Prescient, as usual, Jack. A nice analogy for hanging on to that ICE vehicle in the face of the oncoming monsoon of unflavored electric short range appliances burdened with subscription services for the heated seats, or, for that matter, the airbags for your children.
Now and Zen takes me back to the summer of 1988. It was my summer of freedom between junior and senior years of high school. Few responsibilities other than chasing girls and being home by curfew. The selection of cassettes in my truck rotated a bit, but always included "Now and Zen", INXS "Kick", and Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell". Happy times of youth without back pain.
If I can't get my hands on a physical disc I try to buy direct from the band these days which seems to be a reasonably common option. I have been fortunate I haven't had to purchase an "iAmaTunes loicense fer that music, mate" in years.
Amazon has indeed changed their music offerings since you originally posted this. I rarely use the service, but noticed recently that a few physical albums I purchased years ago that came with AutoRip, are no longer offered on my playable list. Amazon wants me to upgrade to “unlimited” to play songs that they know I purchased and had previously gave to me online via AutoRip.
This is a part of the reason why I too insist on purchasing physical albums whenever possible. Fidelity being the primary.
I’ve been using iTunes Match for a number of years. Can’t remember how much it costs as I pay it annually and it auto-renews. Works well to synch my library across all my Apple (and latterly Windows) devices but more importantly allows downloads as well as uploads of my own stuff. So even if they end the service I’ll still have all my purchases. I’m actually surprised it’s survived as an offering since the introduction of Apple Music (the incessant prompts for which you can turn off).
I tend to buy most of my music on Bandcamp these days unless it’s old cassettes to play in the Mondial or old vinyl to play on the Sony stack system.
Yes, I'm not into paying for limited edition cassettes or funky coloured vinyl. Bandcamp is good for digital formats though, I download Mp3s at 320 but there are loseless as well.
I keep my music on an external hard drive. I ripped all my albums to digital files (mp3 or WAV) and sold the hard copies when we moved to Japan for the first time as a way to simultaneously lighten the load while raising money to finance it. I'm generally happy with my set up. I put the songs on my phone and play them in the car or at work and I never have to worry about data usage or areas with no cell phone service (the reality of living in Upper Michigan). It usually takes me an hour or two to switch the songs out, and I usually do it by season. I can't listen to Rip Slyme in the middle of February, just like Deftones sounds more like winter to me than summer. I do occasionally wonder if they'll find a way to somehow prevent me from enjoying my digital accumulation of songs, but I don't think there's any DRM on them and my VLC player still plays WAV files since Google decided they're done with it. The only thing that drives me nuts about the VLC player is that it does not remember what songs it has played, so when it's on shuffle it will play the same song twice (or three times, or infuriatingly four!) without going through the rest of the songs first. My Walkman (RIP) did not do that, and I miss it for that.
Prescient, as usual, Jack. A nice analogy for hanging on to that ICE vehicle in the face of the oncoming monsoon of unflavored electric short range appliances burdened with subscription services for the heated seats, or, for that matter, the airbags for your children.
Now and Zen takes me back to the summer of 1988. It was my summer of freedom between junior and senior years of high school. Few responsibilities other than chasing girls and being home by curfew. The selection of cassettes in my truck rotated a bit, but always included "Now and Zen", INXS "Kick", and Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell". Happy times of youth without back pain.
If I can't get my hands on a physical disc I try to buy direct from the band these days which seems to be a reasonably common option. I have been fortunate I haven't had to purchase an "iAmaTunes loicense fer that music, mate" in years.
Agreed on all counts.
Amazon has indeed changed their music offerings since you originally posted this. I rarely use the service, but noticed recently that a few physical albums I purchased years ago that came with AutoRip, are no longer offered on my playable list. Amazon wants me to upgrade to “unlimited” to play songs that they know I purchased and had previously gave to me online via AutoRip.
This is a part of the reason why I too insist on purchasing physical albums whenever possible. Fidelity being the primary.
CD or SACD is usually my preference as well.
I’ve been using iTunes Match for a number of years. Can’t remember how much it costs as I pay it annually and it auto-renews. Works well to synch my library across all my Apple (and latterly Windows) devices but more importantly allows downloads as well as uploads of my own stuff. So even if they end the service I’ll still have all my purchases. I’m actually surprised it’s survived as an offering since the introduction of Apple Music (the incessant prompts for which you can turn off).
I tend to buy most of my music on Bandcamp these days unless it’s old cassettes to play in the Mondial or old vinyl to play on the Sony stack system.
Sadly I left the Apple ecosystem a very long time ago... but that IS a better mousetrap. When you buy from Bandcamp do you go digital only?
Yes, I'm not into paying for limited edition cassettes or funky coloured vinyl. Bandcamp is good for digital formats though, I download Mp3s at 320 but there are loseless as well.
I keep my music on an external hard drive. I ripped all my albums to digital files (mp3 or WAV) and sold the hard copies when we moved to Japan for the first time as a way to simultaneously lighten the load while raising money to finance it. I'm generally happy with my set up. I put the songs on my phone and play them in the car or at work and I never have to worry about data usage or areas with no cell phone service (the reality of living in Upper Michigan). It usually takes me an hour or two to switch the songs out, and I usually do it by season. I can't listen to Rip Slyme in the middle of February, just like Deftones sounds more like winter to me than summer. I do occasionally wonder if they'll find a way to somehow prevent me from enjoying my digital accumulation of songs, but I don't think there's any DRM on them and my VLC player still plays WAV files since Google decided they're done with it. The only thing that drives me nuts about the VLC player is that it does not remember what songs it has played, so when it's on shuffle it will play the same song twice (or three times, or infuriatingly four!) without going through the rest of the songs first. My Walkman (RIP) did not do that, and I miss it for that.
My company is starting to dabble in this bull$hit and I am NOT happy about it.