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[Jackie Blue]

Be honest, now.

The only large, independant record store in town is closing one of its two stores to consolidate, because of lagging sales.  This is the only store in town with an "Independant" section, the only place to buy new albums on vinyl.

One of the main given reasons is, literally and verbatim, "College kids don't shop at our store anymore."

So, are you part of the problem?  Do you download amazing albums from the Mediafire thread and then NOT actually buy the album?  Are you a music leech or do you vote with your wallets to keep good musicians out of the poorhouse and making more good music for you to listen to?  If you have a local used/new store, do you shop there, even though you can go on Amazon and feed the corporate whoremachine because a used disc on there might be a couple dollars cheaper?

Do you buy new albums from Amazon instead of directly from the label, which is almost always cheaper anyway?

[Katherine]

I buy music directly from iTunes whenever possible.  I am impatient and want my music delivered electronically, immediately.  Plus, its better for the environment and stuff...

[Jackie Blue]

So you find absolutely no joy in browsing a used/new record store and stumbling across new or weird things?  Legitimate question, because it has been brought to my attention that there are people under the age of 23 or so who have literally never set foot in a record store.

I'm old.   

[thermodynamics]

i haven't bought music in a long, long time. other than old vinyl, that is. i buy at least 5 records a week. but new music, cds, etc, i haven't paid for in over a year. i have torrents for that jazz.

i play music and my band has cds. no one wants to pay for music anymore. we sell maybe 1 or 2 cds per show. tops. i hate iTunes GUI so i don't have that to get music with, and - honestly - most music isn't worth buying to me, but i am sort of pretentious like that. all perpetuating the problem and what not.

[Thrillho]

I buy music on at least a weekly basis. My ambition is to legally own everything I have illegally already, and I've stopped downloading.

Frankly I think the people who think they have a moral high ground because they download instead of buying records are dickheads. Yeah sure, record labels are dicks and they take too much money out of the CDs instead of giving it to the artists. But I'm willing to bet - and I know there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, bands who freely encourage downloading instead - that for most struggling artists, an extra 5p in their pocket from each CD you buy is better than, oh I don't know, nothing?

But hey, at least you have some semblance of a 'belief' about it. I'd rather some misguided notion or morality than the people who just download because they can't be bothered to buy CDs or 'only buy things they like' (THEN DELETE WHAT YOU DON'T LIKE) or are just pricks or one or more or all of the above.

So yes, I buy records, and yes I love to just go into a record store and browse.

[ScrambledGregs]

If I could afford to, I would buy everything legit.


I'm not that old (23) and I regularly buy new records from my local independent store. They're an awesome store. If I could buy everything on vinyl, I would.

I probably buy half the amount of albums I download, which is still a lot.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Record stores are amongst my favourite places, and my almost maniacal addiction to buying from them partly stems from not wanting them to close down. My favourite, Greville St. records bitch everytime I come in about "the old days" when they'd have people queing up outside and how the internet has destroyed there business.

They had to let go all there employees and now it's just the owner and his best freind. Recently I've been buying four or five albums from there a week. They gave me a gift of a 30 dollar album the other week for spending over 4000 in there over the past 3 months. I'm not regretting it, but I'm going to be poor this summer because all my money has gone on albums and shows.

However, I do download, and feel like shit for doing it. I've been trying to cut back, but it's so tempting when you see an album you've been desperately seeking for an age just a click away on the mediafire thread. Though the labels CAN BE blood sucking dicks, they are the only thing keeping the industry alive along with many struggling artists.

I'm also amongst those gradually trying to replace the great albums I've downloaded, but there are so damn many of them it will take a long, lon time.

[Edible]

The only, independant record store in my town that i know of basically only sells jazz, country etc. so they dont really have the music I look for, if there was an independant store that had what I wanted, I would llikely buy from it but for the moment the net is the only place I can find the stuff.

Periodically if they have one I will paypal a band I like 10 or 20 $ because I figure its more than they get anyway, and cuts out the middleman.

[Kai]

I have a problem.

See, I love record stores. Adore them. I love having physical copies of albums. I love sending money to artists that I think are doing something great (and something that I hope to do myself someday as well).

My problem stems from the idea that whenever I am in a record store, I spend too much. if I have money, any amount, and I go in, all of it will be gone when I walk out. It's an issue. So much of the money I get ends up going into these shops even though I should probably buy something else or even *gasp* save it.

