"The Third Hand" Kinda Sucks & Other Consumer Culture Discontents

I usually buy my music from stores--what a dated concept, right? It's just that I like to support artists, and I buy into the idea that they should receive money for their hard work. Moreover, I like owning art objects, even when they're mass-produced ones like books and CDs; in fact, come to think of it, those are the only kinds of art objects I can really afford anyway (branding me in some negative consumerist culture kind of way, whatever, let's save it for another post).

My point is this: Days like today make me rethink this strategy. I walk into the record store, plunk down some dough for RJD2's latest, bring it to work, play it, and promptly vomit in the garbage can. Okay, not really, and it's not completely wack, but (a) it's not work I want to give him financial support for and (b) it's not something I feel good about sitting on my shelf. I feel kind of embarassed to own it, to have validated its existence with my money.

It's disappointing that I can't bank on a musician's work to the point where I can just buy it blind, but I guess I should be more realistic. I don't know what got into dude's head that he decided it was a groovy idea to start singing (singing?!?), or why he felt it wasn't necessary to include any kind of beat on half the songs, but that's his perogative, and the responsibility is mine to do a little research before I make that purchase. I still feel cheated though; if I knew what emo was, I think this would be it.

Ugh. Makes me want to hop on the illegal download bandwagon.