I Haven’t Bought a Music CD in Over 10 Years.

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Record Exchange (Flickr CC pic by FourthFloor) How long has it been since you actually went out of your way to go shopping for CDs?

If you’re like me, it’s probably been a while. And if you’re a 20s something or younger, chances are fairly good that you haven’t shopped for CDs in your entire life.

Oh how the Internet (and Apple) has changed things.

Earlier today, as I was cleaning out my desk, I recognized that most of my old CD collection was, well… pretty old.

Then I thought, I haven’t actually purchased a real life, unburned CD since the summer of 1999. Even worse, I’m not 100% sure a pure play “music store” even exists in my local shopping mall.

Where do you get your music?

These days, I rarely pay for music. There are so many ways of getting free music online that it really seems like an unnecessary luxury to buy a physical, pre-burned CD or download a ton of MP3s when you have such a wide variety of cheap (or free) options readily available online.

Especially if you’re the type of person that quickly tires of new songs, and must feed your addiction with a steady stream of new releases. Until the late 1990s, that was a fairly expensive habit to feed.

As for me, my favorite places to find free music are:

Slacker.com. By far, my top choice for free streaming music on the web. The streams are always updated with new releases, you can customize a broad range of stations to meet your demands, and you have a generous “skip the crappy tracks” allowance.
YouTube.com. Almost 99 times out of 100, I can find whatever song I’m looking for within the YouTube network. In the rare case I can’t find the song I’m looking for, I just do a Google video search, and I’m almost certain to find it.
Pandora.com. When all else fails or I want something new, I’ll flip over to Pandora. It’s a good backup, although in my opinion, the music choices aren’t updated as quickly as the Slacker music database. However, it has a huge following and still remains a solid option.

As you can probably guess, I don’t have a MP3 player or strap an iPod to my arm while jogging through the neighborhood. Taking music with me wherever I go has never been that important to me, so I haven’t felt the need to make the investment. Not when these cheap alternatives are available, and that old school contraption — your car stereo — is still a semi-decent place to find tunes. That is, of course, if you can suffer through the constant advertisements.

So what about you?

When was the last time you actually shelled out a few bucks to buy a CD? Do you have a better streaming music site than the ones listed above? If so, be sure to leave a comment below.

Photo by FourthFloor

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Posted by Matt SF @ 26 September 2009 11 comments

Tags : 20s Something Advice , Frugal Living

11 Comments
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Sep 27, 2009
2:41 am

#1 SJ :

I use imeem for music now instead of pandora/youtube… you have to join but it’s pretty good.

There’s more a focus of playlists but you can search for songs (instead of themes like pandora) and auto-play (vs. youtube)

[Reply]

Matt SF Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

@ SJ

Hmm, might have to checkout imeem. I used Napster’s subscription service once it went legal, but that didn’t last very long.

[Reply]

Sep 27, 2009
7:02 pm

#2 Tom @ Canadian Finance Blog :

Thanks for pointing out Slacker, will have a look at it. I was using last.fm, but lately just regular radio.

I have around 900 CDs, none older than 1998. Back then I became addicted to using Napster with my dial-up modem!

[Reply]

Matt SF Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 7:49 pm

@ Tom,

I’ve given Last.fm a few tries, but in my experience, they are a little slow at pulling in the new tracks/album. So by the time they stream a few songs I like, I’ve probably listened to it 100x on YouTube.

I never really had large CD collection like that… maybe 50-100 CDs total. I was that guy who bought a used CD for $8 to $10 at the Record Exchange, and sold it back at $5 a few weeks later.

[Reply]

Sep 27, 2009
7:13 pm

#3 Patrick :

I love Pandora and online radio stations, but I’m more of an album guy and prefer full length albums than listening to singles or a theme like on the streaming audio websites. So I listen to the radio or an online station to find a group or artist I like, then I buy a couple CDs a year. But only a handful at most. In the last 3.5 years I have probably purchased fewer than 10 CDs. (I have about 500 from my younger days…).

I’ll be sure to check out Slacker.com. :)

[Reply]

Matt SF Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

@ Patrick

I used to be an album guy, but it’s so hard to find a band/artist that actually makes the time and creativity investment to make a complete album. These days, it seems like an album is 2 or 3 singles, then packed with 10 filler tunes to qualify as an “album”.

Slacker is pretty good stuff… I spend a lot of time there. Lots of options to customize the tunes you want to hear.

[Reply]

Sep 28, 2009
3:32 pm

#4 Retirement Savior :

I had heard of Pandora, but had never checked it out until last week. It is amazing.

Otherwise, I’ve been a Limewire user for years, not that I recommend that sort of thing, of course.

[Reply]

Matt SF Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

@ Retirement Savior

Yeah, I considered mentioning Limewire in the post, but there are tons of potential legals issues that come with the P2P file sharing thing.

Personally, I remain skeptical of its legality and will remain a nonuser until the music industry stops suing little girls for downloading Brittany’s latest single. For me, it’s just not worth the risk.

Give Slacker.com a look if you get a chance. They toss in a 60 sec advertisement here and there, but if I had a choice b/n Slacker and Pandora, I would go with Slacker.

[Reply]

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