The records that I do purchase do not counteract the records that I download. At all. I download many more records than I purchase. But this isn't because I don't like to buy records. This is because I don't have a steady income at the moment.

You can probably assume I am not very good with money.

[Misereatur]

I know your problam, Griffin. I live on a soldier's pay, which is about US$88 a month. The first thing I do when I get my paycheck? Spend it all on music. Enough to buy at least three records, five if I'm in a used records store. Ever since the tenth grade, while all of my friends worked to pay for their driver's license or for spending on booze, I worked so I could buy records and go to concerts.

Recently I've decided to give up on saving for the new amp and a new bridge for my Jazz Bass I desperately need and instead save for a decent record player because mine is broke. This means that I'll have to start buying only one record a month. I don't know how I'm going to deal with that. I'm lucky that my medical profile is really really low and I got a job that let me go home every day. If I was a combat soldier, while it's better then sitting in an office all day, I don't know how I'd survive without listening to records daily.

[Jackie Blue]

I'm basically where you are, Kai.  I buy as much music as I can afford.  If I download an album, it's almost always either an album I have owned in the past and sold, or an album that has already sold so many copies that I'm not hurting anyone (like a Pink Floyd or Who album, for example).

I did download the new Radiohead for exactly zero monies, which ended up being cool because that's honestly about how much I think it's worth.  I deleted it after two or three listens.

[Phaedra]

I download a lot of music from the Mediafire thread. This enables me to buy music on vinyl, as I like to own records but don't like to lug my turntable around on the bus or in my car.
The internet is a good thing sometimes!

[Tehz]

I buy probably 3/4's of my music. The other quarter is either borrowed from friends or downloaded from QC's own Mediafire thread.

[IronOxide]

I don't. I wish I could and always intend to when I have money, but it always ends up going to other things. I guess I have poor self-control.

I should probably get a job one of these days so I can pay for this stuff.

[Hat]

I typically don't buy records from my local independent record store, because they are jerks. Thats neither here nor there though, but I am just bitter because the only independent record store in the city I can bear to shop in closed down last week. Anyway,  I still buy  quite a bit of music. Not a ridiculous amount I'll admit, I too lack any ability to be sensible with money and I typically set myself a budget of two albums a week.

And thats my story!

[casull]

I was thinking about buying Wold's Screech Owl and Baroness's Red purely because I couldn't find 'em, but then somebody gave me a waffles invite at a party the day before Christmas Free Leech hit, and now I have every hard-to-get album I have wanted in the last few months. 

Basically, I steal the music then buy a shirt or go to a show if I really like it. If the band/artist is small-time enough that a fan letter might mean something, I usually write them a letter telling them why I enjoy their music and how cool they are.

[KharBevNor]

I barely ever buy music. I don't know of any record stores I can get to easily except HMV. If I did, I probably would. Maybe. There's the little problem of finding anything I actually like of course. Most record stores in the south of the UK are normally clean out of Nachtfalke records.

Or maybe not. CD's cost too much fucking money, they're bulky, they're inconvenient and I often as not end up breaking them.

[mfpole]

I think the music I've downloaded has eclipsed the music I've bought recently. Being in high school, I don't have time for a steady job around my work and sports, so I download alot of stuff.

Physical copies of records and CD's are better than just those .rar files but I don't think I could ever reach the point where I'll legally own everything I have so far. Record stores are awesome but usually I won't pick up something I've already downloaded unless its some classic record that I want the vinyl for or some album I've been playing the shit out of so I have a real copy. Records stores for me are another way to find music in addition to downloading. That sounds backwards, but that's how it works for me. I'm still somewhat reliant on CD's though because I avoid Ipod's (too afraid I'll lose it).

I'm in a pretty good spot though, to put it one way, my dad's favorite band is Gang of Four. So he'll take me to a record store for my birthday (going to Newbury Comics in Boston is becoming a tradition) and I'll go crazy there.

On a related note, I got paid 20$ for my band's gig on Sunday and I immediately spent it on a Les Savy Fav 7" and a Chavez compilation, so yeah go me!

[Hat]

CD's cost too much fucking money, they're bulky, they're inconvenient and I often as not end up breaking them.

I will never figure out what you people are doing to your CDs to render them such a flimsy and unusable format.

