A few weeks ago, one of my external harddrives died ... and with it disappeared all the music that I had gathered on there over the years. It was really quite a large collection of carefully curated CD-rips, downloads, torrents, playlists, and transfers of audio cassette tapes & vinyl records ... - in short: it was a damn lot of music.
 

ALL GONE NOW

.

And, yes ... I do know that one should always keep a

back-up

of everything

... and I did, too. Or, rather,

I

thought

I did

. But when I couldn't find that other harddrive anymore, I kind of remembered that I had used it to make an important system back-up a while ago, and then completely

forgot

to replace it.
 

Typical.

Some people say, when you don't own your favourite music on

vinyl

,

tape

or

CD

, then you don't really own any music at all...
 

...

and I very much agree

with this statement

.

At first, I was rather bummed about the loss and was feeling angry for having been so stupid as to not having replaced the damn back-up in time. But then I thought to myself:

"Sweetie, tell me ... how often have you

actually

listened

to all this stuff, huh? Like, umm, let's see ... how about the complete discography of THE BEATLES that you once torrented ages ago. How often did you listen to it? -- Well, I will tell you:

NOT ONCE

, honey.

That's

how often!

"...

...and with a

"hmm, yeah"

I admitted that there really had been a lot of clutter on that harddrive, and I realised how oddly relieved I actually felt over the fact that it was all gone now.
 

After all, when you cannot be "bothered" to buy something,
then you

never

really wanted it in the first place.

Period.

Granted, it rather sucked that I had also lost all of my tape- and vinyl-transfers (considering the hours upon hours of work I had invested), but ... whatever ... I knew I could always re-record them to my harddrive, if I

really

needed to.
 
The lost downloads, however, were a different matter, because not all of them could be retrieved. Luckily, the majority of my

recent

purchases came from bandcamp, so re-downloading those wasn't a problem. EXCEPT for the few albums that had been

deleted

by the artists and/or labels in the meantime. Those were gone. But, fortunately, I had either burned them on CD-Rs right after the initial download ... or had purchased a physical copy (vinyl or tape) along with the digital files, so nothing from bandcamp was

actually

lost.

But, that's just the thing:

If you don't have it

physically

,
then you don't really have it at all.
 
Likewise, if you care about an album and feel that it is important to you,
then you should own a physical version of it, too.

(Oh, that rhymed!)

Besides, music released in a physical format is so much more than just

recorded audio

. It is a sensual, immersive experience. A tactile (art-)object that not only

can

be, but actually

wants

to be interacted with.

It is ...

magical

.

(Or, at least, it

can

be, ideally.)

This is my daily use, portable CD-player: an old

SABA CD-P11

, which can only read "normal" CDs (and selected CD-Rs), not mp3-discs. It doesn't have a line-out, only a headphones socket, and the LCD-display merely shows the number of the track that is playing, not the elapsed time. It doesn't have electronic skip- protection either. It does, however, feature a glorious

BASS BOOST

switch

(trashy, I know), which I have come to

really

appreciate.
 
Originally, the player was of a boring grey with ugly printing on it, but I spray-painted it black, gave it a textured surface and added a pentagram to the lid. Now it looks

witchy & beautiful

and makes listening to my CDs

an all-around delight

.
 

Like I said, things are just so much more enjoyable, when they are (made) pretty.

At this point, I should probably praise the advantages, benefits and general superiority of physical media releases over things like streaming, but ... I don't know ... I feel like that might be a pointless endeavor, as I would either be preaching to the choir or throw pearls before the swine. I mean,

you either

have

a sense of beauty

or you don't.

You either

can

appreciate art and effort

or you simply cannot.

You either

do

feel love

or, well...

On that note, allow me to impart onto you this piece of queer wisdom:

Things are generally so much more enjoyable,
when they are pretty.

Anyway, the reason for this blog entry is to serve as a

reminder

for my

(future)

self

, of how very much I am currently enjoying the physical media that I own, especially the CDs at the moment.
 
Ever since the death of my harddrive, I have returned to the proper "ritual" of

intently

listening to music. That means

one

album at a time and all the way through, possibly on a loop (if it's a CD), while perhaps watching a familiar movie with the sound turned off and with the album cover prominantly displayed or on the daybed next to me.
 
It's wonderful.