Good morning! I hope the world is being good to you and you’re being good to it.

Grab your coffee or beverage of choice and share a thought with me!

Do you remember the heyday of CDs, when Sam Goody existed and Best Buy was a cornucopia of entertainment? I remember, and that’s probably why my knees hurt and I grunt when bending over. Those shiny platters provided escape to an ethereal plane where the noise, distractions, and grit of the real world could not penetrate. There was always something exciting about picking up the latest album from your favorite artist or band and fighting the cellophane packaging, so you could flip open the fragile jewel case and get to experiencing the satisfying click of the CD snapping securely into the player before it spun up into aural bliss. While my Zune now lies inoperable and Apple Music serves up one disappointing playlist after another, my curated collection, both the good and bad, has never let me down.

I am currently in the process of re-ripping my CDs to build a lossless quality digital library that I can run through PLEX. As a bonus, PLEX AMP allows me to access the same library via my phone, so when other music isn’t hitting the right notes, I can always find a trusty companion from yesteryear. The thing is though, I miss the act of listening to the actual discs. Convenience-wise, it’s hard to beat digital music that exists in a handheld device or beamed from the heavens, but that always ends up feeling like a disconnected, throw-away experience. Having to put a disc in the player, fine-tuning the setup on a stereo or praying the skip protection perseveres in the car, and being able to navigate tracks by heart forced engagement with the media, and, I have to think, that allowed certain generations to form a close bond with what they consumed and came to love.

Beyond simply listening, the evolution of CD buying and the precursor to customized digital playlists was the burned CD, something that was magical in its time. When you pulled the next blank canvas from the spindle, there was potential in your hand to create a masterpiece. I burned a lot of CDs to create car copies. They would get labeled and tucked into a Case Logic binder before riding in the passenger seat while awaiting their summons to my Sony Discman (ESP 2, represent). My fondest memories, however, were those times when I would get a song list from a friend and set about creating a mix disc of bangers. I may have gotten some help from Napster and Limewire to be able to construct those albums, which took prep and patience on 33.6 dial-up, but the act of burning a new disc also felt special at that time.

For whatever reason, I’ve always been a fan of a hard-working computer. All that technology and computing power should not sit idle, even in the Pentium II days. With two internal CD drives whirring away, I marveled at the real-time flow of data from the CD-ROM (or HDD) to the CD-RW. You could hear the PC working feverishly to maintain buffers and execute the necessary programming. In minutes, what entered the PC as a blank, empty disc, emerged with the key to providing someone with 60 minutes of happiness. Those were good times that became obsolete far too fast.

I still purchase the occasional CD, sometimes new, sometimes used, and I still have my old 50-disc changer stereo from high school as well as a newer single-disc player made to connect to modern setups. Getting a new CD holds the mystery of the tracks within. Some songs will be good, and it’s likely some will be throwaway, but that is something to discover on an individual level. There’s no algorithm or global play stats spoiling the surprise of which songs are good and getting replayed. With CDs, you get to preserve the experience of enjoying music. I will always appreciate convenience, but some things are simply better with a little intentionality.