Are you still buying music?

I was at a concert recently listening to Nestor Torres.  He was a new artist to me but my wife had heard him years before and brought me.  I was very happy to discover this new artist playing latin Jazz.  During intermission I found that they were selling his CDs in the lobby for $20 each.  Fortunately for me, I don't buy music anymore.  I pulled out my smartphone, opened the app "Spotify", searched for him and grabbed up 5 of his albums into a single playlist to enjoy later FOR FREE.    No I am not a theif nor a friend of the artist.  In fact for each of the concerts I have been to in the last year I have done the same thing.

Are you still buying music?  Formerly, I spent an average of $20/month buying CDs either at a retail store or through Amazon.  For the longest time I was dependent on the radio for the next time my favorite artist came back around in the station's playlist.   No more.  For quite awhile I used the legal version of Napster.  I could search their library for my favorite artists across rock, jazz, classical, country and opera and make playlists of my favorites.  I paid $15/mo for that priveledge.  Later Napster was bought by Rhapsody and the price remained the same.  The only drawback was that when I wanted to listen offline, once again I had to buy each of the titles in the playlist and sync that with my MP3 player.  

Along came Spotify.  Only $10/mo with unlimited access to their library which is enormous.  As with Napster, I never searched for a song or artist who I was unable to find.    Further, I no longer have to buy any tunes to listen to offline.  I can download all of my playlists to all of my devices, smartphone, tablet and laptop to listen to offline for the monthly fee of $10.  Yes. That is $120/year but I used to spend at least that much each year or more and still many times skipped buying some CD because I was over budget for the month or year.  Now I never have to skip any artist that I like and never have to worry about blowing my music budget.  I also don't have to worry about making a mistake by buying a CD that I don't really like.  I never have to buy a whole CD to get only 1 song.  Many of my playlists are comprised of singles from my youth in the 60s and 70s and I didn't have to order them from a commercial for Time / Life books with their compilations.    I never have to be concerned with where my MP3s are stored on my hard drive.  Spotify manages my music availability everywhere.

If you are still buying music, let me ask you why?   If you spend less than $120 /  year this would make sense.

There are several other services out there that likewise "rent" music in a subscription service, such as Rhapsody that I noted above as well as Google.  Make sure that you arent' paying more than $10/month for unlimited access to their library including offline use.

One more thing about Spotify.  My wife loves music but is not as obsessive as I am about searching and organizing them into playlists.  So I often do that for her with my Spotify account and share it with her via Facebook.  Spotify has the option to login with your Facebook account which allows you to easily share music with others.

Check out Spotify and let me know what you think.  I'm pretty sure that Spotify is cross platform but if you are using that fruity platform, you will need to see for yourself. :)

I am not compensated for this or any product that I suggest.  I just share stuff that I find works for me.