Never trust a streamer

Is there much that hasn't already been said in the streaming v physical media debate? Probably not, but ... anyway. Yeah, of course you can go to Spotify/Soundcloud/YouTube/Tidal/whatever, stump up the subscription or put up with the general clunkiness and non-smooth nature of it all, and ... stream away to your heart's content. And yes, equally, you can opt for splashing out on the over-priced hard stuff - fiercely expensive vinyl (new or old), CDs and tapes. Groovy. You might then get seriously into the business of building up your puny stash of never-quite-as-good-as-you-hoped-it-might-be physical media, embellishing it with a few "strategic" purchases from Discogs or whatever, maybe seizing on a "find" in a car boot sale and triumphantly coming home to slot a long-sought-after Velvet Underground rarities recording into the Vs on your sagging shelves. Yeah man, get digging. If you've got the time, money and inclination - there are plenty of businesses catering to your needs and you can basically fill up the rest of your life doing this stuff. (You could even start collecting a few stainless-steel drinking tumblers while you're at it, perhaps taking a nice large swig of orangeade as you contemplate the ups and downs of one-in-every-colour capitalism ...).

But wait! Where's this blog going? Isn't this just pointing out the obvious? Maybe, but reading US film critic Richard Brody's recent New Yorker piece about how ownership of films on DVD can be a "progressive act of defiance" against the whims of streaming companies driven principally by commerce is a useful reminder that the stuff you own can have an empowering counter-commercial value. It's yours not theirs. I think this is especially the case with specialists like the blogger Terminal Escape, who performs an incredible public service by putting rips of his massive collection of hardcore cassettes online (he's apparently done this on a daily basis since 2009). Ditto the Italian guy caveman78 with his excellent 60s freakbeat stuff at Paradise Of Garage Comps. And so on and so on. Bloggers like these are especially interesting because by freely sharing their huge collections of tapes or records or whatever they're allowing others to freely acquire them, bypassing the big price tags of the second-hand "collector" market and also making available stuff that no streaming service is ever going to provide. True, you have to download and store the files, messing around with file names and storage systems, possibly running out of space on your wheezing hard drive or whatever, but ... fine. It's great music and the people who live and breathe this stuff have essentially curated it for whoever may be interested. It'll never be quite as as "convenient" as a two-clicks-and-you're-away streaming system, but it's also not exactly difficult to get hold of either. And if you can get into any kind of habit of playing stuff from your hard drive, then it shouldn't just languish there forgotten either (this throws up the wider matter of whether you should try to counter the lure of the ultra-accessible by consciously devising playing systems that rebalance toward stuff that's clunkier to begin listening to: I think you should).  

So, er, what am I saying? Well, I guess a little like Brody and his anti-streaming collection of DVDs, I see the value in resisting the lure of streaming services while also appreciating their usefulness - Brody clearly esteems and uses the Criterion Channel while worrying about its limitations and ability to drop films whenever it wishes. Films-wise, I plug into MUBI's stuff on a regular basis but I'm also holding onto my DVDs (and videotapes). Music-wise, I might listen to stuff on Bandcamp (a quasi-streaming service?) every day, and to a lesser extent Soundcloud - and even, despite disliking it, muck about with YouTube (or does it muck about with me?) - but Brody's surely right to treat these kinds of "services" with suspicion. You have to assume they'll potentially disappear - or deteriorate beyond recognition - in a few years' time. No man, never trust a streamer. Don't believe me? Well, this is what happened when I just tried to stream Paramount Plus's South Park The Streaming Wars television special ...