Remember when you were a kid and you saved your money to go buy a new record on release date? I will never forget when I was in high school and Incubus put out Morning View. I had waited and waited until it finally came. I drove my little red Eagle Talon across town and bought it right after school let out. I got stuck behind the longest, slowest moving train in history on my way home. Thank God for that train. I sat there and listened to over half the record in my car (with the massive stereo I built). I must have listened to that record 1,000 times over the next year. I memorized every lyric to every song.

This was a fairly common experience for me growing up. With bands I really loved, it would happen every single time they put out an album and even when I’d stumble over great catalog pieces. The point is that I bought a good record, and I listened to it. More than that, I experienced it. I loved it. There was almost a sort of pride in ownership. I took it with me everywhere and talked about it with my friends all the time. For me, this never really ended.

Today, this experience is becoming less common to young music consumers. Why bother saving your money to buy the new Dave Matthews Band record when you can download their entire catalog free of charge from some torrent? I know several people with literally hundreds of gigs worth of music on hard drives that haven’t spent a penny on it. I know what you’re thinking, “another record label guy bitching about piracy. We’ve heard it before. Big deal.” But that’s not where I’m coming from today. I’m writing as a person who has a deep love and appreciation for music. I’m not going to bother talking about the impact of piracy on artists, songwriters, or even record labels. Ultimately, you don’t care, and neither do I.

See, while I was out buying records every week during high school, a close friend of mine was at home downloading anything he wanted in huge torrents. Typically he’d grab an artist’s entire catalog or a massive collection like “The Top 100 Albums of 70s.” After high school, he and I, and a couple other guys rented out a house together. I couldn’t believe the collection of music he had accumulated. What was even more amazing was how completely and totally unfamiliar he was with it. It was literally too much too quick. There was no way anyone could digest all of that content in the short period of time it had taken to acquire it.

Having never listened to Zappa a day in his life, he downloaded something like 50 Frank Zappa albums once (including live stuff). He never listened to any of it because he had absolutely no idea where to start. One time he decided that he really wanted to “get into” jazz after hearing a lot of great jazz records from one of our other roommates. So, instead of heading down the street to Know Name Records and picking up some essential listening titles form the likes of Bird, Miles, Coltrane, Art Blakey, etc, he just downloaded a massive torrent of the “best jazz albums of all time” and loaded it into his iTunes player. He put the whole thing on random and let it play for days on end. To this day he couldn’t hum the tune to “So What” if you asked him to. This is just one example. I can think of at least two other people that I know of as I sit here right now who are the exact same way.

When you get something for free, there is a strong possibility that you may end up taking it for granted. When you get a lifetime worth of anything in a day, there is a chance that you may never even be able to sort through it. What is the value of free music to you? To many, it holds no real value. To me, I’d rather invest in my music.

Ditch the torrents. Go hang out in your local shop, browse the bins, and drop a few bucks on something. You’ll listen to it, because you spent your hard earned money on it. Even go onto iTunes and spend some money there. If music is a passion of yours, you won’t regret it. If music isn’t a passion of yours, what are doing on a record label’s website anyhow ; )

-EF