I still buy CDs, then rip them to all my devices. It helps that I’m still collecting music from the '80s and '90s.
I like CDs because I still have most of the music I bought on CD going back to the '80s. A few have bit-rotted but most are fine. My oldest CD is Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock, pressed in '83 and still perfect.
Memories when we used to burn cds.
I wanted to necro this topic because I’ve legitimately had trouble listening to music lately, like I have trouble just sitting there and listening. IDK I guess that’s because I’m used to working on music, or maybe it’s just anxiety or something. I thought that was kind of a bummer because I have a system that’s better than I even could have dreamed a few years ago (I just upgraded everything right as corona was starting a year ago) and I thought I really haven’t enjoyed it much.
So I was trying to force myself to listen to music and get my money’s worth out of this setup. Then lo and behold tonight, I actually felt like listening to a song that popped into my head. Then that reminded me of another, and another. And I just kept going. And just like that it’s been 3 hours, was a pretty good time. My ears are getting tired and it’s almost bedtime, but I’m happy and I wanted to share my story with some people who understand.
What a great feeling. I love when that happens. It’s like falling down the youtube rabbit hole, but with things you have and know. Nostalgia and rediscovery.
I’ve had a semi-related situation lately. Most of my listening is digital these days, primarily streamed from my home media server, like my own private Spotify or whatever. I’m a lazy guy - convenience will most always trump quality, assuming a baseline quality I can live with.
I have media going back to the 70s - boxes of albums, CDs, cassettes, even a few 8-tracks and mini-discs. Over the years, in random fits and spurts, I’ve digitized parts of the collection and dumped it into the mixing pot of audio storage. So there’s all sorts of different formats and quality of recordings sitting on those discs, some duplicates (because I ripped album A in 2002 at 128kbs and again in 2010 at 256 and again in 2018 as FLAC) and they’re not standardized in any way. There’s also 20+ years of downloaded music in all sorts of quality and formats, everything from cued FLACs to 64kbs mp3s and some wma files. Total it’s about 350Gb/35,000 files.
So last weekend I set out to ‘fix’ the situation. I installed beets, which is an audio tagging program, and let it run wild on my collection. How it basically works is it tries to match what’s in the folder with databases from musicbrainz and discogs, and if it finds a close match it will reorganize the folder structure, file names and metadata based on the database info and your preferences for organization, as well as grabbing album art and lyrics and whatever else you want. It also can handle duplicates and other common issues as well as doing more advanced stuff like format conversion. Pretty cool.
The kicker comes when beets isn’t sure what’s it’s got. Basically it pauses and says “I’ve got a folder called Boards of Canada, I think it might be one of these albums - pick one” and you sort of dig through the process of verifying which thing it actually is. It can be a little tedious, but what it does is throw a bunch of things in my face that I’d forgotten about. It’s awesome realizing that no, discogs doesn’t have my band practice from 05-02-97, but I should totally go listen to it because nostalgia.
So tl;dr, in an effort to reorganize my stupid sprawling mess of digital audio, I’ve stumbled across things I forgot existed and been listening to things I haven’t heard in years and years, which has also lead to me looking up acts I’d forgotten about and finding they had new output for me to hear. The whole process has been a lot of fun and really satisfying.
Thankfully, organizing my collection isn’t such a hassle. By the time I really got into music, the CD was all but dead. So analog formats aren’t a huge concern. I have a few albums and a turntable, but nothing I don’t already own the CD/download for (and newer albums either come with a download code or a CD as well). And, I started out as an audiophile, so by the time I started ripping my CDs or buying downloads, I was already going for lossless audio. So I’ve never had to re-rip stuff to better quality. I know the feeling of forgetting some of the gems you have, though. Most people would forget about Aerosmith entirely today, but I was a huge fan when I was younger, and I have what I consider to be their last good album in “Just Push Play” (for which the art direction on the booklet is a huge influence on my visual preferences to this day). I (and everyone else) forgot most of that album until I was doing a backup a few years ago and I heard it again. I also re-discovered some other stuff that way, though I can’t say most of mine have new material out (I grew up on a lot of classic rock and old country, and those people are starting to die off at a steady clip, such is life).
Come to Ohio, dude. No one has forgotten about Aerosmith LOL. Motherfuckers live for that shit around here . Aerosmith Just Push Play tour was my first rock concert I went to with no parents. Fuel opened for them and were terrible. Aerosmith fucking destroyed it for like 2.5 hours and I smoked shitty biker weed that turned the rolling paper yellow as we smoked it. No it wasn’t PCP.
I wish DJs still sold mix tapes…or even passed them out…I dunno…I’m old and I don’t fucking want to you “look you up on the internet” just gimme you damn music right the fuck now while I’m pumped about it.
I’m a bad listener recently, only headphones and usually while doing other things… but my current headphones are quite good so that helped me with my music too
That moment in the car when your jamming out to moshcore…and then “what a girl wants” plays because someone slipped it in just fuck with your vibe…but your vibe shifts and you jam out to it anyways…even carpool karaoking that shit.
I’m an mp3 pirate mostly (torrent, deezer downloader, soulseek, etc…) but the albums I really like and want into the collection I buy on CD or vinyl sometimes. I don’t like stream platforms.
I only pay for physical media. But I really love holding albums in my hands.