An attempt at writing something semi-coherent

Blogger decided that my post about my weekend playlist the other day infringed some sort of copyright thing, which it did, and deleted it. Rightfully so? I'm not really sure. I didn't put the songs in my playlist on here so that people could download them and avoid buying the track. I put them on here because a) Blogger doesn't offer a streaming function thingy and b) the songs deserved publicity.

I had to write a scholarship economics essay on a topic something like this, and it got me thinking. We're living in a world where there is virtually no incentive to purchase a song that is so readily available for free online. Aside from the fact that it is illegal, the only other reason that purchasing a song is preferable is that it supports the artist.

But what about artists that aren't as good live as they are in a recording? Do I want to support them?
Essentially anyone can create reasonably good recorded music. Whether they can recreate this when performing live is the true test.

For example, I spend ages reading music blogs and downloading songs off them. When I say ages, I mean the amount of time I spend on them falls somewhere between Facebook and Tumblr. The songs I download off them aren't mainstream ones, and many of them aren't actually available for download on iTunes store. If I find an artist that I like, I'm more inclined to purchase their songs (although I already have an illegal copy) or see them live.

If I see an artist perform and I really think that they deserve it, I will go out and buy their album.

Take Chromeo for example. I saw them live, and they actually blew me away. I'd always been a fan, but they were 100x better in real life. One of the first things I did when I got home was buy their album. Same with High Contrast. And I saw Redial the other night, he was incredible and his EP is coming out soon - guess who will be purchasing it?

Now think about your mainstream artists - Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Kanye etc. These guys can get away with charging $80+ for a ticket to their concerts, and still expect you to pay for their songs. Something here isn't quite right...

I could probably go on for ages about this, but I won't. I'm not really much of a writer, I prefer pictures. I apologise if this post is boring and I promise the next one will be slightly more interesting.