Music has always been a huge part of my life.
My mom’s record collection is… expansive. That’s the only word for it. Not only is it incredibly large and diverse, but my mom knows every single album she has – and can tell you what’s on the cover. In my parents’ home, there is a rotating installation display of album art that my mother changes periodically, carefully choosing each album based on a particular theme. She knows which covers are black and white, which ones feature big images of lips, which ones are abstract.
Albums used to be important to me, too. I remember depositing my paycheques when I was first living on my own in a small basement apartment with two other girls, each paying $75 a month for rent. It was so dirt cheap that even though I was making less than minimum wage, I had a tiny bit of disposable income each week. And I spent it at CD Plus.
We didn’t have a fancy music store like HMV or anything like that in the town where I grew up. We had a CD Plus, and I was there so often that the store employees could tell me which new albums I might be interested in. Spending $20 on an album that I might like didn’t bother me in the least – it was music, and I loved it.
And ‘Tramps.’ That was a special treat. My family’s vacations often involved an afternoon spent at the used CD store, digging though rows of second-hand music and paying $7 for a CD you had to hope wasn’t used as a coaster.
I was thinking about this the other day, when I sat down to edit some photos and opened Pandora on my MacBook.
I discovered Pandora while I was in Kansas and had too much free time and not enough music in my life. I could put in the name of a band or artist I liked and let it play for hours, shuffling through a variety of music within the same style. Magic.
It’s still magic, I admit, but it makes me kind of sad to think that I don’t even look in stores like CD Plus anymore. And… does ‘Tramps’ even still exist?
Instead of the exhilaration of venturing out on new release day to pick out some new CDs with my limited disposable income, I open an app on my phone and preview each song to see if I’m interested in an entire album of that. Rarely do I ever make a purchase, but if I do, there’s nothing exciting about it. I could sit and watch in anticipation as each song is downloaded onto my iPhone, but… why?
It’s not like dragging a packaged CD down the sharp edge of a countertop to peel back the wrapper and tear it open, so you can browse through the images and lyrics contained in the booklet tucked into the front of the jewel case. That was exciting. Downloading music is not.
And so, I have records. Like my mom. They waited for me in storage while I was living in Kansas, and when I got back, my Christmas gift that year was a beautiful vintage turntable. And the best part is that I don’t have to listen to exclusively records purchased at garage sales or the Salvation Army – tons of artists today are embracing this “technology” and putting out vinyl releases.
I still don’t buy albums like I used to, rushing out on Tuesdays to see what’s new on the shelves at CD Plus, but it’s nice to be able to buy music I can actually hold in my hands.
