Streaming may have a notable edge in terms of convenience—but owning my music has offered a wealth of benefits. I don’t just mean quality, either. It’s the relationship that owning physical CDs creates and gels with the way I personally approach music. This, among other reasons, is why I prefer owning my music.
1 CDs Sound Better Than Streaming
I don’t mean to sound snobby about it—I swear I’m not!—but CDs are superior in quality. It’s just that simple. I guarantee you, if you made a habit of listening to your favorite tunes on a CD, then switched to YouTube or Spotify, your ears are going to perk up and hear a notable difference. Your ears will be tuned to it like mine are.
Is it that much of a difference? Well, admittedly, it takes a decent pair of speakers or headphones to parse the change in audio quality. Without getting lost in a tangent, CDs aren’t compressed like streaming is, and compression can throw out some of that richness in the audio you probably didn’t know was there in the first place.
Preservation is reason enough to make CDs worth buying. The idea of an all-digital library doesn’t sit right with me. Most, if not all, of my music is housed on my PC.
What if my PC breaks down? Sure, any digital music can be redownloaded, but the problem still persists, it’s just moved to the platform. I can’t trust a digital storefront will be in business forever. By having a physical copy, I have a backup that could very well outlast digital storefronts.
And I’m not worried about disc rot, either. I keep my CDs in a spare bedroom, on a shelf, away from curious hands and eyes. I never heat the room, it’s well-insulated, and I have blackout curtains for good measure.
When I do have to handle CDs, I do so properly, by keeping my fingers at the edges and the hole. They’re all in pristine condition. As long as the CDs are cared for, I always have backups.
3 Yet Another Subscription? No Thanks!
Speaking of digital storefronts, subscriptions are a no-go for me. I’m not at all interested in forking over another $10, $15, or $20 for another monthly subscription just to avoid the annoying break between songs to hear ads. Nor does the math work out in my favor.
Take Spotify, for example. The individual plan is $12 a month, so $144 at the end of the year. I could save myself money by getting an annual gift card for $99, too. My next CD purchases are going to be some Nine Inch Nails albums. If I check in with F.Y.E., the CDs are about $16 a piece.
For the same price as Spotify’s annual gift card, I could get five of the band’s albums, and that’s with sales tax already figured in. I could walk out of the store with Downward Spiral, Broken, With Teeth, and Pretty Hate Machine, and have money to spare. I’d own those albums as opposed to renting.
4 Buying CDs Feels More Intimate
The truth of the matter is, and I admit this puts me in a unique position, but I don’t fold a lot of new music into my daily life, anyway. That’s part of the reason streaming is lost on me—I’d just listen to music I already enjoy. But buying a CD? That’s an intimate experience.
Perhaps that feeling is born, in part, from being a frugal spender, but I feel better when I buy a CD with purpose rather than on a whim. Pun totally intended, but it means the music struck a chord with me too, to move me in such a way that I’ll leave the house to buy a CD. Maybe even some merch or tickets to a show!
On that note, I rather enjoy the process of maintaining my equipment. There’s a sense of accomplishment from dusting off my collection, adding new albums, and swapping out items.
5 I Love Displaying CDs On My Shelf
At the end of the day, nothing beats a shelf full of my favorite albums. A digital library doesn’t even come close. I can’t hold all those ones and zeroes—a CD is a tangible object I can cradle any time I want.
CDs are also a source of conversation. I like sharing my music tastes and hearing what others like. It sure beats being suggested music by an algorithm when someone talks passionately about a particular band or artist.
Compared to owning my music, the convenience of streaming just isn’t enough to make the leap. All streaming wants from me is to nickel and dime me for an objectively worse experience. If I really want to, I can stream my music collection with Plexamp, anyway. Otherwise, you’ll have to pry the CDs from my cold, dead hands!
