Why I Still Buy CDs, and My Music Listening Habits

a lot of people that I'll be watching this that have different points of view on all these things and that's perfectly fine because we're all different, but I'm a continuity guy, okay, I grew up when you listen to an album, okay, we're talking. in the old days, right, a piece of vinyl, right, I like to listen to albums from start to finish, just as they were intended for me to listen to, just as the artist presented them and presented them to us. I'm not a sound mixing guy, I'm not. don't go setting up playlists, you know, who I talk to again, people like this, it's the trendy thing, I get it, people have, I have a playlist for the gym, I shuffle when we have people over, I did this and that. and nobody cares about albums, I just choose the songs I like and that's what I want to do, hey, that's not me, that's not me.

I go to the gym. I have two classic 160 gig iPods of basically complete albums that I put on iTunes. of all these things, and I'm going to buy a third one recently because you can

still

get them, they sell them for use and reconditioning and stuff like that and basically on my five minute commute to the gym every day. my lunch break I have already decided what album I am going to listen to during my workout before I leave my car and enter Gold's Gym, that is me and many times my entire trip from my house to the gym is profound. deep in thought about exactly what I think I'm in the mood to listen to, so before I walked through that door I already put on my earplugs, earplugs, headphones, uh and marked that particular album on my iPod and it's already playing when I walk in the door at Gold's Gym, it's already playing to me like it's picking stuff from albums or just streaming what you like, it goes against how we all grew up

listening

to albums and records in the first place. and I think you know these artists, these bands, they go to Great Longitudes to create these works of art and they, along with the record labels, you know, put these songs together on an album like an album to be listened to as an album. and I think we live in a society where everything is throwaway and we don't have much of an attention span anymore, it's like oh, so that song grabs me instantly, I'll put it on my Spotify playlist or That song I heard, the I went very quickly through 10 songs on this new album and yeah, only three or four really grabbed me on the first, you know, first quick listen, I'll download them and forget the rest. but you know what about the old days where we would buy a new album or a couple of albums and spend months

listening

to them cover to cover to really get used to the album and really see if any of these songs would be slow?

The growers and they entrench themselves in our psyche, in our brains, in our memories, maybe after the third fourth fifth sixth they listen well and then, in fact, after that couple of months we think, ah, you know, I really love this record from Iron Maiden, uh. Eight of the songs I love, the other two are okay, but I

still

listen to the album from start to finish, at least I gave everything a chance. I talked to a lot of people. Again, there is nothing wrong if you have a habit of giving. things, a quick listen and you catch what grabs you instantly and move on to something else.

You know, we have a couple of viewers here, regulars on the channel, that that's what they do and they feel very strongly about that and I understand, uh, that's not it. For me, although it is the way I like it, I like to have all the work recorded together. I'm not a handpicked kind of person, it's like I have, you know, the new threshold of my iTunes to add everything to my iPod. is happening there, everything is happening there, um, yeah, but no, I just feel like no one gives anything much of a chance anymore, it's like you know, a quick, cursory listen, even that, maybe it's just fast forward to through things, it's like that. "We're not giving that song a chance, so to me, the whole streaming thing is like, oh yeah, this doesn't grab me for a minute, let me go, I'll go to the next one, it's like we just don't do it." ".

I no longer give anything a chance, you know, to take root in our being and, uh, you know, not everything can be consumed quickly, you know, after a minute by minute, listen, uh, I think you know, I just don't care anymore. We're giving

music

a chance and that's how the world is now everything is information everything is fast, fast, fast, throw things here and there, see what sticks, um, it's just for me, that's not the way that I like to listen to

music

, that's not the way I like it, uh, you. You know, reading a book, that's not the way I like to ingest news, that's not the way I like to watch a movie or watch TV or things like that, you know, it's the same thing, you know, you get it here, ya You know, on YouTube.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who watch content here on C Tranquility and if in the first 30 or 60 seconds they're not completely engaged, they're already extroverted watching something else, you know, but I remember growing up watching television and you know you had specific programs that you watched religiously week after week, you watch the whole episode and you don't give up after five minutes because you know sometimes, hey, 10 to 15 minutes in it really picks up steam and something great happens, they save the stuff that really hooks you for the duration. the last 10 minutes, we don't live in a society that does that anymore, right, we don't give anything if it doesn't grab you in the first few minutes, that's it, move on to something else, it's a shame, but I mean that, but you know , a lot of people ask me what my listening

habits

are, so when do I listen to music?

