What is the cost of music in the so-called Anthropocene? We approach this question by focusing on the case of sound-recording formats. We consider the cost of recorded music through two overlapping lenses: economic cost, on the one hand, and environmental cost, on the other. The article begins by discussing how the price of records has changed from the late 19th to the 21st century and across the seven most economically significant playback formats: phonograph cylinder, gramophone disc, vinyl LP, cassette tape, compact disc, digital audio files on hard drive, and streaming from the cloud. Our case study territory is the United States, and we chart the gradual decline in the price of recorded music up to the present. We then examine the environmental and human costs of music by looking at what recordings are made out of, where those materials come from, and what happens to them when they are disposed of. Despite what rhetorics of digital dematerialisation tell us, we show that the labour conditions in the digital electronics and IT industries are as inhumane as ever, while the amount of greenhouse gases released by the US recording industry could actually be higher today than at the height of any previous format. We conclude by asking the obvious (but by no means straightforward) question: what are musicians and fans to do?

中文翻译：

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音乐的代价

在所谓的人类世，音乐的成本是多少？我们通过关注录音格式的情况来解决这个问题。我们通过两个重叠的视角考虑录制音乐的成本：一方面是经济成本，另一方面是环境成本。文章首先讨论了从 19 世纪末到 21 世纪唱片价格的变化以及七种最具经济意义的播放格式：留声机圆筒、留声机唱片、黑胶唱片、盒式磁带、光盘、硬碟上的数字音频文件驱动器，并从云中流式传输。我们的案例研究领域是美国，我们绘制了迄今为止录制音乐的价格逐渐下降的图表。然后，我们通过查看唱片的制作材料来检查音乐的环境和人力成本，这些材料来自哪里，以及它们被处理后会发生什么。尽管数字去物质化的花言巧语告诉我们，我们表明数字电子和 IT 行业的劳动条件与以往一样不人道，而今天美国唱片业释放的温室气体量实际上可能高于当时的高度。任何以前的格式。最后，我们提出了一个显而易见（但绝不是直截了当）的问题：音乐家和歌迷该做什么？而今天美国唱片业释放的温室气体量实际上可能比以前任何形式的高度都要高。最后，我们提出了一个显而易见（但绝不是直截了当）的问题：音乐家和歌迷该做什么？而今天美国唱片业释放的温室气体量实际上可能比以前任何形式的高度都要高。最后，我们提出了一个显而易见（但绝不是直截了当）的问题：音乐家和歌迷该做什么？