“Not for U” Tube

YouTube stands by UK video block

As I write this I am a few feet from the shelves that groan under the weight of my CD collection. I have a (as yet unrealised) plan to arrange them alphabetically one day…but generally they are in a fairly random order.

Except, that is, for those on the end of the last shelf…they are mostly the newest – at least in terms of when I brought them.

If I was to list those I have brought over the last two or three years, I can guarantee that most of my friends (as well as most of my small circle of blog readers) would say “Who?” to many, many of them…

Just picking out 10 artists…

Band of Horses, Blake Babies, Chantel Kreviazuk, Gillian Welsh, Veruca Salt, Toby Lightman, Tara Maclean, Richard Shindell, Newton Faulkner and Liz Phair…

OK, there’s also the latest U2, Bruce Springsteen etc etc…but the point is that I would say that at least half of the last 50 albums that I bought are anything but household names. A major reason for this was my use (up to a year ago) of Pandora (and to a lesser extend other similar services) – I’ve blogged on that before so I won’t repeat myself – but I want to make the point (again) that far from the music industry losing out by my listening to streaming tracks, I ended up buying far more music (particularly by lesser known artists and therefore more in need of sales, one would suppose) than I would have without Pandora, Last FM or Utube.

Also, I say “over the last two or three years” when actually I shouldn’t really include last year – i.e. after the loss of Pandora –I have “discovered” far less music since…go figure, PRS…

I would have probably bought U2, Bruce and the other “big” groups/singers but would in all likelihood never heard of Kris Delmhorst or Dead Can Dance…

And occasionally, after hearing a few more tracks from an album, I decided against buying it when I might have if I had only heard the latest single…but not often…

And I also guess that there are some people that might decide not to buy music anymore because they can watch the video on Utube…but somehow I doubt this happens too often; after all, my years of watching Top of the Pops and listening to Radio One didn’t stop me !!!

So, although I’m not a big UTube viewer, I see with sadness and amazement (although not with surprise) that the PFS and UTube can’t get their act together…

..from what I’ve read UTube aren’t exactly helping matters – but the PRS seem to be the proverbial dinosaurs yet again…does no one who works for them have the slightest understanding of the digital world in which we now live???

Will anyone be surprised if more people turn to the pirate sites???