Well, I did it - I officially joined the ominous “cloud.” The other day, I decided to subscribe to iTunes Match. In a nutshell, this throws all my music up in the cloud, and matches any non-iTunes purchased music along with it, with stipulation that it’s on iTunes. 

I did this for a few reasons, one of them was the enticing idea of iTunes actually matching some of my lower quality music. The other being that it’s a back up, for my back up. I have all my music on an external hard drive, but now I also have it in the cloud, which for someone who has a lot of music, and who has the connection to music that I do, provides quite the safety net. In turn, this net reminded me of music I bought, in what I will call as a weak moment in life, but I will not be divulging that information on such a public platform. 

However, this investment in the cloud provided me with a bit of a dilemma. Along with my digital weight in music, I also have developed a modest, yet decent record collection. I believe I am up to 200 records, very eclectic I might add, and I realize some folks out there would guffaw at that number being so few - to you, I say look at my bank account.

The dilemma, is advancing my ways of attaining music, as well as maintaing. The way I function at the moment is I go through phases in the ways I listen to music. Lately it’s been all digitally, due to my time at a computer. I spend my mornings, as I call it “futzing” on my computer before I get ready for work, I drink my coffee, watch videos, read the news, etc. I tend to flip flop for extended periods of time in listening on my computer, whether it be iTunes or Spotify, and then going to my records for a period of time. And I can feel phase to coming back into my foresight in vinyl. I will do all my morning futzing and coffee-ing, and but I’ll replace my digital listening with my vinyl listening, in the very near future.

What it comes down to, is that I’m caught in a pull of the times. A part of me loves this technological evolution of music, I love the idea of improved sound quality on iTunes, and I love that accessibility, it’s astonishing how easily I can reach my music - if I have wifi, I can get all 13,000 songs on my computer or my phone. 

None the less, I am one of those people who lives by the phrase, “There is nothing like vinyl.” I wholeheartedly believe that - there really isn’t. Listening to vinyl is romantic, it’s a unique journey that you get with music that the digital age can never quite capture, and it sure is trying. Putting that record on, setting the needle, and hearing that first little scratch is an experience that can only be compared to seeing that person who was pressed on vinyl, in concert. Even then, those experiences are so individually unique. One thing to note though, I started listening to my own collection digitally. It was the iPod that inspired me to find my own tastes and musical loves, and it wasn’t until a year+ ago that I delved into the world of vinyl. 

My continual mission is one that puts me in between a rock and a hard place. I am still trying to find ways to equally incorporate my passion and listening of music with the growing digital ways, and show my record collection the love I have for it, and will never lose.

At the moment, I do my best  to buy new music on vinyl that comes with either a CD or digital code, and now throwing it in the cloud, and then getting to enjoy that album both with my morning coffee, and on my drive to work.

Talk soon