THE BIG DEBATE: Downloads vs CDs

Welcome to our latest blog feature, The Big Debate. With Radiohead releasing their new album in digital form before a physical release, we approach the subject of downloads from the position of a fan who is resisting the digital world and one who has embraced it. Where do YOU stand?

THE WRITER: No Way, Computer

I, not to put too fine a point on it, am a geek. Some people see this as an insult, but I wear it as a badge of honour. I collect things, hoard them and proudly display them around my bedroom, living room, hell even my kitchen. Posters, DVDs, comic books, graphic novels, action figures, magazines... they’re all neatly organised and stored in their right place in my otherwise messy flat.

By and large, the same can't be said about my music collection. I've never really gotten into music in the same way I have my other passions and my pitifully small CD collection can be found in the corner of my living room dangling off the shelves, out of order and usually not even in the right case. My collector instincts, therefore, have not been particularly offended by the recent boom in downloading music. Until, that is, Radiohead decided hop on the bandwagon this week.

Now, I don't just like Radiohead, I love them. They, along with the Manic Street Preachers, helped mould me into the person I am today. Without them I wouldn't have read some of my favourite books, seen some of my favourite films or listened to some of my favourite albums. When one of their records is released, I build up the anticipation, read the reviews and scour the web for interviews (always difficult with Radiohead) before rushing out to buy it, always, of course, in its most collectible form: the road map edition of Hail to the Thief; the battered library book version of Amnesiac and both the regular and apocalyptic storybook incarnations of Kid A.

I was therefore looking forward to the release of new album In Rainbows. But then, upon a lazy visit to an entertainment website on Monday, I read these terrifying words: Radiohead are set to release their new album next week... on download only. The first part of that sentence felt like a dagger in my heart (how can I build up sufficient anticipation in a little over a week!? There‘ll be no reviews, no interviews, no nothing!!!) but the second part, well, that twisted the knife, pulled it out, poured salt in the wound and then repeated the move several times over.

The blow was softened somewhat by the news that while the album will be released via the great big cyber abyss that is the internet next week, a deluxe 'disc box' featuring CDs, vinyl and special artwork will emerge in December. Naturally I'll be forking out the £40 for that little baby (I'll never play the vinyl, but that's the price of being a collector...) but that doesn't make up for the fact that the early online release (along with the 'name your price' cost) is clearly a dry run and, if successful, it could encourage more bands to release their music online well ahead of its release in physical form.

Call me a luddite, but when I buy music, I don't want to do it over the web. I want to go into the record store, pay an actual human being for the album, go home and stick it in my CD player while thumbing carefully through the inlay, reading the lyrics and admiring the artwork. Then, when I'm done, I want to place it on (the neat part of) my shelf. There's a geeky thrill to this, a ritualistic enjoyment. Like smelling that great odour of a new book, or seeing the flecks of dust pass across the light of a projector in the cinema, it's a vital part of enjoying the art form.

Downloading simply doesn't have this. Where's the joy in accessing a website and coldly clicking on the album you want? Where's the joy in seeing a white bar slooooowly filling up with little green rectangles? Where's the joy in uploading the music to your MP3 player? Where, in other words, is the love? If this experiment proves a success all these little rituals, all this love and enjoyment will be as doomed as one of Thom Yorke's protagonists. And then, we'll be facing a world more drab and desolate than the one in my Kid A storybook.

THE EDITOR: OK Computer

Much like The Writer, I am a geek, but only really when it comes to music. My entire life can be shattered by a bad football result (well, for a few days anyway), but despite making a living from writing about the sport, I'm not obsessive about the stats or collecting memorabilia or anything like that. Up until about three years ago, collecting was definitely something I did a lot of when it came to music though, and my CD collection was enormous.

Not only was it enormous, but, entirely unlike The Writer's music collection (believe me, I've seen it), it was meticulously arranged, alphabetised by artist and then chronological within each artist. Not much gave me greater pleasure than seeing all the Beatles albums lined up on a shelf, running from Please Please Me to the Anthologies. So why is my CD collection now all but non-existent?

Simple, after initially rejecting the concept of digital music as being something that went against the whole point (the artwork, the thrill of holding it in your hands, etc, etc) of it all, I realised that music is music and having a little machine in your pocket that contains your entire collection (or at least most of it) is just indescribably wonderful, not to mention more convenient than lugging around about 20 CDs a day so that you've got a choice of what you want to listen to.

Do I miss having a massive cupboard-full of CDs to look at, stroke and feel superior about? Not at all, because I can still admire my music collection in iTunes, which nowadays has the cover art with the albums anyway. Buying music digitally is much quicker, more convenient and cheaper than going into HMV, even with their seemingly never-ending BIGGEST SALE EVER. If you want, you can select which tracks you want to have, though I'm too much of a geek to not want the whole album anyway.

But anyway, having crossed over to the dark side of no packaging and no cupboard full of stuff, what about this new Radiohead album. Even I think that it's a strange decision to launch it in this way, but no stranger than leaving messages in code on your website or a band as good as they are making an album as tedious as Hail To The Thief. So, I've ordered In Rainbows from their website as a download and decided to pay £0.00 for the privilege.

Apparently lots of people have been selecting their own price by paying a regular price for the download, which seems bizarre, but those people probably try to pay their family for their birthday presents. The discbox thing seems ludicrously overpriced for the album, plus another CD, two vinyl LPs plus some photos and a no doubt entirely pretentious and pointless book, so I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything by only getting the music.

If the music is good enough, then you don't need all the packaging or the 'experience' of buying it. I'm not sure if that makes me more or less of a music geek, but it's the way it is. Downloading is quicker, easier and cheaper, while using a quality music store like emusic opens up a whole world of amazing music that you simply wouldn't be able to find in HMV or even one of the disappearing indie shops out there. Like everything else, the music world is evolving and downloading is just a step forwards, like CDs were back in their day. I've chosen to take that step and I've never regretted it. On the contrary, it's one of the best I've ever made.