[monkandmovies13]

I buy Cds. Not on iTunes, but I go to stores and buy hard copies. All my friends make fun of me for it and don't understand it, but the way I see it, the few extra bucks you pay for an actual CD as opposed to one on iTunes aren't just for the music, but you're also paying for the artwork, liner notes, etc. I also just recently got a turntable, so I'm buying a lot of vinyl now as well. I love small record stores...I love sorting through the stacks of vinyl and seeing what everyone else is buying and hearing what they're talking about music-wise. Just before I got my turntable and I was convincing my mom to buy me one, I spent literally an hour and a half in there, looking at and sorting through the stacks of records. I'm pretty sure the people there think I'm insane, but it's so much fun. I'll be very sad when all my favorite record stores close down. They're such happy, wonderful places.

[Gridgm]

CD's cost too much fucking money, they're bulky, they're inconvenient and I often as not end up breaking them.

I will never figure out what you people are doing to your CDs to render them such a flimsy and unusable format.

i can't work out how they can say that and then turn around and promote vinyl

[jimbunny]

I have a subscription to emusic.com

...

and the mediafire thread.

CDs aren't a terrible format, but if I had a convenient, purely digital way of pulling tunes through my speakers I don't know if I'd ever buy another CD again (unless I couldn't find it any other way - and then I'd just rip it and forget about it). All those cases and liner notes, they pretty much sit in my room and look pretty. I don't really ever consult them, unless it's to update my mp3 tags.

[casull]

For me, forums like this + torrents are a perfectly good replacement for a record store, but then I was never terribly romantic about 'em anyway.

As far as CDs go, it seems like every time I would actually use one rather than just rip it and put it on my shelf, I would break it. Maybe some people don't share computers, have little brothers, insert hardship here,  blah blah blah, but I always end up with broken CD if I keep it around and use it.

[Hat]

A whole bunch of stuff on the aesthetic pleasures of buying music

I find the actual experience of buying the music is a massive part of it for me. I have a lot of friends who only buy CDs from sites on the internet, and I just could never imagine doing that. Even if theres an album I specifically want to buy, its nice to poke around, look at the 9.99 and less racks, and chat to the clerk at the counter. Plus quite a few albums I've bought on hearing them after kicking around the store for half an hour trying to find albums I want.

Also, I am just glad that someone else agrees with me there Gridgm, I thought maybe I was going mad or I had been placed in a world populated entirely by mad-people without my knowledge, but it is good to know I am not completely insane.

[Jackie Blue]

I don't think I could ever reach the point where I'll legally own everything I have so far

This is such an alien concept.  Consider that less than a decade ago, it was pretty difficult to own any music that you DIDN'T pay for, aside from people making you tapes.

I think that one appreciates music more if one doesn't have 9,000 mp3s, but rather a collection of albums, all of which were purchased, listened to and considered rather than just downloaded on a whim.

[Hat]

I agree with this, more or less. Even sound quality issues and equipment issues aside, I find its a much more clearly defined leisure activity when I listen to a CD. I listen to MP3s on my computer or on an MP3 player, typically used when I am doing work/killing time on the internet or just travelling from A to B. I mostly download albums by bands I haven't heard, listen to enough of their stuff to make a fair assessment if it would be worthwhile to add them to my "list of  bands to look for albums for" when album shopping, and thats that. Honestly, there are huge swathes of my MP3 collection from Oink that I haven't even given more than one listen to yet, or sometimes I Get a few tracks in and decide I'm not in the mood for it, whereas with a CD I'm more likely to give it a shot all the way through for some reason. I guess I am just lazy?

[mfpole]

Thinking about that, it's a pretty legit point. I rememeber when I was in 7th grade and the 10 or so CD's I personally owned would sit alphabetized in a rack, with the CD sitting in the perfect alignment. But I guess now with downloading, tastes just become so much more eclectic and iTunes libraries just get so much bigger, without the physical copy some of the non music related emotions/feelings/sensations get lost.

[Kyros]

If there actually WAS a Record store that sold music that I wanted at a fair price I'd shop there.  There isn't though, so when I do buy an album it's either on Itunes or the new awesome Amazon mp3 store.

[Johnny C]

Part of the thing is that buying records costs quite a bit of money, and it's money that I don't generally have.

