Every year there seems to be a growing shift towards digital instead of physical copies of things.
By things I mean books, movies, shows, videogames, and of course - music.
However, the trends seem to be swinging back in the other direction - much like the pop culture pendulum has been known to do - or at least, according to my mom, it has in the past.
Not to mention, I’ve been writing about this sort of topic off and on through the life of this paper.
Still, I’m welcoming the renewed growth and stability in physical media and am glad to see it happening so quickly.
I can’t tell if it’s a mix of nostalgia or if consumers are finally getting tired of realizing how limiting digital media can still be in the modern world.
But, I can tell you that while I use both forms interchangeably, I’m nowhere near divesting myself of my favorites.
Last year’s Hurricane Beryl reminded me how important it was to have physical forms of entertainment for when Internet and cellphone service signals were limited or completely nonexistent.
Plus, it seems like every time I get the urge to stream something particular, it isn’t available on one of the many platform services we pay for and it aggravates me to no end!
I don’t like having to rent some movie that I know I have on a shelf somewhere that feels like it’s a million miles away from the comfort of my couch.
And don’t get me wrong, I know it’s rather lazy to give in to the temptation, but sometimes it isn’t worth waking up the dogs or mom and Mike around midnight just because I want to travel memory lane and enjoy the first “Blade” movie rather than just sucking up the $3.99 fee and using the remote to rent said movie.
Music, however, is a horse of an entirely different color or sort.
I outright refuse to rent any music and own a small amount of digital-only files as it is.
My best friend allows me to be the third wheel on her YouTube Premium account and I can stream to my heart’s content based on genre, band, album or even one of the pre-mixed playlists as long as I have signal and data on my cellphone.
If I’m short on data near the end of my billing cycle, I can always plug my iPod into my radio and play something that way.
And, naturally, my last resort is one of the handful of physical CDs I have riding around in my car.
See, I grew up with binders and cases full of CDs and special cases with cassettes even before that - so I’m not a stranger to lugging around physical copies of my favorite albums and I’m certainly not worried that anyone is going to break into my car to steal my slightly scratched copy of Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” album.
Another dear friend knows just how much I love music and while recently downsizing her CD collection gave me all of her culled music.
I’ve been happily ripping tracks to my iTunes account in small batches daily since then and can’t wait to arrange them accordingly before adding them to my iPod.
My only lingering concern is that I’m nearing the end of my iPod’s memory and might have to do my own digital music cleanout.
I guess I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and cross that bridge when I get to it – if I have to.
Until then, I’m still favoring physical entertainment media over digital and won’t be changing my mind any time soon.
