“I have no shortage of warm, music filled memories from my childhood: falling asleep to melancholy folk songs on family road trips, eating Saturday morning pancakes while my dad got his classical music fix, celebrating Christmas to the jazzy tune of Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite record. But though those more classic genres were threaded into my upbringing, my introduction to pop music took a bit longer—and those memories aren’t quite as poetic.”
“Though I’d caught popular songs on the radio here and there as a kid, my first real encounter with pop happened on AOL Instant Messenger, the once notorious messaging app where I, like many other curious middle schoolers, discovered the ‘file transfer’ feature and began swapping music with friends. One file transfer at a time (which happened at a snail’s pace, since we were all using dialup Internet), I discovered a range of new sounds, diving into everything from Regina Spektor and Arcade Fire, to En Vogue, T.I., and Mariah Carey.
It was natural for me to continue consuming music digitally, so I did—most of the time illegally. Pirating was just so easy. Even my favorite album in college, Corinne Bailey Rae’s The Sea, wasn’t properly paid for. But then I took a college speech class.
When I was tasked with writing a persuasive speech for the course, it was a nobrainer that I would write it on music piracy, an issue that many of us music majors realized was changing our industry. I dug up stats and sob stories about those most affected by piracy, and for a ‘show and tell’ twist I actually went out and bought The Sea to show that I was willing to lead by example. My teacher ate it up.
I didn’t actually intend for that purchase to change my music consumption habits—I was just trying to be clever and get a good grade. But since stepping into Chicago’s Reckless Records that day to buy my favorite album after years of listening illegally, I’ve definitely had a change of heart. Not only because there’s a beauty worth preserving in records and record stores, but because I’m an artist who does her best to live up to the standards I set for my listeners.
Listen well and live honestly.”
—Alma
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PHOTO: JESSICA HAVENS
