Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: amazon.com, angels and airwaves, best buy, cds, circuit city, city and colour, dan kennedy, flogging molly, gift-giving, green day, itunes, jack johnson, LPs, music, record sales, rock on, rolling stone, weezer
Kids,
there’s a huge problem that is right in front of us that no one seems to care about. I first heard about it in Rollingstone: cd sales are plummeting, affecting the music industry in a harsh way. Everything is digital… or everything is downloaded. Very few people go out and buy records anymore. You may say, “why is it a problem if things are digital?” Well… how many albums do you buy online? How many singles do you buy online? Yeah. People are giving up a dollar for one song (or maybe a few more) and ultimately not helping the artists in much of any way (seeing as digital profits don’t exactly affect the real artist so much, if at all). Now I feel the need to write about this after I read the book Rock On by Dan Kennedy. It addressed the state of the matter concerning record sales and the lay offs/cut backs occurring at record labels. So how do we help this once monumental part of our economic system get revitalized? We start buying more cds!
Haven’t you ever listened to an album and gone, “I wish people could feel what I’m feeling now.” Or how about, “That harmony right there is so sick, I wanna show everyone I know this!” Well… start doing so! When you’re thinking about what to get a friend (or just anyone) a gift (For whatever occassion), think about the last great album you heard and consider giving that person a rather cheap, but exciting gift by supplying them with that said album! Really, music is a powerful and fulfilling thing in life… and instead of just giving someone a giftcard, why not give them something that can really show some thought? I gave my girlfriend “The Everglow” by Mae for Christmas. Why did I do this? Among personal reasons, I was aware that she enjoyed the band Mae and The Everglow is, in my mind, one of the most amazing albums ever created… so I wanted to share that excellence with her. For her birthday, my friend and I got our mutual friend the new Angels & Airwaves album, I-Empire. Why? Because we both were amazed by it and felt we should share the glory. I’ve given cds as gifts plenty of times and will continue to do so because I believe whole-heartedly that artist’s really do need our support. If an interest in buying LPS can be restarted, maybe we can all really make a difference in the struggling music community.
Let’s face it, owning an actual cd is awesome. There’s the case, the artwork, the sleeve filled with cool info, the actual cd itself; I love having the authenticity of an album in my hands. A burnt cd just cheapens the whole experience in my book. And you know, most people can’t deny the words I just said. So when you buy an album for someone else… they might hold the cd in their hands, realize how awesome it feels, and maybe go out and buy the next cd they were thinking about instead of burning it/downloading it. This isn’t just about buying cds for other people though. Go out and buy them yourself! I can’t wait to pick up Weezer’s, Coldplay’s, Jack Johnson’s, and City & Colour’s new album within the next couple months. Flogging Molly is coming out with one and apparently Green Day too? Gosh, people, go out and spend some cash on a product that is totally worth it. Music is eternal. A good album can stay with you until you die. And cds usually don’t cost more than $12 if you buy them within the first week of their release.
It’s great if you go to concerts, buy merch, etc. etc. It helps out bands a lot. But the one thing that is failing miserably are record sales and I just don’t see why… I anticipate cd releases like I anticipate the next time I get to see my girlfriend: i just can’t wait.
Seriously. Best Buy and Circuit City- great places to buy cds. And if those don’t work? Amazon.com is baller. If you spend over $30, there’s usually free shipping involved when dealing with cds.
Music is priceless, so stop caring about the money in your wallet and change your life with some new music.
There’s a lot that happens to me musically; A lot of things I do, create, hear, feel, and experience that all correspond to music. This is a new blog site of mine where I wish to express all that happens. I decided to create this because I felt a normal blog wouldn’t be suitable for me to just go on and post, “Wrote a new song today…” then explain it. There’s also a lot of science to the music I create and how I create it I’d love to share with the world in a condensed space like this. Instead of putting all these posts in the midst of a hundred other blogs that talk about my feelings, why don’t we just put it all in a place designated for posts just like it?
So for anyone reading this first post… let me explain who I am musically and what you might expect from this blog.
At the age of 11 I became totally married to music. Blink-182 made me absolutely obsessed with music in every way and over 7 years later, I’m a musical guru who lives his life (almost) according to music. One thing that made me want to start this blog was the fact that I’m a music producer of sorts. I’ve experimented extensively with recording equipment and ways to get good sounds, etc. etc. and have found my methods to be very efficient. One person once commented, “So what studio did you record this at?” when talking about a song I’d recorded for a band I’m in (Apollo’s Dream). My response was, “We didn’t go to one. That was done in my basement.” The stranger was in disbelief.
I started off playing a Squier Affinity P-Bass in the summer of 2001… then upgraded to a Fender Jazz Bass (color: blue agave) a couple years later. I switch between playing a Les Paul Epiphone Custom (color: sunburst) guitar and a Washburn… hell, I don’t know the model. I adore my Brownsville acoustic with Elixir strings. I also enjoy my Mapex drum set with pork pie snare to the max.
I write new songs every day and have different theories about music that are just waiting to be written down. I’ve got intense opinions on certain bands and have so much I want to get out about the world of music. This blog alone is just rife with incoherence because I can’t keep focused. Expect a real blog very soon because I’ve already got lots to say.
Expect music reviews, explanantions on personal music theories, journal entries, and so much more. I’ll probably even do an “Artist of the Week” deal so all you readers can maybe find something new to listen to.
I hope to attract quite a few readers to this… so if you’re interested, just add this to your favorites and see where the writing goes.
Cheers.
-mort
