Music

A little bit of background

I decided to make the switch from streaming to actually owning my music. I deleted my Spotify account on December 5 2025. I wasn't even paying it I was on my aunt's family plan but I felt icky using a streaming service.

I already had a collection going since maybe 2020 or 2021? So I haven't started my collection from nothing. I get a bit alarmed seeing that I have over 200 CDs listed in my discogs collection but I need to remind myself I've been slowly adding to it for years at this point. Idk I feel a bit consumeristic but I need to remind myself I ditched streaming to own my music and me having a lot of CDs is not necessarily me being consumeristic because I'm only getting albums I like or if I'm at a charity shop or used record store and see an album cover I like I'll get it and listen to it and see if I like the album. I'm not collecting CDs for the whole 'physical media trend' which seems to be happening in 2026.

I started out my collection getting CDs from thrift stores or the local used record shop. I get my CDs from a variety of places:

• thrift stores/charity shops
• ebay
• once on depop lol
• second hand record shops
• record shops
• artist's website/merch store
• digital downloads from qobuz or bandcamp if either the CD is too expensive, or it doesn't exist in CD to my knowledge
• music magpie

Ways I can listen to my music

I have a 32gb microSD card in my mp3 player. I put a bunch of music from my collection on it and I've made a playlist replacing what would be the 'liked songs' playlist on Spotify. I also listen to music sometimes on my PC cause I've backed up my collection there and I use MusicBee to listen and Media Monkey to sort out playlists. At some point when I get more space I think having a multi disc CD player would be pretty cool :))

I also can listen to music on my pc after using an external drive to rip CDs and put the music onto my PC.