It’s also interesting to think back to how I would listen to the albums I loved. The first two albums on my collage in the OP I had on vinyl. Up until the age of 8, my parents’ record collection was all vinyl and we listened to music on the one record player in the house.
In the summer of 1984, the Jacksons’ Victory album came out, which, being a huge Michael Jackson fan at the time, I couldn’t wait to get. I was with my dad when I got it, and he convinced me that I should get the cassette rather than the vinyl record, as you can carry around cassette players and listen to them anywhere you go.
From then until the mid-90s, I primarily purchased albums on cassette, even for several years after CDs became the best way to listen to music. Cassettes were a few dollars cheaper than CDs, and I bought a lot of music, so it was better for my budget. I didn’t even own my own CD player until 1994.
Then in 1994, I got a CD player for my birthday. Due to CDs being a much better way to listen to music and also due to the fact that cassettes were starting to be phased out of the music industry (it was getting harder to find albums I wanted on cassette), I went all in on CDs.
Even after pretty much any music you were looking for was available digitally, I stuck with CDs for a while. I liked going to record store to peruse through the CDs. I liked having a physical “cover” with the cover art and liner notes. I would buy the CD, pop it into my computer, upload it into my iTunes library, and transfer it to my iPod. I would then put the case on a huge CD rack in my living room that contained my entire CD collection.
Then, probably around 2011, I realized those CDs were just going to keep taking up space. Downloading albums digitally was also cheaper, not to mention easier. I finally caved and went all digital.
It’s crazy that now I can carry around my entire music collection in my phone and play it anywhere.
