Music Consumption 2020

CDs purchased: Digital album downloads: CDs from LaLa swaps: Digital singles downloaded: # of music service subs: Live shows attended:

04 86 - - 50 - 30

05 76 - - 38 - 26

06 50 44 69 63 1 36

07 64 70 28 22 1 35

08 62 65 11 38 1 44

09 101 50 7 60 1 35

10 59 12 - 22 - 35

11 73 13 - 58 - 36

12 48 12 - 37 - 28

13 58 11 - 28 - 32

14 37 12 - 39 - 44

15 43 1 - 14 - 38

16 31 2 - 17 - 38

17 14 16 - 4 2 38

18 18 10 - 5 2 40

19 34 12 - 1 3 45

20 2 30 - -- 3 7

It's time to call it: the CD is dead to me. This year, I bought two CDs. Both were used. I bought them only because the music was otherwise unavailable on the three streaming services that I subscribe to. I think that's about the only reason that I will be buying CDs anymore. 

So what were the two CDs? Well, there was Fatboy Slim's The Norman Cook Collection, which is only partially available on streaming services (I assume it's copyright clearance issues, sigh). And also the classic 1988 Cowboy Junkies album, The Trinity Sessions, but the reissued, remastered SACD version, which is not available for streaming. 

Of course, I'm still buying plenty of new albums, but from Bandcamp (which accounts for nearly all my purchases this year), Patreon (where I support Amanda Palmer), HDTracks, or Qobuz, and generally only because (a) I like supporting artists, especially this year and (b) I'm old and thus like "owning" the music that I like most (but I don't need the actual physical artifacts). 

Overall, my album purchasing remains pretty stable after a steady decline, settling at a new normal of ~30 per year. For more casual listening and music discovery, I have easy access via streaming. 

And my streaming services story also remains stable, with Spotify (the family music sub, plus for playlist sharing and their excellent algo-personalized "Release Radar"), Qobuz (lossless streaming, better Euro/electronica inventory), and TIDAL (lossless streaming, better soul/hiphop/jazz inventory). This works out to $55/month for music, which is a bit less than I spent at my peak CD purchasing. But of my total spend, the major labels are seeing a lot more money, now that they've cut out retailers like Tower Records and Walmart, who previously took as much as 50% of the consumer spend (most online services are keeping less than 30% off the top). 

And here's to a better, more musical, 2021.