Collecting CD's / Listening to music on an MP3 player

[Jarick]

Took my kid to a used record shop. Was a blast! We got 7-8 CDs for $20. I got a couple albums that aren’t on streaming too. Highlight was a promo copy of Living Colour Times Up for $4 lol.

She got a Yo Yo Ma CD she’s excited about (she plays cello and doesn’t like modern music). Now we’ve got something fun to do when there’s a few hours to kill!

 

[Jarick]

One of the albums I picked up was the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack that stuck out to me as having some cool songs on the radio, but they aren't on streaming platforms.

Listening to the whole thing front to back there are some really neat deep cut throwbacks to early 90's alt-rock/pop:

 

[metropolis_4]

Okay I grabbed another stack of CD's - holy nostalgia! First one on the pile was Green Day Dookie, which I got for Christmas in 1994. It's frankly awesome holding the actual physical albums again.

This is what it’s all about for me. It’s that “things” vs “non-things” concept we’ve been talking about from JHS Josh’s blog.

A CD (or cassette, or LP…) was a real physical “thing”. You owned it, it became part of your world, it aged along with you, it was there at different points in your life. You had an actual connection to it.

As convenient as streaming can be it’s a “non-thing”. It’s packets of data that I pay to be allowed to temporarily download and then it goes away. It has no connection to me, it doesn’t exist beyond the moment I play it.

I’ve been re-discovering how much it means to me to have “things” that journey with me through life. Buying and reading real books, listening to CDs and LPs, watching DVDs, taking photos with a real camera, playing through pedals and an amp, and even going to brick and mortar stores instead of shopping online.

We went to the mall and did all of our Christmas shopping there this past year and it was so fun! We forgot how fun it was when going shopping was an event and you actually went somewhere and interacted with people and saw things in stores.

We’ve been thinking about stopping all our streaming services and buying DVDs again instead. We pay more for streaming than we ever spent on DVDs and we watch half as much.

It’s been a really fun journey

 

[BFRaid]

I still have CDs and vinyl. I will usually grab stuff that is hard to find, like local Boston bands or obscure metal bands I can not find on streaming sites. However, for the most part, I stream because it is easier while I am working. I am listening to Electric Ladyland right now, and I know I have it on LP and CD. Streaming also makes it so much easier to find new music or go down a rabbit hole on a band or style of music you want to discover deeper.

 

[Jarick]

@metropolis_4 I LOVE that take! Kind of forgot the value of DOING things. not just clicking, not just existing near something.

I felt like a little kid again walking around the store, pointing out all the albums and all these fun facts, etc. My kid was amazed looking at all these things she hadn’t seen. She tends to be pretty jaded and “know it all” for not even being a teen yet, but she got pretty excited and was asking all kinds of questions and having fun.

I listened to 3-4 albums today and it’s just been great reconnecting to music. Seems silly but it’s been in the background for me for quite a while now.

 

[Jarick]

Another solid haul last night, found a couple replacements for CD's that were damaged, and some music I grew to love on streaming but didn't own. Highlights include King's X Dogman and Gretchen as well as three Natalie Merchant CD's for $6 (Tigerlily, Ophelia, and Motherland).

Weird thing, the song "Dogman" sounds really different on streaming than the album. The streaming version (on both Apple and Spotify) has way more boosted treble and is way more compressed, where the albums version is actually pretty dark sounding. Most of the rest of the tracks sound pretty close but you can hear an additional layer of compression and a slight treble boost on the streaming version where the CD is just a bit cleaner, more dynamic, and warm/punchy.