It’s been about two months since I cancelled my subscription to Spotify. This leaves me without a streaming music subscription for the first time since May of 2014 when Google launched Play Music in Canada.
Before streaming I bought a LOT of CDs. Basically all my disposable income from the time I first started having any went to buying music. I have several thousand of them. A few years ago The Bride convinced me to at least get rid of the jewel cases. Now the CDs sit in gigantic CD wallets we bought. I’m pretty sure they’re actually sitting in the same spot they were when we finished sleeving them all. I had long-since ripped every one of them into a gargantuan MP3 library which also went pretty much untouched after streaming music became a thing.
Over the years I realized how much less connected to music I felt. For some reason having infinite music at my fingertips meant I would listen to the same few records over and over. It took me SIX YEARS to figure out this was stupid. I was paying a premium (of which almost ZERO was going to an artist) to not listen to as much music and care even less. So, in December I decided to pull the plug and switch back to mp3s, sourced mostly from Bandcamp.
In the two months since I did this I’ve discovered, listened to and cared about more music than I have in years. Feels good.
Currently Playing: Vantage – J-Funk City: Vantage’s Edits Collection
Currently Reading: ROSEANNA, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö (GR)
joezone 