The rise of mobile music platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have brought ruin to “vintage” forms of audio. The good old-fashioned records and Walkmans once used every day are now stuffed in boxes, mislabeled as “Christmas Stuff,” and never used again. With convenience taking precedence in life, many teenagers today overlook quality for quickness. Spotify and its endless tracks and artists surpass the capabilities measly CDs and tape players had at their peak and as a result, no one uses them anymore. If you ask me, that is a shame. CDs, records, and tapes, all lacking the convenience of your phone, provide a much more immersive experience of your favorite albums that music platforms just don’t have.
One good thing that has come from driving a beat-up, three-fourths-in-the-grave, crumbling-as-we-speak car is the lack of music options. When I say “a lack of music options”, I mean, in my car, we have two choices: the radio (that always plays horrendous songs you have never heard of and a radio host named Vanessa who never shuts up) or CDs. When I first started driving, I saw this as a horrible setback to my adventures as a newly licensed, rule-abiding driver. Dreams of hitting the streets blasting whatever music my heart desired were quickly shut down, and a short attempt in overriding radio waves to connect my phone was immediately abandoned due to overwhelming white noise. Thus, I turned to my last option, the CD player. Inheriting the car from two older sisters had left me with a stock of CDs ready to be used, however, my sisters and I don’t exactly have the same music taste. So for the first few days of driving, I was listening to bands I had never heard before, and to be honest, even after giving them a fair try, I never really liked them. Sick and tired of it, I found myself at Rasputin. A record/CD store that is often overlooked yet filled with treasures. Slowly but surely, new CDs began entering the car: Harry Styles and Noah Kahan, Zach Bryan, and some Taylor Swift, too; my collection was growing. With a growing investment in trying to find my music taste in CDs within the budget of a broke high schooler, I found myself stopping at every store that had any CDs and inspecting them with the hope of a new addition. Undeniably, this new interest annoyed my teammates as I dragged them into Armadillo (another music store) in downtown Davis countless times. The once-horrific reality of being unable to play Spotify in my car became one of my favorite aspects of driving. Because CDs are so “inconvenient”, they make finding one of your favorite artists in a random store that much better. So much better than just turning on your phone, again.