ORIGINAL REDDIT POST
self-hosted but I want to pay for music. Is there any place where we can get bulk music discounts?
I self-host my music but still want to buy the flac/mp3 downloads rather than pirate. The problem is that everywhere I look, the songs are like a dollar each, whereas if you buy the entire album, then its like 50 cents per song, but obviously entire albums…
I self-host my music but still want to buy the flac/mp3 downloads rather than pirate. The problem is that everywhere I look, the songs are like a dollar each, whereas if you buy the entire album, then its like 50 cents per song, but obviously entire albums suck. Is there a middle ground where you agree to buy a minimum amount of songs, say $200 and then you can get a bulk discount, but its individual tracks, not "albums"? That is the missing piece.
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Yeah… pick better albums? 😆
Yeah, like what?
Or pirate it all and start buying slowly over time if the upfront costs aren't doable for the whole catalog.
Do you mean the Columbia Music Club? I used to signup for those over and over and just never pay 😂
If you buy a physical release on Bandcamp, you get the FLAC download included as well as unlimited streaming. That's the best of all scenarios
I only like 300-500 songs, and would gladly not pirate and would pay 50 cents per track since that is what albums go for.
"entire albums suck" ?
I think after spotify people like to only cherry pick songs that they like
Tried searching for a few bands, but can't find anything recognizable.
Bandcamp often has pay what you what or a bundle of an artist's or label's discography for a steep discount.
I wrote a small CLI that I can run that goes through my Lidarr watch list and searches for them on Bandcamp, prints the link, and then pauses for me to buy, then it downloads. I kinda want to automate it fully, but I’d need some serious guardrails to be confident.
"Albums suck" interesting theory. There is an amazing technology. CDs. Buy the album. Rip the album. Then you control the quality. Listening to a whole album, you will find a lot more you like.
Artists only make money (ha) from releases anyways, you can always just buy singles or eps instead of albums. There is no version of paying for your music that will ever feel less than very, very expensive if you are trying to own all the music you listen to. That’s hasn’t been realistic for many decades. Pirate digital, buy physical.
Keep in mind that at the height of the pre-Napster era, the industry was charging as much as $20+ (and that's twenty 1990s dollars, which is worth about $50 today) for CDs more or less exactly because they could. Bulk discounts to consumers isn't really in their business model and never really has been - even the "12 cds for a penny" scams were just an attempt to lock you into buying an overpriced CD from them every month.
Not following you on how entire albums obviously suck
How much time to you have? Go to your local library, check out all the CDs you like, rip them to the format you prefer, then return them and get more. Will mostly be older music but some libraries are still buying CDs. Yes I'm a millennial.
Pay for the stuff you can afford. Pirate the rest. If you feel bad about pirating it, buy it. Also, albums are incredible. Try a few by your favourite artists. Imagine only wanting to view 1/12 of the Mona Lisa.
Set a monthly budget. Purchase that dollar amount. Pirate the rest. Or just set the price you think is fair and then buy/don't buy until your tracks average out to that price. A lot of stuff on bandcamp.com is "pay what you want" with a suggested price too.
Buy merch
Thrift stores often have cds cheap
If only BMG was still around…
Secondhand CDs on ebay are like $1
There is op finding only 3 good songs in an album and me finding 3 amazing albums every week lol!
There’s no difference between a friend letting you borrow their CD and pirating. Support the artist by other means. Go to their concerts, buy their merch, etc. I go to 2-3 music festivals a year. I spend too much money on music (but I love it). Pirating has been around for a while and yet the music industry makes more and more money every year. Pirating does not hurt businesses it only exposes that their business model doesn’t work. If a customer buys a product they can do whatever they want with it. It’s unreasonable to treat people like children with the things they’ve purchased. I don’t see any moral issue with pirating.