Ok I am a music lover, I live for this shit, I promote it daily, listen to is constantly and enjoy nothing more than finding an album or song that I can play time and time again and never getting bored of it. It is this industry that pays my bills so illegal downloading and the leaking of music really messes with my bank balance. I still buy music and considering I do get promo copies of albums and singles daily, people may find that hard to believe. Granted I review the music if I am feeling it but one thing I pride myself on is the fact that I will still go out and buy the album if I am feeling it that much.

This week an album leaked that I have to admit I was almost tempted to seek out on the uploading sites. That album being the debut of one Lana Del Ray but having just read this morning that in the UK 23% of ‘consumers regularly download music illegally’ I decided to do what I always do and wait until the official release. I only have to wait three days now anyway to go cop the album, which I would have done anyway, even if I had been tempted to listen online. But I don’t want to encourage that 23% figure to get bigger.

This sounds like some sort of confession box tale but there are a couple of points I want to make to those people who think it is ok to go out and download an album illegally. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it ok. Remember that saying ‘if your sister/brother/friend/homie/cousin/girlfriend/boyfriend (delete where applicable) put their hand in the fire would you?’ same rules apply here.

These artists put so much time and effort into their music, well maybe not all, but even the ones who may just be looking to make a quick buck before their time is almost up, do this for a living. They make music because they too live for it, but also hope to make a living from it. There are those artists who have no problem in giving away music for free with mixtapes and weekly freebies, but by doing that and benefiting from their generosity don’t you think it would be appropriate to go and buy their actual albums when they go on sale as opposed to sneakily stealing it?

What happened to waiting anyway? Why do we find all these albums leaking sometimes a month before they are due on the shelves? There are of course other people to blame for the excessive downloading we see going on, labels, management, studio employees but we as consumers can be the bigger person and ignore the urge to download illegally, can’t we?