Confessions of a Mass Murderer: How I killed music

The year—2000, age—19, the crime—free music downloading. It was the hay day of Napster. CD’s that had cracked in half, gotten scratched beyond any sort of playability, mysteriously went missing after a party I had hosted, and even those I never bought but always wanted were right at my finger tips. Sure, it took several hours to download a full CD, since my internet speed was so slow; but music, for the first time in my life, was free—I was free. And it was in that unbridled autonomy that killed music

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Sure, the monotonous playlists offered by payola ridden radio stations played a huge and undeniable role in the death of music, but there is definitely blood on my hands. To better understand my role in the death of music let’s talk about how I used to get CD’s.

In prehistoric times there were these places called ‘record stores’. They could be found in shopping malls with names like “Sam Goody”, and were settings for cult classic films like “Empire Records”. My favorite record store was a little known shop called ‘Record Service’, located in the heart of the University of Illinois’ campus-town. It was what I considered one of the many advantages of growing up in a college town. This independent record store was filled with many genres of music from rap and pop, to zydeco and acid jazz. On the back wall they had records-- real vinyl records. Nowadays I don’t even know where you can go to buy vinyl (besides a garage sale or a thrift store).

There were listening stations where you could listen to an entire album before you bought it (much more satisfying than the 30 second snippet offered by itunes). The employees were super cool off-beat college kids who were in bands, and had listened to every record in the entire store. I could walk in there and say things like “what’s good?” and it was more than just a meaningless greeting. I’d get answers like “Oh, you gotta check out this cat Roy Hargrove”, or “Erykah Badu’s gotta new album coming out in a couple weeks”. This is how I found out about a lot of the artists I love today.

As a freshman in college a friend and I waited outside of Record Service for the midnight release of D’Angelo’s Voodoo album, which we had prepaid for anticipating it selling out. I don’t do stuff like that anymore. Maybe because I’m completely jaded, and finding good music nowadays is something similar to looking for a diamond in a landfill (although I do appreciate Maxwell’s latest contribution). Buying music online, or even downloading it for free is not the same! It’s like buying a Louis Vuitton bag in a back alley out of some guy’s trunk versus buying the same bag in the store (not that I’ve ever personally bought a Louis Vuitton bag anywhere, but never mind that). You are completely robbed of the experience. And now that record stores are outta the way, how do we hear about new music? The radio? Music videos? Maybe an underground blog if we are lucky? Womp, Womp!

By downloading music I have taken the democratization out of the process. I usually download old stuff, or music from established artists. I can’t remember the last time I discovered a new artist from downloading, or “surfing itunes” (again… womp ,womp). I’m sure this makes things more difficult for the artists out there who are starving trying to make it to the top. Music is far less subject to individual tastes, and now the evil corporate labels have even more power to influence our decisions. iTunes is not a virtual music store, not even close. It’s an online commercial vendor, completely controlled by the corporate giants for the purpose of promoting their interests; and worst of all… I help them do it.

And this is how I killed music.

Support your local record store, if you can find one…