Smells Like Weed And Sex: How To Make Buying Music A 'Thing' Again?

Why is music not worth anything, you ask?

Great question. It's easy to say, once again, that people think nothing of paying $5 for a Starbucks, but can't bring themselves to pay $1 for a song, but that is truly apples vs. oranges. Or, in this case, apples you can feel, touch, taste, and be seen with vs. oranges that don't actually exist in the physical sense.

Ever tried impressing someone with something that doesn't exist in the physical sense? Chances are it lost to the guy with the shiny new dime!

What Starbucks offers is nourishment, a quite literal "JOLT!" to the brain and nervous system in the form of a combination sugar buzz/caffeine high, and, last but not least, a fashion accessory!

Until the music industry figures out a way to get Lady Gaga's new album to do THAT, it may as well be trying to sell typewriters.

CD's as a physical product are horrible on every level: They aren't truly portable because who carries a CD player with them everywhere they go? You buy it, rip it, and shelve it. Or you just stream Spotify on your phone, which you DO take everywhere, for FREE.

Ah, the good old days...when you could bump into your average superstar at the local Tower.

There are those who see the charm of vinyl and the fact that you can walk down the street with a stack of albums under your arm and be seen as one cool fucker. I mean, no sexy stranger is gonna say "Hey, nice Wavves 12" you got there" if all you've got are some mp3's on a phone tucked in your butt pocket.

You don't have to make music cool again, you just have to make music people can be SEEN WITH again.

The current vinyl resurgence confirms this, but unless a few changes are made NOW, it will never truly become a a THING.

Starbucks is a THING. Apple is a THING. Tidal is not.

What the industry needs to do in order for vinyl to also be a THING is:

1. Get the pricing correct.

This is an over-simplification, sure, but barrels of oil are going for less than $50, so why am I being asked to pay $23 for a new band's album on vinyl? Truth be told, even $17 seems a bit much. If you can somehow keep it in the $10 realm, you've got my patronage and that of those who probably haven't bought new music since they got their first iPhone.

2. Make it eco-friendly.

The vinyl they make albums out of today contains poisonous chemicals that, when released into the air, ground or water, is highly poisonous and, thus, non-recyclable. Additionally, it is petroleum oil-based and, therefore, not "green" in any sense of the word. Also, those album jackets came from trees, which, last time I checked, don't grow on trees, heh heh.

All things considered, you can't very well have a modern-day resurgence of a physical product that flies in the face of those among us who are at least moderately militant in our attempt to be friendly to the environment.

The sad thing is, we're dealing with an industry that is, above all else, lazy.

And yet, believe it or not, they're still pressing vinyl copies of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon to be sold to trust-fund hipsters for $23 when there are already bajillions of original copies in record stores already that can be had for a fraction of the price.

Me want touch teh vinyls!

Would you rather pay $23 to own a pristine copy of Dark Side of The Moon that smells like a Barnes & Nobles or $5 for a "pre-owned" copy that smells like twenty years of weed and sex?

Oddly enough, what may be a great reason to buy a used Floyd record is a horrible reason to buy a used futon (which is Swedish for "fart collection"), just saying.

Of course, you can never go wrong by associating your product with "weed and sex". I mean, we all partake in one, if not both, of those activities and, let's face it, there is nothing quite like having to stop mid-hump just to flip the record, but that's a minor annoyance because getting to that point was half the fun of owning records in the first place. The annoyance is part of the experience because, along with it, comes so much joy!