Music, music, music.

Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Name Sue” was my first record. I had three copies of the record because I kept wearing it out on my father’s turntable. But that was forty years ago. Now, I just say “Alexa, play “A Boy Named Sue” and she says “Now playing “A Boy Named Sue” from Bruce’s Spotify.” It is miraculous!

35 Million Songs

Spotify gives me instant access to 35 million recordings. In fact, right now I am listening to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Before that, I was listening to Harry Belafonte. When this song finishes I will listen to The Ramones and then maybe some Miles Davis.

Money Math

Now let’s do the money math on all of this. In 1995, a CD cost, on average $16.98. So, if you were like me and bought two CDs a month, then you were spending over $34 a month on music, after taxes. The average CD had 12 songs on it. So by the end of the year, you would have spent $408 to get 288 songs. Those are 1995 dollars. Adjust that number for inflation to get 2019 dollars and you would be paying $676 for 288 songs. Compare that to $9.99 per month for Spotify!

Access to 35 million songs, with more added every day, will cost you $120 per year. In 1995 dollars that would be about $73!!! So in 1995, personal access to a single song / track cost me $1.96 each. If Spotify existed back in 1995, then personal access to a song / track would have cost me $.0000021.

Now don’t get me wrong. Not every song is available on Spotify. For the longest time, I could not get Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation on Spotify…but guess what. It is there now. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

One last note. Spotify has an incredible family plan for $14.99 per month. You can invite up to five other people to share the Spotify experience and it works out to $2.50 per person per month. Compared to 1995, that is an incredible bargain!