Stealing Music Again

When I was in graduate school, there was a nice little record store in the downtown area. All of the people that worked there were assholes, though. So I shopped across the street at Tower Records.

I'm the kind of person that can't wait to listen to new music once I get it. I take the packaging right off the CD and throw it into my stereo to see what I got. One afternoon, I was listening to some music outside my building and FAMOUS POET JOSHUA CLOVER walked by and noted that it was quaint that I "still pay for music." This was four years ago.

Really, I like paying for music. I'm a completist by nature, and if I'm going to follow a band long enough that I'm going to get all their albums, I feel like I should pay for what I'm getting. I understand that 95% of that money is going to evil record companies, and that most bands make their money off of touring. But I don't go to concerts because I don't like being around other people. So if I like someone's music, I'm usually going to be willing to pay for it.

Once I started teaching, I decided that I was comfortable enough that I could afford to purchase all my music. I got an iPod as a gift from the wife when I got a real job, and iTunes makes it easy to purchase music, and $9.99 for a CD seems like a pretty good deal. And when I listen to singles that I like (which I do all the time--I love that song "Handlebars", but there's no fucking way I'm paying for the whole album), I don't mind paying $0.99 when I believe that the artist is going to get a piece of it.

But with the economy the way it is, and the way my school has been cutting back on class assignments and everything else, it doesn't really make sense to buy music unless you really believe in what the artist is doing. And so I've gotten back on Soulseek and have started gathering music the way that the kids do these days.

I feel like I'm giving back a little bit by staying on-line with Soulseek even after I've finished downloading my desired songs. That allows people to check my library and see if there's anything they want. I suppose that's more of a co-op model for the music industry.

I promise that when there's a good CD that comes out, I'm going to buy it. But when I'm just exploring a new artist or something, that's kind of a big investment.

Anyway, here are the last five or so albums I stole. I'm pretty sure that I can reccommend all of them:

• Common, Universal Mind Control
• Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
• Lily Allen, Alright Still
  
• Lily Allen, It's Not Me It's You
  
• Kate Nash, Made of Bricks

Do I feel like a heel for paying a lot of money the last three years for music that I could have gotten for free? Not really. I swear.