Music and streaming rant
Yesterday I was trying to buy some individual songs and I ran into some hurdles. First of all, I didn't have the latest version of iTunes. Second, the latest version of iTunes is incompatible with the version of Windows that I have. Third, the compatible version of Windows would kill my computer, because computers are made to be useless after a certain number of years, and mine's ancient in PC years.
So I thought, okay, it'll be some extra steps to get these songs on my 4th generation iPod nano that I bought in college (still works but only when plugged in, the battery is dead), but I'll just buy the songs on Amazon music.
But that required downloading the Amazon music app, another thing my computer is too old for.
So I thought maybe I would download either Amazon music or Apple music onto an old SIM-card-less phone I only use to listen to podcasts, but it's a streaming subscription.
I don't want a streaming subscription. I know what music I like, and I don't need anyone else's recommendations, much less those of an algorithm. I only want to pay for something I'm actually going to listen to, not something that's at least 50% skips or whatever.
I love music. I like CDs, having the physical music with the album art and liner notes and song credits. The first thing I do when I get a new album is set aside an hour or so to myself, put on my headphones, and follow along with the lyrics. It's a ritual. A ritual that continues in the car, blasting it at top volume, putting my favorites on repeat until I have them memorized.
I'm not totally anti-digital. I like having playlists on my ipod, multi-album compilations or sleepy playlists or whatever. (I guess you can probably do this with streaming or with other devices, but I like playing music from something with sizeable speakers. All the players with speakers I own are only compatible with the iPod nano.) But that's in addition to the physical copy. I like the security that if something goes wrong with that collection, I can recreate it.
My usual workaround for avoiding a subscription or an upgrade my computer can't handle is to buy a physical copy of the music I want, but the new songs I was trying to get yesterday don't even come in a physical format.
I hate streaming subscriptions. I hate that TV has just come back around to cable. I hate that to get like 10 new songs I have to buy a new computer or phone or MP3 player. It's frustrating and seems like it's only likely to get worse.
(Does anyone have the 3am edition of Midnights? I'll pay you $1.20 per extra song.)
