When you think of how you consume music, what first comes to your mind? I’d assume that you’re thinking of Spotify, which has become the new norm when it comes to how we listen to albums. Music has drastically changed and advanced over the last century, and it shows no sign of stopping. More musicians putting out work on streaming every day, grander production on tracks, more ways to listen than ever before. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have given listeners an infinite catalog of their favorite tunes and ways to discover new upcoming artists that might revolutionize their entire music taste. This is great and all, but something is missing. Nerd reference incoming: as Doc Ock might say, you now have the power of the sun in the palm of your hand when it comes to listening on various devices, but you’re sacrificing a sort of magic. The kind of magic that comes when you hold a record, CD, or cassette. As you look at the album artwork or handwritten label, you’re forming a connection with a tangible piece of music, with the artist’s vision for their piece of work. It’s meaningful beyond words.
Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, my mom listened to music solely on cassettes and CDs. This may seem old fashioned now, but she talks fondly of the memories she’s associated with all the albums she had collected on physical media, like High Flyin’ Kid Stuff by Shallow, Nimrod by Green Day and This Beautiful Mess by Sixpence None The Richer. Memories of driving through California with her friends, memories of when her dad was still alive. She remembers these times vividly, because of the music, because of the emotions that were brought up whenever she put on those albums. There’s just a joy in collecting CDs and records, browsing through hundreds of artists in a physical record store, and then playing them over and over as you’re driving or doing mundane housework. The music begins to stick in your brain, and years from now you’ll most likely remember the moments when you truly absorbed the statements a musician was trying to make.
I was not alive when this was a huge deal, but we used to ask people out with mix cassettes and CDs, saying the words we couldn’t with the sweet sounds of The Beatles and Bon Jovi. When did that stop being a thing, and why? Those mixtapes last for decades (even if they were rejected) and one day the recipient might discover that CD again, remembering how nervous the boy was, how they felt putting it in their Walkman for the first time. Those memories just don’t come up as often these days, and it’s not quite as romantic to message somebody the link to a Spotify playlist. Even iPods, despite having screens, can bring lasting musical associations. I vividly remember sitting on a low wall outside a school, waiting for my mom to come pick me up and waving goodbye to my friends while listening to Hold On Now, Youngster by Los Campesinos! (one of the best albums of all time, by the way) repeatedly on an old, cracked iPod Touch. I can remember the melodies of songs we played on road trip CDs and John Denver vinyls when I was five or six years old, those moments markers of my strange journey through life, but I cannot for the life of me remember anything I listened to on Spotify last week. We have so much listening power through streaming, so many albums to choose from, but there’s a living, breathing soul, a testament to art in the skips on our vinyls, the marks on our iPods, and the scratches on our CDs that cannot be replicated.
