Has YouTube caused any purchases?Music 

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Touring Mars

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Since the mention discussion of illegal activity extends as far as piracy and naughty music downloads, we haven't been able to say much about how these naughty downloads may have had a positive impact on our record purchasing, but now even the naughty download black market of mp3s is becoming almost obsolete for us 'honest naughty people' who only ever used P2P downloading programs for legitimate purposes i.e. to 'try it before you buy it'...

However, now YouTube has come along and is starting to change the way in which I hunt for new music, and (most significantly) it is starting to become more influential in shaping the choices I make in terms of what I want to buy...

However much I disagree with people who download illegal material without maintaining atleast the same level of purchasing that they would have normally, I have always been in favour of this 'try before you buy' attitude and maintain that P2P software and now YouTube has played the role in ensuring that, far from ceasing to purchase music, I simply seem to have stopped ending up with albums I don't like!

So has YouTube inspired any purchases by you recently, or at all?

This week I bought three new CD's and the first was 'Absent Lovers' by King Crimson, a live album encompassing their early 80's period and featuring arguably their strongest line-up at the peak of their prowess... Although I have the studio albums already, and have traditionally never been a fan of live albums, YouTube persuaded me to part with my cash for this album because King Crimson are ruddy great live, and the live material available via YouTube convinced me that I needed to have these songs as live versions, despite the fact that I have most if not all of them already on their original albums...


Sleepless


Frame by Frame


Three Of A Perfect Pair


Discipline​
 
It was Youtube that caused me to hunt high and low (fruitlessly) for the Dresden Dolls' albums.

Then, eBay had the answer.
 
Well, there are a ton of kendo instructional and tournament videos clips and previews that I would definitely buy if they weren't in Japanese.

I also bought a few albums (Modal Soul by Nujabes) after watching videos with songs in them.
 
Yup, loads. Infact thats how I found that I liked all of Linkin Parks songs. Of course then I often found songs in video clips tat I thought were cool then traced them up, listen to them on Youtube then if I still liked them, then bought them. As an example I saw a advert on channel 5 for "Hellboy" which had some cool music in. I traced up the music using youtube to find the song was Foo Fighters- The Pretender. Its now my most listened to song as I purchased it the next day.

I love Youtube. 👍
 
Never. I do, however, use YouTube to watch various concert recordings that are otherwise unavailable anywhere else (commercially or otherwise). There has also been several instances where I am trying to learn a song, but just can't quite pick up the guitar part from the original version, so I switch over to YouTube to see how other amateurs interpreted the original song. I do this often.
 
Youtube used to only be for losing brain cells i.e. stupid videos but now surprising it's a great way to discover and preview new music. It's also been really good at previewing what to expect for products like recently I've been looking into UMPCs and games as well especially ones that are questionable buys. As for buying stuff well lets just way I don't buy anything at retail.
 
Well i did discover a few songs on youtube. But i think only one did make me ended up buying an album. Its a band called "Mew" that my friend likes to listen to. Its a Indie/Prog Rock band from Denmark. Well i didn't even know or like the band and i didn't even want to listen to it. But then my friend post some links to a few of their videos. He said just ask me to watch it so i did. Well there was one song that was so touching (or i don't know what to say....) that make me want to listen to it over and over again....Damn i even got their lyrics spot on! It was a song "Comforting Sounds".

Ever since then i never stopped listening to the band and even opened me up into the Indie genre (yeah but i like emo still :p) I can't even stop listening to they. Download some songs from them but i was keen on getting their album to see their artwork and how the record was.....Haha, well thats just me. Now i liked this band even more than my friend :lol: I actually bought their album somewhere else (not in Malaysia) just for the sake of it. I spotted their album in one of the music stores while i was on holiday in Indonesia. Well to think of it, i paid less then what i would usually pay for here. (like almost RM10 less) I;m still waiting for their new album, until then i just watch their video blog on Myspace. :)

Oh yeah, here is a video of one of their songs:
 
I've used Youtube to check out a good number of songs prior to buying. I'd say probably about a dozen at this point - just about all of my recent music purchases. If I hear a song on the radio, or on pandora, or on streamingsoundtracks, and I'm considering buying it, I'll often run it by the wife to see if she likes it too by pulling it up on youtube. If she doesn't like it, I have to really evaluate how much I want it because I know she'll get irritated if I play it. Otherwise I know we'll both enjoy it. Most recently for me it's been muse stuff - hysteria, exo-politics, showbiz (which itunes does not have) etc.
 
Surprisingly, not really that I can think of. We use youtube all the time though. For searching, looking around for music, and everything else.
 
This:



Plus hearing road song somewhere has resulted in me on a rampant search for some of his albums. I found a few without going online, but it looks like I might have to...
 
I agree with the thread-starter in that watching music videos on YouTube helps me get a feel for the music to see if I like it so that I don't go out and take a chance on an album and find I don't like it and have wasted my money (which has never happened, but there's always a first time).
 
YouTube influences my game purchases more than music purchases, but I did buy R30 after seeing songs from it on YouTube (though I was going to get it anyways, so perhaps it is a moot point.
 
I just used YouTube to decide to not buy Radiohead’s new album – all the songs reminded me too much of Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac.
 
I just used YouTube to decide to not buy Radiohead’s new album – all the songs reminded me too much of Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac.

Did you know you can get it for free off www.inrainbows.com?
 
YouTube hasn't caused me to buy music. Never even thought to use it as a preview source. However, I have had a few podcasts get me to buy the CDs or download the MP3s of bands that I had never heard of before.

The joy there being that many podcasts use what is called Podsafe Music, which is provided for free for the podcasts and then many of the bands have some free downloads.
 
Has youtube inspired any purchases? I'd say quite a few *cough* guitars. Nonetheless, it's also caused a bit of frustration, as many of the tracks that I dig up are live, and thus finding a high bit-rate version of the song is often impossible. My solution is to download the flv files, convert them so that they play as movies in itunes, and then make sure that I'm out of the room when listening.💡 No more nasty compression artefacts- though it's not quite the Hi-Fi experience. :lol:
 
Youtube has caused purchases for my part, albeit via AMV's, rather than official music videos. It starts with the AMV, if I find the music good, I start searching for other songs, and if there's enough good songs, I buy the album(s).

Youtube is the reason why I bought Poets of the fall's both albums, and Nightwish' Dark Passion Play. I'd say Youtube is a much better tool for deciding to purchase music than any written music review can be, since you actually get to listen to the music before purchasing it (altough music shops usually allow pre-listening too).
 
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