I listen to music all day while I work, obviously, while I work. In my day job, obviously, it's more of a background thing, but every once in a while I'm like, "Oh, that'll catch my attention." If it's something I'm hearing, then I know I want to check out. From time to time I may take a couple of notes here and there. sometimes it's just, you know, things that I have on while I'm working and maybe I bought them for the pleasure of listening to them, and you know I'll listen to those things, you know, enjoy them, I always listen to music when I'm. exercise generally speaking while I'm at the gym exercise exercise I hear things you know familiar things very familiar things in the car driving to the gym and to and from other places errands and things like that and going to visit people and all that, I generally listen newer stuff, so after I've reviewed new albums, which I usually listen to, review and try to digest here in this office once I've done that, once I've done a video review or a writing.

Check on our website that the CD then goes into the car, so generally speaking what's in my car is new stuff that I acquired that maybe I already checked or maybe I didn't check, maybe it's just something new that I bought and that you just know. I needed, I wanted to have most of the new things, then I put them in my car, where for the next few months, sometimes more than a few months, I listen to those things in rotation so you know I really get used to those things and then such once after about a year. or maybe not at all, and I usually do this at the end of the year, so it's a perfect example, so now we're in December 2022.

I'm already looking at what's in my car now and most of that is 2022 and 2021 releases. uh, I moved to the car I've been listening to a lot over the last year, so a lot of that stuff is going to come out in favor of the second half of 2022 releases that I have here in my office, which is well, you checked them out ready to put them in the car to enjoy regularly, that's how it works. Do I listen to a lot of music at home in general, like outside of this office? When I'm preparing dinner. I usually put on a CD.

I very rarely listen to music sitting in the living room on my home theater every now and then, but not that often. Most of the time it's in the car in this office or while I'm cooking, I listen to music. outside like in the summer, yeah, that's what I do, so sometimes I take out a small portable CD player and a small stack of CDs. I'll spend a couple of hours by the pool or on the patio, other times I'll just pull out one of my iPods and just plug it into a portable speaker, so to speak, so you know, so what else, another interesting thing and Let's see if I have any examples of this useful here, maybe not useful, but there. it's what remasters and reissued CDs look like, so I'll use that.

I'll go back to Tom Petty's again. This is not really a good example. Do I have any remasters here anyway? You know, remastered and reused, you should see it. These often come with bonus content because you can include almost 80 minutes of music on a CD, it's not the same with vinyl you can't always include and they don't always include bonus material on LPS vinyl so I think Do you know how many times we've talked about this before? How many times have I repurchased albums like Rush on CDI? I had the original LPs. I bought cassettes. I bought the CDs like two, three, four times, because they keep re-releasing them. live album bonus alternate track bonus never before released studio track bonus you know Jethro Tull's catalog is very indicative of that so you get these CDs that reissue them and you get all this extra stuff that you can't get on a vinyl copy, right, um, and you know something else too.

I'm thinking about that, so you know, in those cases where let's say I go and buy a CD, uh, I risk a ban, right, someone recommends something to me. and I go out and buy one of their albums on CD and listen to it and give it a good chance and say, ah, you know, I don't really like this, reselling a CD is pretty simple nowadays. I sold and sold many things I bought and finally decided I didn't want to keep them. I sold on Amazon. I sold on eBay. A lot of people resell on Discogs.

There's a lot. places where you can resell CDs It's relatively cheap to do that, you know, you package it in a little envelope, okay, you stick a little envelope on it, you put a little sticker of what you know on the outside where your return information goes and that's it. It usually costs very little, you know, most of the time you can ship it. Media Mail costs very little to sell and send a CD to someone who is looking to buy it from you. You are going to resell the vinyl. a little bit more difficult, you have to have this vinyl box, it's a little big and bulky, right, you have to pack it well to make sure, because vinyl is very easy to tear, you know, damage it, right, it's a big, long box and wide, right? so the incident is a little bit more expensive to ship and the chances of it being damaged are much higher than if a CD was damaged on its way to the buyer, you know you might occasionally get the case broken or something.

