On the Ubiquity Of Music

I was recently reading This Is What It Sounds Like [when doves cry], a book by the former record producer for Prince, and she made an interesting point about liking something versus wanting something: You can like a piece of music but you could like it so much that you'd want to learn how to play and or write it. That was my situation back in the 1970s when I liked a lot of music and then I wanted the records. Then I wanted to play it and wanted guitars, amps, and keyboards and eventually acquired those things. Liking music is passive and fleeting and doesn't necessarily lead to a desire to "own" it, but once radio and records proliferated, musical instruments like guitars and amps became more ubiquitous and people wanted them. If we never had radio and records, music would be less ubiquitous and perhaps people wouldn't want music so much, but could still enjoy it. But does the world exist on enjoyment alone?