My CDs

I’ve always owned dozens of CDs of my favourite music. Pennywise, Rise Against, Propagandhi, Goverment Issue, Anti-Flag, Ignite, Flogging Molly, CKY, Sick Of It All… quite a few of them have been sitting on my shelves for years.

I used to make my own mixes, burn CDs, put them in the car, take them with me. I physically owned the music I listened to. Probably just like everyone else not-long-ago.

Then at some point, physical media started disappearing.

And now I pay a monthly subscription to a music service, but I don’t actually own any of the music I’m listening to.

I’m starting to dislike that more and more.

The funny thing is that I mostly listen to the same music anyway.

A lot of it is the same music I already own on CDs, or music I’ve bought and downloaded and still have sitting on some of my old hard drives.

Sure, I’m paying for convenience.

I can listen to almost any album I want without carrying a CD around. I can switch between albums in seconds. And sometimes I discover something new.

But is that really worth it? (for me)

I’ve been asking myself that lot more these days.

I don’t want to end up in a world where we just rent everything.

Maybe I’m going to try going back to CDs.

Or at least to music I’ve actually bought and downloaded.

There is just one small problem.

None of my Macs has an optical drive anymore.

When did that happen?

I honestly had to stop and think about it.

I might have to dig out my old iMac, my MacBook 5,1, or even that old Dell I’ve recently brought back to life.

Then I’ll have to figure out if I can still get music from a CD onto my iPhone, or better yet, onto my iPod nano 3rd generation.

Yes, I still have one.

And it still works perfectly, by the way.

Maybe I’ll discover that this is actually enough for me.

Maybe I’ll survive one day without having access to every album ever made and realise that I don’t need it.

Or maybe I’ll make it through half a day, get annoyed, and go straight back to my subscription.

Will see. But the fact that I’m even thinking about it now tells me something.

I don’t think I like renting things that I used to own.

And yeah, it annoys me.

Haha.