I love CDs. I love owning them, hunting down ones that are out of print, listening to them and admiring the artwork and photography and sheer effort and creativity that has gone into its creation and it worries me that people seem to think it will one day have its demise. I think that would be a real tradgedy, but then i guess thats what lovers of Vinyl always feel at the limited production of that format.

I don't download music. I will rip it to mp3 for my player, but I always buy the CD. I think it would be hypocritical of me to say I support an artist and not do this, to not acknowledge that effort made. As well, for an International fan it would be difficult for me to actually be involved in the k-pop scene legitimately without CDs as buying a digital single is near impossible unless you can navigate the sites and own korean credit cards.

The mp3 itself almost devalues the effort by making music so easy to exchnage and download its like breathing air. It cannot really represent the effort of the singer, songwriter, lyricist, producer, technicians, and musicians that put the work in, the hours of rehearsng and performances, the assistants and directors and dancers. They sacrifice so much time and effort to make this ghappen, so its not much to part with a few dollars to say thank you and ensure that they can continue to do this.

It would be shameful of me to express concern for an artist's well being and health from overworking and then download the song which takes that effort and ignores what it costs. For me its a bond between artist and fan/supporter. We buy the CD so they can keep making music thats decent quality without having to sacrifice their health and sleep and shorten their life spans with stupid working hours. That is all downloading will do.

It goes back to my previous post on merchnadising out-weighing the importance of the sale of CDs. Its something I noticed a lot lately that a set of phone charms, or perfume costs more than a CD and represents little of the musical effort.

My current CD collection of Korean, Chinese and Western stands at maybe 600 or more altogether i think at least 200 are Korean and that will only ever increase.