I was too young to be aware of the VHS v. Beta conflict or to recognize the meaning of its outcome, and I’d grown up buying and receiving music on cassette tapes rather than vinyl (with a few exceptions).  What surprises me in hindsight is that I don’t recall any anxiety about adopting the new format, Compact Disc, only a sort of confusion and consternation about what to do with all of my newly obsolete media.

My eventual resolution was one I’m still pleased with: I gathered up all of my tapes and took them to a local music store, where I got a little store credit for my old music, which was converted immediately into a couple of CDs.  What I like about that process was, if there was an album I didn’t care enough to re-buy in the new format, I hadn’t lost anything by selling it away, I’d in fact gained more room in my collection for something I did want.  Win.

In fact, I feel so good about how that works, that I’m doing it again.  There are CDs in my collection that I haven’t listened to in years and they’ve been doing nothing but taking up space on a shelf for all that time, as well as maybe confusing the guests who happen to scan the contents of those shelves.

In addition, I don’t even have to re-buy whole albums if I was only holding on to a CD for a track or two.  This is more common with people who enjoy pop music, I’m sure, but I have a stack of compilations that definitely fit that pattern (I’m looking at you, Flipside Desert Show with only the two Babyland tracks at the end).

But there’s more to gain with this format shift.  I’m not just making room for more and better music by dumping my CDs, I’m making more room for anything at all.  I’m increasingly fond of living a more simple, uncluttered lifestyle and the appeal of digital music in that regard is I’m sure quite obvious.  There are plenty of environment-related wins when leving behind physical media, of course, but I won’t bore you by enumerating them here.

All in all, I feel there is a lot to gain by moving to digital music, especially now that most shops have come to their senses regarding the evils of DRM and the shabbiness of low-quality compression formats.  But those are topics for another time.