Why buy music you never intend to play?
A new study shows that 15% of people who purchase music don't plan to play it. It sounds crazy, but you might have done it yourself …
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As someone who once marched to the shop to buy Kula Shaker's debut album K, I know all about buying music that never ends up getting played. But what about music that never gets played because the buyer never intends to play it in the first place (yes, sadly enough, I did intend to play K) … does that ever happen?
It does, and quite often, according to new research by ICM. Its study of the buying habits of music fans brought up several surprising findings: more people bought a CD last year (57%) than an MP3 download (39%); a whopping 13% of 25-34 year olds and 10% of 18-24 year olds purchased music on cassette in the last month. But perhaps the most unusual of all was the fact that, of those who do buy music on CD, vinyl or cassette tape, 15% never plan on playing them.
Interestingly, this isn't purely down to beardy record nerds trading obscure vinyl from the mid-70s Swedish psychedelic scene. According to the research the behaviour was driven largely by the younger 18-24 age group, of which just over a quarter (26%) bought music they had no intention of playing. While some of them will doubtless be avid collectors scouring eBay and hoping to make pension plan investments, it seems likely that other behaviour is at work to account for such a sudden trend to emerge.
My first reaction to reading these findings was bafflement as to why anyone would purchase music if they're not going to listen to it. But then I realised that I've subconsciously done it myself. Too young to have grown up with vinyl, I didn't own a record player until a few years ago, when the amount of vinyl that I'd accrued over time (mostly music industry freebies as it happens – feel free to heckle me at your leisure in the comments) convinced me it would be nice to have something to actually play them on. I loved the novelty of having a new music device at first and spent the next six months reacquainting myself with the joy of record shops – browsing to find albums I'd neglected or, more often, repurchasing albums I already owned on CD. There seemed something extra indulgent about playing a weighty vinyl reissue of Kraftwerk's Man Machine – such a forward thinking record – on an analog format.
It didn't take long, however, for practicality to take over. If I was upstairs, or cooking, or doing pretty much anything that didn't involve sitting by the record player and listening attentively, it became frustrating having to get up and turn the damn thing over after three or four songs. Things reached first-world-problem boiling point with my luxury double disc of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, which tweaked the sound quality to such an extent that the 11 tracks were spread over four sides of thick vinyl (hence requiring a flip every 10 minutes or so).
I resorted back to my MP3s playlists and Spotify, but for a while my vinyl buying continued, and I gradually became aware of the kinds of albums I was buying: Maggot Brain, Scott 4, the Last Poets, obscure Dutch cold wave bands with an austere sleeve design: all stuff that looked good, was critically adored, and might impress other music fans if left out against the wall (although whenever I did this it was purely by chance, of course). I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't exactly rush out to buy Right Said Fred's debut album again.
The more I think about it, it's not such an idiotic idea to buy a piece of music because it looks nice or conveys something of your personality, rather than to listen to it: it's the same reason, after all, we would buy a range of things, from glass vases to old football programmes. Urban Outfitters have long been selling frames to show off your vinyl on the wall rather than on your turntable, and why not when a decent sleeve design can be transformed into a piece of art for less than £20?
It's unclear whether this trend will last or if it's a mere blip, as it was for me. I rarely buy vinyl these days, unless I stumble across something unique somewhere. After all, I've got more than enough to line the walls of my flat , even if I'm no more likely to ever take the vinyl itself out of the packaging than I am that old CD of K.
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