Today I had a gift certificate, plus it was a Boxing Week sale at the local independent record store, so I bought four new records. Next paycheck or so I want to put in a mail-order to Dischord in order to get the Fugazi records I don't have.

The fact is, though, that I don't buy a whole lot of music because I get a paycheck and I kind of want to go out and do things with friends and buy other stuff and I have to pay for gas and I have to get lunch at university and since I'm working a shitty job that apparently doesn't even pay as much as it used to (I found this out tonight and I was not pleased) I manage to buy maybe two albums a month.

[Ocarina654]

Like many people here I don't have a lot of money to spend on music.

The fact that there isn't an independent record store anywhere near here.  There used to be one less than a mile from my house, and I bought both CDs and Vinyls (even before I had a turntable) from there when it was around.  But since I hardly had any money it was somewhere around one CD every few months.  Now its gone and the closest record stores are quite far away and hardly worth the time to go for one or two records.
Also, while that store was open I was mostly into Metal of the Power and Progressive genres, and they didn't carry any Blind Guardian, Symphony X, or whatever else, so most of my music was purchased online.
Since its been around I've bought my Therion music from their online store, though, so I directly support the band.

I quite dislike buying albums in digital formats, like from iTunes.  You miss out on so much when you buy digital music, like art, liner notes, sound quality, and the freedom to put that music on whatever MP3 player you want with little hassle.
Why buy digital when that's always included with a CD (as far as you have a computer with a CD drive, something no one buying digitally lacks).

So yeah, I buy when I can, but mostly I download.  I wish I didn't download as much, but at the same time I  like the music I keep (and I do delete what I don't like/listen to) enough to keep getting more without paying.

[Joseph]

I buy music very frequently.  I absolutely love going and browsing record stores, and can lose hours in them.  When I have money to spend, and no plans to go out in the immediate future, it almost always ends up being turned into albums.  Usually half of what I buy is stuff I've already downloaded, because I like to own it.  I have a collection of some 300 or so CDs, and that number is slowly rising, though recently I have begun buying vinyl.  This past week, because there have been some great sales, especially one at my favourite record store (Scratch, which also runs a record label which has put out albums by Swan Lake, Destroyer, and Frog Eyes), I have bought ten records and a couple of CDs.  I like to think I am playing my part as best I can.  Obviously, that is not how much music I typically buy in a week though.

[Hat]

The fact is, though, that I don't buy a whole lot of music because I get a paycheck and I kind of want to go out and do things with friends and buy other stuff and I have to pay for gas and I have to get lunch at university and since I'm working a shitty job that apparently doesn't even pay as much as it used to (I found this out tonight and I was not pleased) I manage to buy maybe two albums a month.

I just find this kind of thing quite interesting, because Johnny, you are definately one of the more obsessive (knowledgeable? I am trying to come up with a word that doesn't make me sound like I am just being a dick here) people on the music forum, and I hear this same thing a lot from people who are very similar a lot and I find it a little bit frightening, really. I mean, I took out a second job so I could afford to buy more than one album a week, and I am nowhere near the biggest music nerd on this forum by a long shot. I think its just a shame (and I'm not saying you're doing this johnny, its just I've noticed it goes hand in hand with the 'I can't afford to buy many records but I totally would if I had more money' mentality) that people really don't seem to collect music they way they used to.

Nowadays I can't shake the feeling that its very commonplace nowadays to treat buying a record as less of an experience of acquiring something you love, and more of a political statement. I keep hearing people say "I only buy records from independent record stores" or "I only buy records on independent labels" or "I just go to the shows and buy straight from the band" and theres good arguments for all those things, but people just seem so proud of it. It's much easier to acquire an album from a major label on the internet, and it'll teach the big record companies a lesson!

I guess I am saying maybe things have just gotten kind of complicated and I guess I'm slightly bothered that a group of people who profess to and do really seem to love music as much as a lot of people here do, would consider buying new music anything but a very high priority.

[voidSkipper]

I'm started to get more and more fucked off when I buy albums, and they can't be ripped to MP3 because of some stupid content protection. If I fork out for someone's CD, the last thing I want to do is waste my extremely limited bandwidth on downloading an illegal copy of what I /just/ bought.

[Der Turm, der Leute frass]

I never download music, i oly buy it.
there's no good record store around here, so I buy it over the internet. but whenever I have the possibility to go to a good record store I spend many hours and lots of money there.
I've spent more than 4700 $ on CDs this year, I guess that's pretty much.

