I personally love my collection (records, CD, digital) and enjoy sharing the experience with friends. I don’t use streaming unless you count soma fm at work. Sure, I’ll use YouTube to listen to some albums I don’t own, but if I truly like it I’ll buy or download it, usually on bandcamp or direct from artist if I can.
For me, I don’t believe the human brain was ever made for this level of stimulation (we shouldn’t really have 24/7 access to social media either. Go back to the “family PC” model). People have very little connection to music anymore becuase there’s too much and its too easy to access. I can barely remember all the members names in my favorite bands or all their albums. There’s little chance anyone even knows the artists of the millions of songs they’re streaming, or the story behind them.
Since streaming became a thing, I could probably only name a handful of artists I’ve discovered. I just pick a genre and let the algorithm decide.
About 6 months ago, I started self-hosting my music, and it’s a game changer. It feels like much more intentional consumption of media.
Hats off to you using your own brain!! Wish i could say the same for others…
Yeah, its really become “put on “rock mix” playlist (that Spotify made for you, probably using stolen ai music) and listen to that for hours with 0 thought” which is fine for some stuff I guess. I don’t believe thats healthy for humans or music.