Like that, but you know, for vinyl it is more important that that piece of iron not crack or get damaged. And you know something else too. We talked about streaming services before. You know, with the CD, I don't have to worry about that. oh you know, and this was the case not long ago, King Crimson has a new release, Mount, oh but I'm a Spotify user and King Crimson's music isn't on Spotify, what do I do now? I don't have to worry about that. buy it it's mine I have it to listen to whenever I want I don't have to worry if Spotify has it I don't have to worry if Apple music has it I don't have to worry if there are any downloads I can buy, you know the good thing about downloads if that's your way things instead of transmitting.

You know a lot of artists and bands use Bandcamp now, so you can usually go to Bandcamp and you can buy the album download. or individual songs or you can get a CD or an LP, so that's good, but you know the streaming services and you're basically at their mercy as to what they're going to have on their platform and a lot of times you know you have specific artists that I don't want. your uh your music your catalog on a particular streaming service, so you're like screwed, so you're on your Mercy um and you know the internet goes down, it's not a big deal to me.

I just put this in my CD player. I can enjoy it wherever and however I want. I have nothing to worry about. The Internet is not working because it doesn't happen that often, but you know it happens depending on the type of service. You're okay, so, yeah, anyway, those are some of the many reasons why I still buy CDs, why I prefer physical music again. This may not be the way you listen to music, or how you buy music, or how you store music or whatever. Alright, so basically I just wanted to do this episode because I get these questions all the time, literally all the time in between, just to reiterate that I don't have this big, expensive stereo system that everyone always asks Pete about.

I want to know exactly. the kind of equipment you listen to your music on and all that kind of stuff I don't have. I've never had expensive stereo equipment. I have little Sony portable CD players like all over the house. Well, I have a pretty decent house. theater system in my living room, you know the Blu-ray player and you know the speakers and the subwoofer and the sound bar and all that, and you know sometimes when I occasionally want to listen to something, you know, get the experience Complete, I'll do what I don't. I don't do that very often and I have a nice little stereo system in my Toyota 4Runner in thecar um and that's another thing now that they make all the new vehicles no longer have CD players, what am I going to do right?

I'm already thinking, you know, granted my car is seven years old. old and I'm not getting rid of it anytime soon, but I'm already thinking about when the day will come when I can get a new vehicle, how am I going to listen to my CDs? Am I going to get a small laptop? uh CD, external CD drive and plug it in and I might as well do it because I'm not ready to give up. You know, carrying CDs in the car is just who I am and I'm so used to doing it that you know it's hard. to change old dinosaur

habits

and routines, that's how it works, so anyway, thanks for watching everyone, please feel free to share your views in the comments below on how you listen to music, how you shop music, the type of media. what do you prefer and why um again we're all different we all do these things and we all have different habits and we all prefer the formats and the media that we like and it's all good I mean it's all that's what makes us all different .

I often say that we all hear things differently, but we all like to enjoy music in different ways in different formats and we have different buying habits and things and that's what makes the world go round, makes the world go round. different, so there is no right or wrong answer is not just based on what you like, so thanks for watching. I appreciate it. This is on the web at www.chranquility.org. We are on facebook. We are on YouTube. All together all the damn time. Stay tuned. I have, as you can see, I'm back in the office, so I was in Washington DC for a few days.

It's great to get away for a few days and come back to the world and you know. doing some business trips and all that was good to be in DC. I haven't been there and I've been there for just under three years, so it was great, but stay tuned for Monsters Den tonight we're doing a sort of review of the recent movie. smile uh that's what's coming up tonight and then of course Martin Popoff and I will be back at the fun house tomorrow talking about uh has metal hair his metal hair or adult glam metal right we're going to talk about some albums which kind of means that whole '80s style of music that we've called glam metal hair metal is how it grew up after 1990 in a lot of ways, so we'll talk about that and then of course we have Saturday is the connection with the UK and on Sunday we will rate the album.

On Saturday we'll have Simon Stephen and I'll do another episode of Aor Melodic Rock Classics and then on Sunday I'll be ranking the upcoming spiritual albums from Swedish rock group Stoner Beggars. uh this Sunday a week from Sunday you will also receive Tom Petty's ranking, so stay tuned for that and much more here on the channel, thanks for watching the Brown Imp, see you very soon, bye.