Tidal does this as well, but they create a wider berth than the narrow approach of Apple Music. Qobuz is almost too hands off for me.
The one thing I hate about streaming is having random tracks or albums either disappear or never be made available. That's a problem I never have with digital downloads and physical media. I like streaming but I hate the feeling that music can be ripped away at any moment without warning.
True. However the whole dynamic of feeling like you have to "train" your music service to get good recommendations got tiring to me. I think I prefer "hands-off" at this point.
If something I have been listening to on a service disappears, I cancel my subscription and switch services to one that has it. That’s the only vote we get, right? In reality, this has happened to me maybe twice, ever.
Umm, no. The majority of the world sees this kind of thing as unhealthy behavior. Accumulation of stuff is not an indication of someone’s knowledge or cultural appreciation.
I have no plans of getting rid of all of my CD's, though I am constantly downsizing, and my collection has been shrinking rather than growing over the past 20 years, but I don't display them, nor am I in any way proud of them. They're in a locked room in my basement, and nobody outside of my family has seen them since the 90's.
Hmm. Not any part of the world I’ve been in and I’m fairly well-traveled. This isn’t “stuff” like clothes or travel souvenirs or tech devices. What could possibly be “unhealthy” about amassing a collection of read books and listened to music? It’s the sign of a cultured and invigorated mind. The arts are a wonderful thing - the very essence of the human spirit. Celebrate your appreciation of them and share it with guests to your home! They’re great conversation starters.
They look fabulous. I prefer the aesthetic to shelves of LPs, but there’s no actual difference in the impression they give.
That was true ten of fifteen years ago. I remember being conscious of how my CDs were shelved, not only for my own access but also so the occasional guest I’d have could see them and perhaps notice something I owned that they also liked or were curious about. Now, though, I think most people would consider a wall full of CDs kind of a weird thing for somebody to still have taking up space. Shelves of books or LPs are at least analog media, and tend to look classier lined up due to the softer textures of the spines. A row of cloudy/broken jewel cases can tend to just look kind of trashy in a space that is otherwise intended to be sophisticated, IMO.
Although I sympathize with some of the issues those in that article that have ditched streaming have, with streaming you can simulate the ways of discovering music you "used" to employ. There's nothing to stop someone from throwing 3 albums in a playlist and listen to that list multiple times to see if "growers" could be discovered like in the good ol' days. "Option anxiety" is a thing but with a little discipline, streaming can be your friend, not your agitator. One thing I do wish was done more, was simply being able to click on an album on a streaming service, find a "Buy" button and then when that is clicked, every possible way to purchase that album could be presented to you. A drop down menu with CD, vinyl, cassette, .flac, .wav. mp3. That way, the artist could get their pittance from the "try" and then, if possible, get a little extra from the "buy". If we are to treat streaming services like radio, link those services directly to the labels. We used to hear something on the radio, want it, go to a record store and buy it in physical media. We should be able to do that more efficiently. The streaming service acts as the radio and we can still buy directly from the label if we choose. We're just removing the record store. The point of having the option to buy the physical media or digital file to gain ownership would be great for those that do understand that it's not an either/or situation. We should be easily able to both stream and buy from the very same convenient app or service.
It's silly. It's just a library of music, just like the records on your shelf would be. You can use it any way you want. People use physical media to "set a mood for the day" or to play in the background of their daily activities and did so long before streaming as a service arrived. Streaming doesn't make you listen one way or another. There are as many kind of usages of streaming platforms as there are listeners. I love streaming. I subscribe to three streaming services. I never listen to mood music and almost never listen to background music while I'm doing something else, and I never listen to programmed playlists, I search for the name of a title I want to hear and play it and listen to it. And the experience of sitting and listening to the music from a streaming source is no different from the experience of sitting and listening to the music from a CD.
I don’t think anything has changed over the past 10-15 years in this regard. It was impressive then and is still the same now. People don’t make a distinction between “analog” or “digital” media in this context. It’s all the same. Of course, my CD cases aren’t “cloudy” (not sure what that is actually) or broken and are nicely cabnited.
I like that streaming is there, but the unlimited choices must be how Duran Duran at the end of their 80s heyday felt about groupies. IOW, time to get married and settle down with one woman. I went back to my album collection after being into streaming for a while. There is something to be said about familiarity.
What has changed in the past 10-15 years is most people would no longer see any point in owning a CD of music, so if a visitor to a person’s home saw they still had shelves of CDs, they’d just as likely assume that person had not reorganized or decorated the space in at least a decade as they would be to think there’s any intellectual value in it. I’m not saying I’d think that or that I’d agree, just that I expect that is what a majority of people in 2022 would think upon seeing such a thing. If you don’t have any cloudy or broken jewel cases, I’ll just assume you never kept a pile of them in the passenger’s seat of your car.
Mental healthcare professionals disagree. It is *stuff*, regardless of how you justify it. Buried Alive: Saving, Collecting and Hoarding - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) & Anxiety Disorder Attacks, Symptoms & Treatment 4 Signs That You're an Extreme Collector
Exactly. I have a friend who’s entire apartment is crammed with records, CDs, blu rays, DVDs. There is no decorative touch. It’s tidy, but tidy hoarding. He had a dinner party five years ago. A friend of a friend walked in and blurted, I had no idea people still kept this stuff (specifically the DVDs and CDs). It became a long talk of people (all Gen X and millennials), and the needle among the majority has definitely shifted to seeing shelves of stuff as being an issue far more than a benefit.
I have no issues with it existing, but, to me, music lovers want to own their music. Streaming seems primarily (and I realize there are some exceptions) targeted to casual music listeners. The kind that used to listen to the radio and perhaps buy an album a year. That’s not me and would severely limit my enjoyment of and relationship to the music. Plus, I receive satisfaction from having a lovingly curated and properly tagged music library as well as knowing that I am paying the artist and the industry ecosystem that supports the artist the full worth of their labors. I don’t like the tech industry and don’t want to provide any more financial support to the people who work in it than is absolutely necessary to live a modern life.
