Go on, Download

I don’t think I’ve commented on this one before; so let me write a quick note about music downloading. Personally, I have no problem with people downloading thousands of songs from the Internet. Only on rare, regretted occasions have I purchased a full album for one song or to check out a new artist. Back in the day, I used to keep the radio on all afternoon waiting for that climatic moment of pressing record to add another hit song to my cassette mix. If they took away Internet programs, my sense is people wouldn’t run out and purchase more music, but would rather just buy a device that could record from the radio to a CD or iPod.

On another note, my belief is that the Internet and downloading services have been the greatest things to happen to music since the microphone. Show me stats about how Atlantic’s record sales are down- fine, but I also want to consider global record sales including direct artist and Internet purchases. My prediction would be the music industry has never been so strong. Countless startup artists can hit stardom almost as fast as American Idols with a website and the power of worldwide downloads. Maybe this is driven by age, but I’ve never gone to so many concerts, or listened to such a vast array of artists. In fact, here’s a new one everyone’s talking about: Vampire Weekend.