[valley_parade]

I buy used vinyl. Occasionally I'll buy a CD (I think the last CD I bought was something from AtDI).


Speaking of buying music, I have an EP for sale....

Just sayin'.

[Johnny C]

I guess I am saying maybe things have just gotten kind of complicated and I guess I'm slightly bothered that a group of people who profess to and do really seem to love music as much as a lot of people here do, would consider buying new music anything but a very high priority.

I do consider it a fairly high priority. The other night was a CD release party for a local band and I spent the last ten bucks in my wallet on their EP instead of getting anything else. Once again, though, I have a lot of stuff I have to pay for and sometimes it really comes down to "be a recluse for a week" or "don't buy music." About a third of the time I wind up actually going with the first option.

Music isn't a particularly inexpensive pastime and unfortunately I have quite a few pastimes. The difference between this and saying "I'd buy more albums if I had more money" is simply that I don't buy as many albums.

It blows, though. I wish I had enough money to buy albums. It's almost too much as it is to be working a part-time job and going to university full-time though so I can't really earn a whole lot more. Things will probably change in this regard once I'm paid for working forty hours a week with a degree.

[valley_parade]

"I'd buy more albums if I had more money" is simply that I don't buy as many albums.

That's why I go with the used vinyl. I can pick up two at the local antique stores for what a new CD would cost.

Instead of buying albums though, I should really save up and get a functioning turntable.

[KharBevNor]

I will never figure out what you people are doing to your CDs to render them such a flimsy and unusable format.

This is a Sony CD Walkman:



It is bulky, not only large but an awkward shape. It holds one CD at once, extra CDs must be carried seperately, in cases to prevent scratching. If the CDs do become scratched they will probably not work. Such a player jogs even with anti-shock. It has no additional functions apart from being a CD player.

This is a Creative MuVo:



It is less than a quarter the size of the walkman, is nigh on indestructible, functions as a memory stick, and can carry around 10 albums worth of songs at good quality. It also has a voice recorder.

This is an Archos 605:



Though only slightly smaller than the CD walkman, it has a far more practical shape and comes with a protective case. It has an 80 gigabyte hard drive, which can store thousands of albums, not to mention it can play back video files and e-books, not to mention record off of a television as a sort of pocket TiVo, or play music and video files from the internet on the GODDAMN TV.

What I am trying to say is, why would I ever want to touch a CD again? I won't get better sound out of one, and I won't get artwork at a size worth having, both factors that, I think, justify the existence of vinyl. The CD is digital technologies retarded child. It's bulky, expensive and flimsy.

However, I refuse to buy mp3s. Ever. I r hypocrite!   

[Chrasstor]

There's no record stores that sell the albums that I listen to where I currently live.

So no.

I download.

[Tom]

Same here.

There was a thread about downloading music awhile back and several people agreed with the idea that bands should be more focussed on making money from touring and merch than there CD's. I'd get you a quote but I just got up and feeling pretty tired.

[Jackie Blue]

There are many srtists who make music which is not ever going to make anything more than gas money from touring (and not because it's bad or unpopular).

Anything in the realm of ambient-indie: Windy & Carl, Labradford, Christmas Decorations, etc. etc.  I'm pretty sure almost none of those bands even bother touring.

Anything that is difficult to reproduce live without just using a bunch of pre-recorded tracks - M83, for example.

And merch?  Really?  Pretty much everyone I know stopped buying band t-shirts once they hit 22 or so, unless it's a very special band or very special occasion (or very special shirt).

I know many musicians who make a good amount of scratch from selling CDs, either through small indie labels or their own Myspace/website.

As far as the whole "If I could buy more music, I would, but I'm poor so I steal it" argument: That's generally valid, because I'm sometimes guilty of it myself, but again I'll refer you to before the days of high-speed Internet, Napster and everyone having a CD-burner: I was poor back then.  Exceedingly poor.  This forced me to make choices about the albums I bought, which in turn made those albums exponentially more special to me, and I'd argue that it made me appreciate the music more because, with a limited influx of music into your life, you listen to, analyze and think about what you have, instead of having thousands of songs and hundreds of albums you listened to once and didn't ever re-visit.

