Digital wave growing but vinyl keeps turning

Paul MacDougall of Cape Girardeau is a member of the old school of music collectors.

He doesn't download music off the Internet. "I don't have the patience to download an album," he says.

He doesn't carry an iPod around, and most of MacDougall's record collection is exactly that -- a record collection, vinyl.

MacDougall is also in another old school -- that of independent record store owners.

As the way people buy music changes, many music consumers are turning away from music stores like MacDougall's P-Mac Music in Cape Girardeau and toward the digital medium. They now get their songs and albums from places like the iTunes store legally, to the tune of 180 million tracks in the period from January to June.

Of those, 159 million were downloaded in the United States, up from 55 million in the first half of last year. At the same time, sales of albums were down 7 percent when comparing the same periods.

Scores of those digital tracks were bought by Cape Girardeau resident Tim Baskin. Since he got DSL Internet access about three years ago, Baskin has joined the new school of music fans, those who mix digitally downloaded music with hard media like CDs.

The new school was started in the late 1990s, when free file sharing networks used peer-to-peer technology to allow users to illegally swap songs. Now many users have stopped the free swap in fear of lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America.

Baskin used to do more free downloading but now buys music online.

"I use the iTunes store constantly," said Baskin. "I don't have a problem laying down 99 cents for a particular song, and they have specials and extras that are even cheaper."

While Baskin has recently returned to buying more CDs, there was a period when he was almost exclusively digital -- one of the new age of music consumers. Their turntable is an MP3 player that can hold thousands of songs. Their record is an intangible chunk of digital information.

But like Baskin, many of them still cling to the old ways, hovering somewhere between MacDougall and the all-digital realm.

Jarrett Green of Cape Girardeau has downloaded 200 to 300 songs in the past year. Green and Baskin were turned on to the digital music wave for much the same reason. They can find obscure artists whose music is hard to come by outside a metropolitan area.

"There's no store in Cape Girardeau where I can go and say, 'What's out on this particular small label,'" said Green.

But for Green, the digital revolution has had another effect. He now buys more music on traditional media.

"It lets me hear about bands I wouldn't know of and try them out before I buy a CD," said Green. "I'm not going to go to a store and spend $20 to $25 on a band I've never heard. That's just stupid."

MacDougall thinks the digital market is creating more and more Baskins and Greens -- people who find out more online and then buy at the physical store, not the one in cyberspace.

"As far as downloading goes I think it really hasn't had an effect here," said MacDougall. "It's a wash. Some people download and are happy with it. Obviously we lose those sales. But for others, it exposes people to music they wouldn't ordinarily have."

While some people may be happy with a hit song here and there, MacDougall said, true music collectors want the real thing. They want a disc, they want art, they want liner notes. And they'll always be there.

"It's a cheap way to get music, but it has no value," said MacDougall. "You can't take a burned disc and sell it on eBay in 30 years."

MacDougall compares the digital music revolution to the way he used to copy records onto cassette tape, which didn't kill the industry.

Baskin said his iPod actually influenced him to start buying more albums.

"Having the iPod kind of gave me this idea that I can take this iPOD and fill it with music I can really own, and music's really important to me," said Baskin. "When I was downloading a lot I was just getting it to get it. It was more about the search and the hunt and the find than it was about enjoying the music."

MacDougall is confident that even though there are those wayward souls there will still be a market for the music store. After all, people can't get a vinyl copy of Roger Waters' obscure solo album "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" on the iTunes store.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

By the numbers:

* 159 million songs downloaded in United States January to June 2005 -- 180 million worldwide

* 55 million downloaded in U.S. January to June 2004

* 2.2 million people worldwide use music subscription services

* 900 million illegally downloaded tracks, January to June 2005

* iTunes Music Store reached 500 million songs sold July 17

* 29 percent of recorded music obtained in 2004 was on burned CDs

* 16 percent obtained through file-sharing networks

Source: International Federation of Phonographic Industries, Apple, Recording Industry Association of America