The music industry has undergone a seismic shift in the past 20 years in how it produces and releases music. With subscription services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify…you can instantly cherry pick and choose what songs you want to listen to. I am not sure what the unintended consequence of this instant gratification is, but I’ll save that for another post.
It’s fun having the power to pick just the one song you want and listen to it over and over again. Still fun, but at a different speed, was my experience growing up of having to buy the whole album. On the first listen, you give each song 15 seconds, then skip, skip, skip till you get to the track that propelled you into buying it in the first place. Eventually, for one reason or another, you hear the other tracks and then hear them again. Soon, you have two new favorites, then three and then four until finally it’s the best album you ever bought! Giving the whole album the time it deserves creates a better experience in the long run.
I’ve written on this subject before, but I think it’s surely one that deserves repeating (especially when the market gets choppy). In investing, the easiest and what seems like the most fun to do is to just pick the one stock/fund/investment that has the best track record or seems most exclusive and ignore the rest. This gives you short term entertainment, but wont bring you the long term value you want. You need the whole portfolio and you need to give each “track” the time it deserves to develop. Eventually, you come to appreciate the once lagging, but now sky rocketing fund. You come back down to earth on the once high flyer who has stalled mid air. There is likely to always be a track you like best, but my advice for music and investing is to buy the whole album.
Happy Friday!