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It’s not the most dire thing going on in the world right now, but musicians are hurting. One of my favorite activities to help them: spend $10, download an album, new or old, put on decent headphones, go for a walk for an hour, listen start to finish.
An album a week is less than 3 lattes, or 4 subway rides, or one order of takeout pad thai. ~$500 a year, 50 albums, buy from a great vendor like bandcamp and the artists keep most of it, Walk at the same time & get a social media break, focused listening, & a little workout.
If you’re in the arts it’s a tax write-off. If you’re not, it’s a little bit of societal payback for what silicon valley took away from musicians so everybody could get their rocks off with free or nearly free streaming.
Even if you buy once a month, you are getting a great deal - 12 a year for $120. Each album you get to keep forever & listen as much as you want. Even if you are not buying new releases but instead buying classic albums, (no shame in that!) artists benefit more than streaming.
About 9 months ago I bought Dr. John’s Desitively Bonnaroo and me and my kid have listened to it about 1000 times. It was $9. This has got to be one of the greatest cost-benefit ratios in modern life next to, I don’t know, ibuprofen or something.
We ordered groceries and got some keto salad dressing or something and I was thinking, damn, I could have bought Joe Henderson’s The Standard Joe instead and life would be so much better.