The first time I listened to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, I absolutely despised it.  If I had downloaded it for free I'd have deleted it and likely would have been deprived of eventually appreciating one of the ten best albums of the entire 1990s.

[Johnny C]

Pretty much everyone I know stopped buying band t-shirts once they hit 22 or so, unless it's a very special band or very special occasion (or very special shirt).

Is there a motivating factor behind this or is it more a Logan's Run-type scenario?

The last point you make is actually a really great one and it makes me glad that I do still buy albums. Once I've sunk the money into a record I can't really bring myself to sell it. I own it so why not keep it? The result is that I've wound up not only appreciating albums that take a while to get into or albums that were underrated and largely missed (see: Twice by The Tyde), but I've also heard some remarkably bad records that were released by bands I used to like and it's helped me to understand what makes that particular record so bad.

Being stuck with an album really isn't that terrible and it's an integral part of the experience.

People without nearby record stores, do you try doing mail-order from the label? Most albums can be bought directly from the label via the internet. Dischord in particular is famous for having uniformly low prices on its products but everyone from Sub Pop to Secretly Canadian to Matador Records do mail-order and for the most part they're affordable. The latter label has been pricing a number of its albums in the $8-$10 range as of late. My next paycheque is going in part to Dischord probably, and after that I have to place a big order from Jagjaguwar.

[Tom]

Matador doesn't ship to Australia, so I had to go and search for a store that would. On top of that, postage is a bitch and PayPal didn't work the first time I tried to pay at least the executive edition of Challengers was worth it.

[KharBevNor]

You are happy because your obsessive hoarding tendencies mean you must own bad music?

Hipsters, lol.

In my case, I'm rather sure that, without the internet, I pretty much wouldn't listen to music. So, pretty much every CD, vinyl and bit of merch I've ever bought, every gig or festival I've gone to is pretty much pure profit from the record industries point of view.

[Johnny C]

I'm happy because as a musician I've learned how to avoid some of the traps that make records into absolute crap. The last Alexisonfire record, for example, showed me that making a "return-to-roots" record isn't always a great idea because it sometimes means putting aside clear growth that you've demonstrated in favour of selling more records.

I mean, I was initially pissed because I'd spent money on it, but at least I got something out of it.

[Jackie Blue]

Is there a motivating factor behind this or is it more a Logan's Run-type scenario?

Unless the t-shirt is exceptional in some way, wearing band t-shirts reeks of letting your artistic taste define you.  It's just kind of tacky.

That said, I'm wearing a Smiths t-shirt right now.  In my defense, I didn't pay for it.  Girls give me enough shirts that I think I've literally only bought one or two shirts in the past, I don't know, decade.

[Tom]

I'm happy because as a musician I've learned how to avoid some of the traps that make records into absolute crap. The last Alexisonfire record, for example, showed me that making a "return-to-roots" record isn't always a great idea because it sometimes means putting aside clear growth that you've demonstrated in favour of selling more records.

I mean, I was initially pissed because I'd spent money on it, but at least I got something out of it.

Now I'm kind of worried about what The Dears are working on.

[yossarian07]

I'd say I but 1/4 of my cd's. One of my favorite stores is Vintage Vynil, which is a great Independant Record store in St Louis. I'll buy an album or two whenever I'm in the area, but its a bit of a drive. They block torrents where I go to college, so when I'm at school I buy cd's more often.

[Thrillho]

Is there a motivating factor behind this or is it more a Logan's Run-type scenario?

Unless the t-shirt is exceptional in some way, wearing band t-shirts reeks of letting your artistic taste define you.  It's just kind of tacky.

I'm sorry, endorsing a band you like is now tacky? What the fuck? Where has this come from?

[Jackie Blue]

I see it as tacky because it's branding.  I highly doubt that wearing a band's t-shirt has any effect other than alllowing other people to recognise you as part of a certain subgroup.  Just wearing a shirt that says BAND is not "endorsing" them.  It's not like people are going to pass by you on the street, see your shirt and think "Wow, I should buy that album!"

If the band t-shirt is artistically pleasing, that's cool.  But, at least everywhere I've been, there is a certain very prevalent kind of person who meticulously chooses which BAND t-shirt to wear for maximum Style Points, especially when going to a show.  Speaking for myself and most people I know, it's better to dissociate oneself from that demographic.

And that is not even getting into "ironic" t-shirt wearing.