Last generation to own a finite music collection.

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NetJnkie@reddit

Why is this sad? It's wonderful. Buying a CD for one song sucked. Why do some GenXers seem to want to suffer needlessly and do things the harder way?

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Millenials had the same experience older. Since the oldest Gen-Z was 12 when streaming started - there could be an argument there. However they were still in HS or so before it became standard. So Gen-Z in theory could be argued to be the last to own a finite music collection. Gen Alpha won’t know such a thing existed.

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lotsalotsacoffee@reddit

Just seems kinda sad really, that now almost every song ever made is available for free to anyone, without effort.

How is this sad? This is great!

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blackpony04@reddit

While I miss the high fidelity of CDs for my every day listening pleasure, I have discovered more new music in the age of streaming than I ever have.

Reminds me of a story. I won a "major" reward at work for having a great quarter in like 2000 or 2001. My prize was an MP3 player, and I had no idea how to use it as downloading music by computer was still new and strange (this being before the iPod). I ended up returning it at Best Buy and learned that little MP3 player that could hold maybe 25 songs was worth $200! I bought a new printer.

Little would I know what would happen within the next year or too with downloadable music.

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Mission_Wolf579@reddit

Last generation that needed to buy an entire album for one song.

Last generation to be able to say we owned the same album as an 8-track, LP, cassette, and CD.

Were we the last generation to buy 45s?

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blackpony04@reddit

45s, most definitely, as the studios mostly stopped producing them by 1990.

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ww_adh77@reddit

The idea that streaming music is "unlimited" is a bit of a misnomer, as there are quite a few limits on what is available (something I find rather frustrating). By owning physical media, you have a much better guarantee of listening to what you want.

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buckyVanBuren@reddit

Yeah, got rid of my CDs, about 14,000.

Now I am buying some of them back because they are out of print and are no longer on the streaming services.

Just bought John mellencamp's Saving Grace sound track for the second time...

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ww_adh77@reddit

Nothing annoys me more when a streaming service takes down an album I love, or only offers partial albums (that's like a total tease--CANNOT stand it!).

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Obwyn@reddit

Gatekeeping access to music is an interesting take....

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DiogenesXenos@reddit

It’s not gatekeeping. Some people think things mean more when they are not infinite and free. Myself included. Different strokes and all that though.

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slasherbobasher@reddit

I dunno, even my boomer mom has digital music. I might say the Silent Gen is the last one.

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SomeAreSomeAreNot@reddit

I ripped several hundred CDs about 10 years ago. Sat there for a pretty full day with 4 USB CD readers attached to my computer and fed the CDs in one after the other.

Those few thousand songs still form the vast bulk of all the music I ever listen to, and I am rarely bored.

I don't make any judgement about streaming music. I guess I'm just used to the "finite collection" OP refers to. There's some comfort in it -- plus, there are a few special perks, such as SACDs with amazing sound fidelity on a nice amp+speaker setup etc. that are difficult to replicate with today's more commoditized music situation.

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Able_Original_486@reddit

What's sad is I bought an album on cassette and when it got eaten, I bought it again on vinyl, then I bought it again on CD and then...well I just ripped my CDs and didn't pay to download stuff I already had.

Btw, vinyl is back and it's the kids that are driving that - although I've joined them :).

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coopnjaxdad@reddit

My 20 year old doesn't stream. He has vinyl and a ripped CD collection he throws on an mp3 player, he also has a Discman he uses.

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DiogenesXenos@reddit

Yup, and after coming into an 80s retro boombox unexpectedly, I have returned to physical media. The spiritual difference was immediate and striking compared to streaming.

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howaboutanothergame@reddit

I’ve gone back to CD’s (rebuying as much as I can from charity shops and online) and then ripping them to a new digital audio player (Surfans F20 pro) with wired in ear headphones. I also bought a whole Technics system with decent stand alone speakers.

I’m loving the return to music I own.

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All_Dogs_Love_Me@reddit

The availability of music like this isn't sad in of itself. I think what you are lamenting is the relationship that one has with a particular song, band or album. In earlier years you had to be pretty deliberate and pretty passionate, but I think that streaming availability for the masses is great. Society just needs to ensure there is still a financial path for young bands and performers to "make it". Honestly I think that looks pretty rough, and the AI music stuff is also gonna snuff a lot of artists out.

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mjh8212@reddit

I’m proud of my son he’s done analog for a while. He still has my mixed CDs he bought an 8 track and has tapes for that and he loves vinyl has a record player. He thrifts and goes to the dump to see what he can find.

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Beautiful_Arm8364@reddit

I'm not sad about any of this. I can't imagine still paying $10 for a tape or $15 for a CD that has like eight songs on it (maybe three good ones). We let nostalgia cloud how shitty that actually was compared to now.

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oboingadoing@reddit

It put a value on music though. I like how easy it is to access music, but hate it at the same time. The streaming services are terrible for musicians. Also, AI music is infiltrating streaming which sucks all around.

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-Granby-@reddit

I have Spotify premium and I love it. Definitely not good for the musicians though. I just saw a clip with Snoop and he said Spotify cut him a check. A billion streams and the check was 45k.

