Physical Vs. Digital

Why do people enjoy buying digital singles and albums? The only purpose I see, is for the use of the songs being played on their computer, and then they go and put it to their iPod's, etc. Seems like a bunch of work.

Personally, I enjoy the actual physical CD or LP. Why? I love artwork on the front of album and single sleeves, plus all of the liner notes, and information on the songs. I don't like reading those liner notes on the computer, thus is why I do not get my songs on the internet. I buy CD albums, CD singles, vinyl albums, and vinyl singles. There is nothing better than holding a vinyl album or single and putting it on the record player and listening to it. The same goes for CDs (and I never thought I'd say that!).

I remember back in 1998, when I first started buying albums with my own money, besides on the net, I could only buy cassettes at stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart. I still like cassettes and both of my trucks have a cassette player instead of a CD player, so that works for my vehicles. Around 2000, everything in the store switched to CD and you could practically buy any album in the store on CD, not just compilation albums. Now all those big name stores only stock new releases or compilation albums (ie... Greatest Hits, The Best Of's). Still, that is okay.

If you want a new album, you can go buy one and when you bring it home, you can put all the songs onto your computer within a minute, it's as easy as that. Not to mention, in the liner notes, you can read who played what instruments, who produced, who wrote what songs, do you get the picture?

Now, out of all three (cassette/CD/vinyl), I prefer vinyl. No... I don't have a portable record player in my vehicles, but I do have two record players in my house, and both record players were bought brand new within the past two years. One of the record players will play CDs, vinyl, and cassette... so you can get anything. My other record player is state-of-the-art, and I can take the songs on the record and put them right onto the computer.

There are a lot of great older albums that were released only on vinyl and cassette, that are now out of print. For example, Peter Wolf's 'Lights Out!' album and Freddie Mercury's 'Mr. Bad Guy' album. Both came out in the mid 80s, and while CD copies were manufactured, they weren't popular at the time (neither was the price!), so they weren't manufactured in large quanities. While the albums sold very well, they have gone out of print. Peter Wolf's album on CD format, sells for around $80.00 - $120.00. Very pricey, and I've yet to get a hold of it. This is one reason that I enjoy a record player... I can play the LP.

Not many kids nowadays know what a single is. I probably wouldn't either if it wasn't for my big obsession with Queen. Anyways, when a band wants to promote a certain song for an album which in return will most likely get the people to buy the album in which it's on, they release a single. It can be on vinyl... 7" and 12" vinyls being the most popular out of vinyl, or on CD, or cassettes. Singles usually have two - three songs on it. What's great about singles, is that a lot of the times, they either have a different version or mix of the song, plus songs that won't even appear on the album (B-sides). Queen released numerous singles featuring extended versions of the songs, remixes, live versions, and non-album tracks.

7" singles seem to becoming a lot more popular, bands like My Chemical Romance usually release their singles on CD as well as on 7" vinyl. You can still and probably will always be able to buy record players. People always complain that it's hard to keep a record clean, but to be honest, I have more problems with CDs than I do with vinyl records. I don't have any vinyl records that aren't playable, though I have hundreds of CDs with scratches and which will skip everytime I play them, or they are totally un-playable.

If you want to buy a single, Newbury Comics as well as many regular music stores, usually has a section in which has a ton of new singles released. If you want a vinyl single, eBay is usually the best place to buy one, or old record stores. I prefer the sound of vinyl more than that of CD to be honest, it's hard to describe, but it just sounds more real.

Not to mention, buying any kind of single is fun to collect, as you get more product from the band and collecting records and CDs, is a great hobby for anyone.

Try it.

For information about music singles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_single

For more information about CD singles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cd_single

For information about promo (radio station/club) singles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promo_single

For more information about vinyl records...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7%22_single

For more information about cassette singles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_single

For more information about EP's (Extended Play Singles)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_play

For more information about Maxi singles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxi_single