A know this topic is getting old, almost, but I still want to talk about it.
In some ways, I really disagree with the idea of downloading, even legally through iTunes. I was looking through someone's iPod the other day with mostly mainstream musical tastes, this has happened a few times recently, and you can't help but notice that there are almost no complete albums on there. I don't know whether this is good or bad, it's just different - every song they have on their iPod is a one-hit wonder, a single they downloaded because it's what they want to hear right now.
I couldn't do that, often music to me is a whole record, but I can understand why people do. Often I'd like to buy just one song by a band or artist, but often it's so unaccessible that I just buy a whole record.
In some ways, I'll be the first to admit that the music I listen to is quite restricted: I have those artists and bands that are beloved and mean everything to me, which I can probably count on two hands and possibly a foot. Then, occasionally, I'll hear some music and buy an album because I really like two or three of the songs on it, and just never really listen to the rest. Maybe iTunes is good for that. But I really hate the idea that we're moving away from the album. Every so often I think/hope all of us experience an entire CD which we'll love, memorize the order, get to know in and out and every single song is just good. No songs we skip past because they're boring or not as good as the rest, just forty minutes, or an hour, or maybe two of complete, uninterfered bliss.
The other thing the internet's come in useful for is spreading the word about music, and I couldn't be more for this, because it's helped me in a route I can trace exactly.
Maybe two years ago now, I looked up a song on Youtube called "1234" by Feist, because the video was on a TV advert and I liked it a lot. I then found a singer called Kina Grannis' cover of her song and began to love her music, both her originals and the covers she did, whether or not I knew the song.
I was already following Imogen Heap on Twitter, for some reason or other, when Kina sang "First Train Home" and I decided to listen to her a little more, after she was featured on the Youtube front page and I saw some of her vBlogs. The first song I fell in love with was "Half Life", and so I bought Ellipse just for that, and it sounds stupid but it's one of the best things I've spent money on, ever. I remember the woman in the shop telling me it was great and they'd played it in the store the other day, and I didn't say much but how much more I would now. The other 3 albums I got for Christmas, and I realised I'd known "Let Go" since I was around 10, just never known who it was by. You know those songs you just subconsciously sing in your head sometimes?
And through her I found all these other artists and bands. Some, like Amanda Palmer, I'd heard of before, just never fully listened to. Some had collaborated with each other and led me down paths, like going from Imogen Heap, to IAMX, and I even listen to Robots In Disguise sometimes.
I won't go on about this, I remember I even drew a map one time.
Artists like Amanda Palmer use Twitter to say "I'm doing a gig in *place*, just turn up and bring me some cash." For musicians whose music isn't played on the radio, who people don't know about automatically and have no other way to find a fanbase, it's both worked wonders and broken that blockade of a record company being the middle man between an artist and his or her fans. It's given us communication. The internet brought me to music in the first place, and I couldn't be more grateful.
Other stuff - yes, I know I'm more behind and totally failing and this but I'll run into March. Yesterday was my birthday and some of my friends turned up so we released Chinese lanterns in the park and they let me watch Everything In-Between, because it was my birthday.
So yay. No more stories about fighting with the woman at the cinema desk for not letting me see Black Swan.
See you soon.
Lizzie xxx
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