It’s not as crazy as it sounds. 67 million Americans over 12 years old now own digital music players.[i]Been a while since you saw someone with a Discman®, huh?It’s pretty clear- this is just how we get our music now.[ii]It’s a cool trend, and one that makes music more personal, portable, and affordable. When you really get down to it, ‘no CDs’ not only means music to your ears, but also to your wallet and your Earth…
Music to your wallet
When you buy a CD, you’re not just paying for the music, but all the packaging,
It’s a pretty simple calculation- the average price of a new CD is close to $18,[iii] and downloads are typically $.99/song. It’s not often that you get 18 songs from an $18 CD, so what you’re paying for is all the extras- inserts, jewel cases, etc. You don’t have to worry about that with downloads.With digital music you only pay for what you want- there’s no “album fillers[iv]” you’ll never listen to, anyhow.
Downloading digital music legally saves you money in the long run, too.Stealing music from the internet can only end in tears.
[v]And doesn’t it feel good to know you’re supporting independent music?Yeah, it does.
Music to your ears
Because we’re not releasing traditional albums, that means you get more music, more often.Instead of having to wait two years for the next CD release, you get a new tune about every six weeks to add to your collection.[vi]“What? Really?! A new song available for download every six weeks?” you may exclaim. “How is that possible?”
Well, because we’re working solely with downloads, we’re not constrained to the album format.We want to keep our sound fresh and relevant, and we’ve been keeping up with the constantly improving home studio recording technology.Since the major labels make their homes on the coasts, it makes sense thatMP3s are not known for their stellar sound quality, but that’s all changing.Here’s the rundown: Over the past twenty years or so, pop albums have been recorded at higher and higher volumes in an effort to make songs stand out more on the radio.[vii]
With the advent of digital music, all that sound had to be squeezed into a manageable size, essentially cutting once nuanced recordings down to their bare bones and compressing them to fit inside an mp3 tin can.This is usually what gets loaded into your iPod. Yuck. But, there is a song at the end of tunnel!New high-fidelity MP3s can actually provide better sound quality than most CDs.[viii]The music industry as a whole isn’t quite there yet, but Stereo Sinai is going to make sure we’re bringing you the highest quality versions of our tunes available.- All that CD processing and packaging?
That not only costs you, it costs us as the artists (especially indie artists, but those signed to labels as well). All that money that we’re saving by only offering downloads goes straight into recording and producing higher quality music for you, our beloved listeners.[ix]
Music to your earth
CDs are produced from all kinds of environmentally unfriendly products. PVC, polycarbonate plastics, and a variety of metals go into CD and jewel case production, none of which is recycled (or recyclable).All the inserts and packaging that go into shipping CDs also go straight to landfills.[x]
Most importantly, the process of mining, refining, and producing all these ingredients has been shown to be not only harmful to the earth, but to the workers involved in these processes as well.[xi]All of these issues can be avoided through downloading digital music in place of traditional CDs.Green is making its mark on the music scene all over. Influential acts like Green Day, Sheryl Crow, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and KT Tunstall are all making efforts to care for our planet while rocking out.[xii]But that’s just artists signed to major labels.
Stereo Sinai is doing its part to challenge other indie acts to go green from the beginning. Bysubscribing to this blog, joining our community, and sticking to downloads, you’re helping us do just that.Not only are we concerned with keeping our music green, but our non-digital goods too. Rest assured, all the merchandise offered inour store is 100% eco-kosher.
Not offering CDs makes a lot of sense to us. We hope this answers some of your questions and gets you asking some more.[xiii]If you want to talk with us more about it, leave us a post,
send us an email… just keep the conversation going.
[vi] We promise.
[ix] Trust us on this one.
[x] The not-always-so-trustworthy Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually has a pretty cool (and accurate) poster laying out the life cycle of a CD at: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/students/finalposter.pdf. Check it out, but keep in mind that this stuff is happening in the real world. The cartoon format kind of softens the blow.
[xiii] Like, “Why aren’t there more progressive, socially conscious, environmentally aware, and smokin’ hot artists like Stereo Sinai out there doing the same thing?” Hmmm.
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