Spotify

I remember talking about Spotify at work before it even hit the American shores.  This guy I worked for was very excited it was coming to America and talked about it for a week straight before it hit.  Now, he had a beta invite and i wasn't that interested, because I have 600 CDs and was living during one of my sad, music-free times in my life. 

Admittedly, the reason I own 600 or so CDs (and would guess I am short changing the number, rather than inflating it) is there were many years from 15 to 28, where I always played my stereo.  It's taken a long time for me to accept silence is alright, but admittedly, alright is not the same as preferred.  In the day, I was obsessed with the Sony All-in-One systems which could hold 50 CDs at a time, so I would not need to get up and look for a new CD every 45 minutes.  Some CDs would take up places of honor and would need to go back into the right spot when I brought my stereo back and forth to college.  I mean, how could I live in a world where Better Late than Never was not Number 26.  For many years, I actually couldn't.

Even when I moved out on my own, my stereo was a constant companion for the first few months, though I eventually broke down and ordered cable television, which meant the constant sound of music would be replaced by the constant sound of the television.  I actually set up my living room so you could watch television from the couch or computer desk, since I spent the vast majority of time at my desk when I was home.

However, life changed and I stopped listening to music on a regular basis.  My CDs sat unused in binders or the remaining spinning rack from the days where they were my treasured possession, gathering dust.  I kept some in the car, but spent little time in the car, especially when I needed to commute by public transportation five days a week.

But in 2011, I downloaded Spotify for those rare moments I still wanted to listen to music.  At first, I mostly used it instead of iTunes to listen to all of the MP3s I created for my computer.  But recently, with music becoming part of my life again, I started really taking advantage.  It's funny, there are certain songs you like, usually an artist will have just one and in the past, I was left with the dilemma of either buying an album for one song, which is why I have a copy of Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik which cost $1 or doing without, such as being unable to purchase a Grateful Dead album just to hear Touch of Grey.

So, I just started making myself lists of songs, songs which make no sense in any context, save the entirety of my life, while my CD collection sits on a shelf in my dining room, seldom touched by human hands, unless I really need something different for the car.  But how often do you really need to find a Skoidats or Johnny Too Bad and the Strikeouts album, seldom at all.