when I was a kid? They're gone. I gave them away because I didn't need them and I wasn't reading them. But I am still listening to music. What do I do with all these jewel cases if I can listen to what's inside them right here where I am typing? And what do I with all these mp3s taking up valuable hard drive space on my computer when this program on that same computer can give me full instant access to any music I want?

I am not ready to admit consumer capitalism defeat. I'm still going to keep downloading tracks and buying CDs and records. The artists need the money and the industry needs the support. I like having shelves with stuff on them. I'm not giving up on the old ways even if the change is already here. Now if you will excuse me I need to listen to Watch the Throne. Just don't ask me how I'm going to do it.