{"id":387,"date":"2025-09-15T11:04:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2025-09-15T11:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:14:17","slug":"buying-physical-music-matters-more-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/uncategorized\/buying-physical-music-matters-more-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Buying Physical Music Matters More Than Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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TL;DR: Streaming music pays artists poorly (e.g., $0.003\u2013$0.006 per stream on Spotify) and consumes massive energy (0.55\u20130.95 terawatt-hours yearly). Physical media like CDs\/vinyl or direct downloads (e.g., Bandcamp) support artists better and are more sustainable. Buy new to support artists, second-hand for older music, and use streaming only for discovery to resist a broken, wasteful system.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have lived with physical music for decades. Shelves of vinyl, boxes of CDs, even the occasional SACD or cassette. They take up space, they need care, and they are not cheap. Yet each time I put one on, two things feel solid. First, the artist has been properly supported. Second, I am not quietly fuelling the energy consumption disaster that is music streaming.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The money problem with streaming<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s begin with the finances, because for musicians it is often the most immediate concern. The numbers are stark. Spotify pays artists between $0.003 and $0.006 per stream, according to the company\u2019s own figures and independent studies. That means a musician might need 300 plays of one song just to earn one Euro. Apple Music pays a little more at around a penny per stream, and Tidal claims to offer higher payouts, though its market share is small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put this into perspective: one album sold on CD or vinyl might equal the revenue of several thousand streams. In a world where artists rely on touring and merchandise to survive, streaming adds insult to injury by offering only a trickle of income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way the money is divided makes it worse. A large portion of those tiny per-stream payments never reaches the artist at all but is funnelled to labels, publishers, and middlemen. Contracts often mean artists see only 15\u201320% of the already microscopic revenue. So when you stream a track on Spotify, the musician you love may only receive a fraction of a fraction of a penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buying direct changes everything<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Contrast that with buying a CD or vinyl at a gig. When you hand over \u20ac15 for a CD, the band will usually keep \u20ac7\u201310 of that. With vinyl, they might net \u20ac10\u201320 depending on pressing and distribution costs. On Bandcamp, an artist keeps 85 per cent of the digital price, and on Bandcamp Fridays almost 100 per cent. Suddenly your \u20ac10 purchase translates directly into meaningful support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even on iTunes, which takes a 30 per cent cut, an artist selling an album for \u20ac10 earns \u20ac7, hundreds of times more than they would from the same listener streaming the album once or twice. The maths is clear. Streaming is only financially useful for megastars with millions of monthly plays. For the rest, it is a pittance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The energy cost of streaming<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The other side of the story is the excessive energy consumption, and this is where streaming\u2019s marketing sheen truly falls apart. We have been encouraged to believe that streaming is somehow cleaner than making plastic discs. In fact the opposite is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2019 study by researchers at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oslo looked at the environmental impact of recorded music across formats. When CDs peaked in the early 2000s, the US recording industry used around 0.3 terawatt-hours of electricity annually. By the streaming era, the figure had risen to between 0.55 and 0.95 terawatt-hours per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because every stream is not just a local play of a file you own. It requires massive energy inputs across the chain. The track is stored on servers in huge data centres that consume electricity around the clock and require constant cooling. That data is processed, broken into packets, transmitted through networks across continents, and reassembled by your phone or computer before it ever reaches your speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now consider the push towards \u201chi-res\u201d audio. A standard MP3 might be three or four megabytes. A FLAC file of the same song at 24-bit \/ 96 kHz can easily be 50 megabytes. Multiply that across millions of users streaming billions of tracks and the energy requirements skyrocket. Apple\u2019s Lossless tier and Tidal\u2019s MQA and FLAC offerings are marketed as progress. In truth, they increase the load on data centres and networks dramatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a CD or record is made, by contrast, the impact is mostly up front. You can play it thousands of times without any further demand beyond the electricity to power your hi-fi. Buy it second-hand and you have avoided new manufacturing altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second-hand question<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Second-hand shops and Discogs are part of my own collecting habits. They are just better: no new plastic, no energy spent, simply reusing what is already out there. The catch is obvious though. A second-hand CD from 1997 puts no money into the pocket of the artist today. For older catalogues this is perhaps acceptable; the disc exists, the artist has long since been paid whatever tiny royalty was due, but for new music it is no substitute for buying fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the balance is simple. Support new artists by buying new physical media or digital downloads. Support sustainability by adding second-hand purchases into the mix when you want to explore older works. Both routes keep you out of the mess of streaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ownership and permanence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is also a cultural dimension that should not be overlooked. Physical media gives you permanence. When you own a CD or record, it cannot be altered without your consent. The mastering is fixed. The track list is fixed. Your copy is yours, unaffected by label politics or streaming company decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streaming libraries are in constant flux. Albums vanish when contracts expire. Versions change silently. Remasters replace originals without warning, often compressed and fatiguing to listen to. Some tracks are edited for \u201csensitivity\u201d, others disappear altogether. What you thought you had saved as a playlist turns out to be temporary access to a catalogue controlled entirely by corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I personally find that unacceptable. My shelves may be heavy, but they represent certainty. They are a record of choices made, of music I wanted to live with, and they cannot be taken away at the flick of a licensing dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans hold the power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Streaming companies are not going to change out of goodwill. They will only change if listeners alter their spending. Money talks. Every Euro you put into Spotify\u2019s pocket tells the industry you are content with this broken model. Every Euro spent on a CD at a gig, a vinyl on an artist\u2019s website, or a download on Bandcamp sends the opposite message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans have far more power than they realise. Labels watch sales numbers closely. Platforms track revenue. If there is a sustained shift away from streaming and towards direct support, business models will follow. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practical steps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that supporting artists and reducing streaming\u2019s energy consumption is straightforward. Buy physical media direct from artists whenever you can. If you enjoy vinyl, order it from their store or pick it up at the merch table. If CDs suit your lifestyle better, do the same. Use Bandcamp for downloads, especially on Bandcamp Fridays when nearly all of the money goes to the artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mix in second-hand shopping for older catalogues to reduce waste and avoid new pressing. Ripping those discs or records into your own digital library gives you the same convenience as streaming without the constant data transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you do keep a streaming subscription for discovery, treat it as just that: discovery. When you find something you love, buy it. Do not assume that the few streams you contribute are doing the job of support. They are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A personal act of resistance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For me, every physical purchase feels like resistance against a system that has devalued music and very likely damaged the environment. When I play a record, I know it belongs to me, it will always belong to me, and the musician who created it has received real support. That is worth infinitely more than the illusion of access offered by Spotify or Apple Music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streaming should not be the future of music. It is a dead-end of disposability and endlessly increasing energy consumption. The future lies where it always has: in listeners valuing what they love enough to own it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TL;DR: Streaming music pays artists poorly (e.g., $0.003\u2013$0.006 per stream on Spotify) and consumes massive energy (0.55\u20130.95 terawatt-hours yearly). Physical media like CDs\/vinyl or direct downloads (e.g., Bandcamp) support artists better and are more sustainable. Buy new to support artists, second-hand for older music, and use streaming only for discovery to resist a broken, wasteful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cann.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}