Now that I'm thinking about backing up my files once again (already have my 40 gig collection on two externals), I vaguely remember an event where my computer completely crashed and deleted all my music. This however, was back in 2001 where I had a shitty Compaq that couldn't even play Starcraft and Kazaa was the biggest thing (though slightly diminishing). My collection might have been around 300 songs, but they were all random, chart topping artists.

Come to think of it again, without that deletion, I wouldn't have pursued a more "rock" based genre. Yeah, then middle school came along and life started sucking and thus, deeper and darker tones, heavier music. Yeah all makes sense now how the ball got rolling.

I have 2 Hard disks 1 with Windows and one with Linux and I stored all my music on a Fat32 partition on the Linux disk.
One day I'm listening to my music and suddenly it starts stuttering then keeps skipping tracks, so I restart the computer and a whole load of my music has just disappeared , not all of it, just some which was wierd. The computer did some hard drive fix to sort out whatever was corrupted then I added back what I had on my memory stick, which fortunately was most of my metal, I then started listening again and it happened again, this time deleting everything that didn't get deleted 1st time. So I copied from my stick again and made about 3 backups luckily a lot of my metal was safe but unfortunately some classical I hadn't copied over had got deleted, but on the plus side it did get rid of a load of shit music that I used to listen to
And I lost a load of music that I borrowed from a friend so I have to reborrow his CD's

And yes, the majority was downloaded, I simply don't have the money to be paying for all these things, at the moment I am saving most of my money for festivals, gigs and merchandise, so I would be skint if I bought CD's as well, and I would have a far less varied collection. As the money I would have spent is largely going to bands I listen to anyway it doesn't really seem much of a problem, this way they get a higher percentage of my money anyway, if what I have heard is to be believed.

i hate to say i now agree, wholeheartedly.

the other day i viewed this topic and was like "meh", but, just days later, i managed to spill water or vodka (couldve been either) on my laptop, on which my entire "Heavy Metal, "modern Metal" "Punk Rock" (largely consisting of a massive 80s hardcore collection, and "classic rock" collections were stored. i did have my all important "heavy metal" collection of about 2000 albums backed up, bands noone i know has heard of, rare gems and possibly the biggest NWOBHM collection in the country up until about 3 months ago, coz i needed the space on my external for other stuff, and it was becoming too much of a chore to drag every new album through, considering my extensive organisational phas involved in processing through albums once, let alone twice. a decision i regret.

so anyways, thats my extensive metal collection gone. it cant be retrieved from the drive coz the whole thing fried. hahahaha! great. back to square one. all i can do is listen to whats on my 8gb ipod nano until i get a new system, and get all the music i can back off my friends (backed up the folder to a friend about 4 months ago, but thats got no where near the total amount that i lost. )


serves me right for not backing up.

I own every single mp3 in my collection, unless it was freely available anyway. No joke. And I'm a student working part time.

The "buy the CDs" argument only works if you're referring to buying the CDs new, from a retailers, the artists, label etc.

If you're telling people to buy a CD, and then telling them to buy it used somewhere, they may as well download, since the artists won't make anymore money off of the album, since it's been bought before. Now the money will only go to the seller, which isn't really who you are trying to support.

actually, buying used or from a retailer is essentially the same. retailers buy the CDs wholesale from the label and then sell them back to you. when someone buys a CD from, say, wal-mart or something, 100% of that money goes to wal-mart.
if you buy a used CD, 100% of that money goes to the seller and 100% of the money the seller used to buy it went to the retailer he/she bought it from.

in other words, retail sucks.

all whining about my lost awesome music collection; i gave up buying CDs for several resons:

1. most of bands i want to get are long since broken up being that about 75% of the stuff i listen to is 80s stuff

2. most people hunt out bargains on USED stuff, for instance on eBay and shit, so theres no royalties there.

3. i couldnt find the stuff i want in any stores, particularly i NZ and i dont have, or wish to get a credit card.

4. the stores round here overcharge. for instance i once bought a compilation(!) album of a fairly well known influential 80s act, that said 'imported' and cost $52.00. thats like $25.00 USD. CDs, especially the rarer or harder to come by ones, round here are ridiculously expensive, for something that is far easier to come by, for free on the internet, where the profits would just be going to some rich business jerk overcharging on selling CDs of bands he knows or cares fuck all about.

5. the money goes to aforementioned jerks. the mark up is ridiculous even if any money was to find its way to the artists themselves, it would be absolutely fuck all. shop owner takes most, then distro, and possibly record co.

6. found out about pretty much 2/3rds of the bands im into via the internet. hence, attend concerts/purchase other products of said bands.

7. Cds just clutter up the place and are another thing to fucking move when you move, and ive most fuckloads.all the CDs i bought i just backed up, and discarded after years of lugging them around.

8. Cds are easily damaged, especially when partying, or super-especially when you lend them out; that is, if you even get them back at all.

9. why acknowledge department, or 'mega-stores' that they influence or take part in your musical life by supporting their greedy asses in purchasing your beloved heavy metal from them. dunno about you, but i dont care for the 'trendy' and 'institutionalised' aspects of the major music retailer in my city, that every fucking yuppie douche-tard can be seen wandering into on a friday evening after work to buy the latest NZ dub CD to play at their workmates rugby party.

fuck having a middleman involved anywhere.

Exactly this. I'm 24 and have somehow afforded well over 1000 CDs to date. I used to have 60GB of metal mp3s but have access to them no longer. It sucks, but I didn't pay for them so i'm not going to bitch about it. Thankfully, i've got craploads of physical music to listen to, it sounds great, and it just keeps getting more grand!

CDs are great.

People shouldn't assume everyone is in the same fiscal position they are in. I'm not saying that most people can't afford a few CDs a week or so, but even if you have the spare money, there are better things to do with it then blow it on CDs.

I mean, anyone with a family can spend the money on them (their kids, spouse, etc.), people with loans to pay shouldn't be spending much (unless you expect to get an amazing job soon), and overall, I can think of tons of things to better spend my money on then CDs. Now if I was rich, this would be a different story, but just because I can muster up a bit of money at the end of each week, doesn't mean CDs are the first thing I'll rush to buy.

Not to say I don't buy music, I actually buy a lot of Vinyl records and I buy imported records (mainly because they have bonus material on them a lot of the time). But I wouldn't know a fraction of the music I love if I had to wait to buy everything, and sadly I just can't.

But I'm pretty sure all this Downloading/Physical Product talk is kind of off topic, no?

Yeah, blow it on vinyls and tapes.

I find that I like having the cd's in my possestion; its like having art in your room; the covers are sweet and it contains lyrics of songs in it so by the cd's.