Streaming Music - Finally - in 2019

For Y.E.A.R.S I resisted the trend of music moving to a digital, non-physical medium. The experience of cracking open the shrink wrap on a new CD and getting to open that crisp, never-opened-by-a-person case was just something I was not willing to part with. You get to see what the band/label decided to print on the CD itself, see what direction they took in presenting the lyrics/pictures/etc in the booklet and all that fun surprise stuff. Yeah, the music is the reason you bought it in the first place, but damn those little touches just make it something even more. In many cases, that experience of opening the case and being presented with a piece of physical art that I got to digest while listening to auditory art was just so awesome, and could really add color to my experience with the pieces of music. So obviously, when the move to digital started to happen in the last 00’s, I instantly and vehemently resisted the shift, touting it as a disservice to the artist and the music.

Yes, I know I need to dust the shelf.

Eleven years on, here I am a monthly subscriber to Apple Music, which I use for 90% of my music listening. Looking back, knew eventually I would take the plunge, but the thought of “renting” my music for a monthly fee was not a fantastic thought to me. I need to own my music! No way.

Honestly, in retrospect i should have cleaned the little piece of earwax off the AirPod before this.

Realistically though, I love so many bands and so many different albums, songs, EP’s, 7” releases, and the such, but there are only so many that I L.O.V.E. Listen to cover-to-cover, invigorates your soul, brings color back into the world, gives you heart stopping goosebumps type of releases, and those are the releases that are making me feel so strongly about my physical collection. Passing “ownership” over to a company to safeguard audio that is integrated and part of my daily existence is scary to someone like myself who connects on a very intense, emotional level with music. This is where the comeback of vinyl finally pushed me into the cloud.

This literally isn't my music note. Thanks Tim Cook. V nice gradient work.

With its resurgence, almost every new release that comes out is released on vinyl. Sporting larger than life album art, huge liner notes and, in many cases, insanely cool, collectable colored vinyl that really adds a crazy cool new touch, I became obsessed with the format and completely stopped buying CD’s. With vinyl, its not as easy to just rip it to your computer as it is with a CD you buy, so now getting music for my on the go listening, which honestly is a large percentage of it, was a big issue. I finally took the plunge on Apple Music and haven’t looked back since. The thing that really sold me was the iCloud Music Library feature which allows your library of already owned music to be “matched” with the Apple Music entry of that specific song and automatically add it to your library across all of your iOS devices. It all happens seamlessly and its beautiful.

Now, anytime a major release I fall in love with comes out and falls into that L.O.V.E category, I get the vinyl and get that old school experience but still get the modern streaming convenience. A lot of this blog was rambling, but feels good to put it in words.

Welcome to Dissonant Suburbia, my music blog about anything and anything music related I feel like talking about.

-Ryan Bashore