Alan Coleman's

I’ve been getting back into buying CDs lately, as it seems to be the only way that I actually get round to listening to music. After a few years of downloading off dodgy sites it occurred to me that I was simply going through the motions for the sake of it, not because I wanted to listen to a particular album.

Essentially, digital greed. Just because it’s free, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you want it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like the idea of getting hold of an infinite music collection for free, it’s just that things are never really that simple. For example I might be using Limewire or other such software to get hold of an album I want, great, but more often than not I’ll end up with half of it at a dubious quality. Even if I do get the whole album it’ll probably end up forgotten on a memory stick at work.

If I buy an album on CD I’ll listen to it because I’ve spent the money, I get the artwork and it’s easier to put on for a few minutes whilst doing the washing up. Also, when I write the thing to iTunes, or whatever, I can dictate the quality.

Finally, I got into music through my old mans music collection, thumbing through records and getting to know the artwork, putting an album on and listening to it like you would read a book. If I ever have kids, it’s unlikely they’ll get the same satisfaction from a hard drive full of MP3s.