The other day, my coworker paid his usual visit to my office to talk about his audiophile hobby. He has a very extensive vinyl collection and has invested thousands of dollars into his audio system. He’s not much older than me, and even though I gave up playing vinyl over 20 years ago, I can directly relate to the experience of not only listening to vinyl but listening to music via other physical media like CD, cassette, and minidisc. There is a certain total experience you get from doing the latter vs primarily listening to music via streaming. I first spoke of this in a previous blog I posted in Dec 2020.
Almost two years. I still say streaming makes music, and the listening experience disposable. Most times, we stream music as a background activity – especially because it is during when we’re mobile. This is not to say there were never times in the pre-streaming age, that listening to music any other way was done always as the primary focus, but I think you get what I mean and where I’m going with this. I streaming music in the background all the time, whether while driving or at home but, as previously posted, when its time for me to listen to my favorite artists, I dedicate time to sit down with the physical CD so I can enjoy all the tactile aspects of the listening experience – physical artwork, putting the device in the player, reading liner credits, etc. While I haven’t been paying attention to CD sales, I just learned that they are not only making a comeback, but reissues are now being sold with booklets, giving much more backstory than the normal CD liner notes give – that’s my way of totally enhancing the experience.
There are tons of articles out there comparing streaming to (fill in your favorite way to listen) so I won’t reference them here, but instead, ask yourself what’s your preferred way of really getting into your favorite tunes? I like streaming playlists or actual genre channels off Youtube while doing certain types of work (like writing this post) but, on the contrary, I don’t like to listen to music when doing gym workouts. To each his/her own, YMMV.
Thanks, as always, for the read!
Fresh!