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oboingadoing@reddit

I can't stand Spotify's interface. I don't understand how so many people use it. I still rip CDs to my Plex server and stream that whenever I want. No monthly fee, no AI songs, no remaster or rerecorded version that I don't want to listen to.

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Beautiful_Arm8364@reddit

This is why I buy tickets to shows, buy merch, etc.

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Remy0507@reddit

Streaming also makes it easier to discover new music that I never would have heard otherwise.

I do still occasionally buy a CD or record though if I want to support the artist and have something physical to put in my collection.

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mudshark698@reddit

I had hundreds of tapes that I scammed off of Columbia House. Lol

I do like being able to stream tunes. I gladly pay \~$15 a month to have unlimited access to whatever I want to listen to whenever I want to listen to it. I figure this is the equivalent of buying one CD/album a month. I listen to some pretty obscure stuff, but I've only stumped my streaming service a couple times.

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alargepowderedwater@reddit

Last generation so far, but who knows where things will go? People were only able to have any music collection at all for a mere seven or eight decades before streaming largely replaced physical media, and more than a few of my (college) students collect and listen to music on vinyl now. Streaming has been mostly bad for musicians (financially), so at this point I’m kind of anticipating some release-physical-media-only musicians/record labels to hit the scene.

My own prediction is a return to local/regional music scenes with bands finding in-person audiences and small-scale but sustainable levels of physical media sales, which will also make live music more accessible and affordable for the rest of us because the scale will shrink. One band only needs a few thousand regular fans to make a living, if there is no massive corporation to support as well. (But that may just be wishful thinking, my own desperate hope to rescue the cultural treasure that is music from the hands of massive corporations and ruthless commodification.)

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MurderedRemains@reddit (OP)

As a semi-pro musician and recording artist for 35 years, I'd love this to be true.

I recorded and sold cds with my band for years, but I wouldn't even attempt it nowadays. Even the biggest artists have to tour and sell merch to make money, because streaming has destroyed the music industry.

I can't see how we come back from this, except to continue supporting local independent music.

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alargepowderedwater@reddit

Agreed, the only way through is to revive local and in-person musical culture, shrink the scale back down to how music has existed in human cultures for most of our history. I thought that was a pipe dream, but seeing my young adult students starting to reject unreal and non-actual lifestyles has made me kinda hopeful. They appreciate things that are actual things, and are as exhausted by everything being reduced to information and streams as we are. Reality needs to be actually, physically real, or your brain starts to go a little crazy, they get that. So I still have hope.

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BellaFromSwitzerland@reddit

I don’t miss those times. I could only afford a handful of cassettes. I even remember how much I paid for my stereo system

Now I’m one of the top users of Spotify, music brings me a lot of joy and improves my quality of time

My teenage son started a small vinyl collection but the habit didn’t take because streaming is just so convenient

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juliankennedy23@reddit

I am perfectly happy with Spotify and I would have died of extreme pleasure if Spotify had existed in the '80s.

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Advanced_Nose_7738@reddit

I'm all for the present era. No cds to lose, get scratched, leave in the car, forget to bring with me, collect dust and take up space.

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OldBanjoFrog@reddit

My millennial wife has a pretty solid CD collection

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Comedywriter1@reddit

Nice! Marry well and you really enhance your music library.

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ZebraBorgata@reddit

Yeah. I still have my Sony CD Jukebox filled with almost 300 CDs. Aside from that, I keep about 2500 songs on a tiny iPod mini which is how I typically listen to music - either wired or wireless earbuds or do Bluetooth to it in my car. The 2500 songs were either ripped from my CDs or downloaded FOR FREE from various internet resources. It is rare I pay for music anymore. Odds are, if you give me an album name or single, I’ll find it for free on the internet in under 5 minutes.

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melty75@reddit

I still have a ton of physical CDs and burned CDs. However, I did eventually also have access to mp3s and napster-like applications, in the 90s.

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Inca-Vacation@reddit

Yeah, I loved spending 11 bucks in 1991 money on 3 songs on a CD single. It was the bee's knees.

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Typical_me_1111@reddit

Got rid of my collection

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bjb8@reddit

Probably the same can be said for video as well. Back in the day I would mostly watch what was on TV, or play one of my recorded VHS movies (or few purchased ones).

I find the streaming options sometimes offer too much, I can't decide what to listen to or watch because there is so much.

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Ray_The_Engineer@reddit

I've actually found this to be not entirely true. For a few of my favorite rock bands, the remastering that's happened over the last decade or so has altered the music in ways that are not appealing to me...and that's what I hear when I try to listen to them on Spotify. It's just...wrong. I liked the band Europe back in the day, but a couple of their songs have been jackhammered over the years, so I wound up buying their original CD on eBay and digitally ripping it to my personal music vault. Sorry, I like what the artist, mixer and producer put out when it originated.

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IMTrick@reddit

The last? I think millennials would dispute that, given that the average one would have been well into their adult years when streaming started to take off.

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Standard-Cockroach64@reddit

Love my vinyl, especially on WFH days