The Devaluation of Music

Music has devalued over the last few years. I am not talking about the revenue lost to the music publishers due to illegal downloads although I am sure EMI & Co are scurrying around trying to change their business model, I am talking about the value of an album or track to an individual independent of how much or how little the music actually cost them.

Back in the day, I (like lots around me), saved our pennies to scoot down to the record shop and spend our loot on the latest and greatest. We would take it home and with great ceremony spin the disc against the background of parental thumps on the ceiling. Even if we took our precious records over to friends houses we would have to carry loads of records, 8 tracks, tapes, CDs (select appropriate to your age) over to another playing station of some sort. Today, of course, we take the entire kit 'n kaboodle with us. I have an iPhone capable of storing my entire music collection - and that's my point! With the inability to move vast collections of music about that music seemed more precious, had more value to the individual than todays ability to skip through hundreds of tracks listening to the first twenty seconds of a track or clipping the chorus out as a ring tone. Because there is so much of it available the value of it has dropped and maybe that is due in part to the cost in hard earned pennies but I think also because of the availability.

This is not an essay in justifying trying to get back to those earlier times. Would I trade my 14oGB music collection for a stack of records, tapes, CDs etc? Not on your life! But I would argue that music is getting cheaper, I do not hold in reverence that which I held in the past. Maybe that's a good thing, music like everything else evolves.

SiG