For the Love of Single Use Devices

God, I love my iPod.

I remember it like it was yesterday: I had a CD player, a rolly backpack and a dream. At the ripe age of 11 years old, my CD player and I had a solid relationship. All I needed was a single CD that I had burned and I could transport myself into another world. Even if that meant that as I sat on the city bus on the way to school, hitting every single pothole in the Bronx, making the CD skip, as both me and the player caught air - it was worth it. I had the nerdiest backwards headphones that can only be described as a sports accessory, and the backpack wasn't doing me any favors. Then one day in August, I graduated from my CD player to my pink iPod mini. This was groundbreaking and I remember writing about it in my diary that day, something along the lines of being so excited about it, that I was listening to every song I owned, even if it was Christmas music. The backwards headphones were retired, and I had the sleek white wired earbuds that signified I was a cool girl. I had a whole 4 gigabytes of space, and could listen to all of my favorite albums at the touch of a button, and without fear of a CD scratching, or storing the player somewhere.

When I wasn't listening to my music on sport mode, I was bumping tunes on ol’ faithful over here…

After the iPod mini, I graduated to the iPod classic. A near mint hand-me-down from my dad that allowed me to watch the occasional music video, or a TV episode I'd purchased from the iTunes store. Eventually, all these devices were left behind, an iPhone was acquired, and I've been tethered to it ever since. One summer during high school, out of boredom and desperation for a different form of music consumption, I set up my parents' record player and speakers. Not purchasing any new records, I just listened to what they had, and it was an amazing novelty for a 15 year old millennial. Cumbersome and bulky on my desk, yes, but worth it, as I practiced the age old tradition of just sitting and listening to music. But it didn’t last more than a few months, as room space was limited, and when it came to the battle of record player vs. computer, the computer won by a landslide. Back into storage the record player went, and I never saw it again.

If you had this setup, I was in fact, at your house from age 6 to 15.

For years, I had asked for iTunes gift cards for birthdays and holidays, slowly building up my library of music. Although I’d graduated to a smaller device by comparison, I owned all of my music. A good portion of it was CD’s I had imported as well as “mixtapes” my best friend had burned me. We were always swapping music: “Lina’s Mix” many of them read, scribbled in sharpie with hearts, the tracklist written in whatever space was leftover on the front of the CD. And then in the early 2010s, it felt like streaming just appeared. I went from purchasing songs one by one, or waiting for some extra cash to buy an album, to just listening to the whole thing at my discretion. Between Spotify and Pandora, my digital and physical library was collecting dust. I had access to any music I wanted at my fingertips for free and legally, and for a small fee I could bypass ads altogether. It was the perfect music setup for a broke young person. In the years to come, I’d alternate between different streaming platforms, trying to find the perfect one that fit into my musical needs. I still was making playlists, but it seemed a lot less fun when there was no one to collaborate with.

Fast forward however many years, and I’m fed up with streaming. I’m simply agitated with all of the apps on my phone, overwhelmed and wanting to start fresh. In an attempt to free myself from the subscription service model, I decided to cancel all of my music streaming services.

This is when I found out I had no music.

Embarrassingly enough, I’d been streaming my favorite songs for maybe ten years and I didn’t actually own any of them. All that was left in my library was music from my early teens which was, respectfully, not good. It wasn’t fair - I wanted to be done with the cloud based conglomerate that was so embedded in my life, but I realized that everything else I was doing was ingrained in that too. So, the only thing left was to start building it up again. I purchased a bunch of classic songs from different genres, and looked to find music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Youtube. I “borrowed” music from my husband's music library, going through the different artists manually, trying to find anything that peaked my interest. This coupled with my new found interest in DJing gave me a reinvigorated appreciation for having an ownership over music. It brought me back to a time where having tapes and CDs of your favorite artist felt like a real privilege, and even a sense of pride.

Now imagine my surprise when my old ass is scrolling on Tiktok to find one of the youths posting a video about their favorite single use devices, and a white iPod classic pops up on the screen. Reader, when I tell you I almost shouted. The kids are bringing back the iPods! Then, another video entitled “iPod classic decoration.” I couldn’t believe it, and honestly was a little jealous that I never thought to put stickers and gems on my iPod to personalize it a bit. Another one reading: “Redo my iPod nano with me,” with a voiceover of a young girl announcing that she was adding music to it so she can take it on the go (then hilariously and illegally ripped hundreds of songs from Spotify). Another one: the narrator tells us that he actually modified his iPod to have a terabyte of storage and a USB-C port for charging (!!!). So, I did what any rational person in their 30s does and texted their parents immediately, “Hey, do you still have my pink iPod Mini?” and low and behold they did. Within the week, she was arriving in my mailbox in all her pink glory. Almost 20 years later and she’s still working! The battery doesn’t hold the best charge, but alas, I was thrilled. This then prompted me to Google “How to turn on an iPod,” which was truly humbling, followed by “How to turn music down iPod” — we were back in business.

There she is in all her glory :)

But the more time I talk to others, and research on social media, I start to realize I’m not the only one that’s craving non-cloud based music again. I’m one of a couple people I know who has a record player for their homes, whether it be a large hi-fi setup with a wall of records, or an all-in-one collapsible player with speakers included. It also seems to be generational, with millennials pining after records they’d listen to their parents play, which is now a very expensive hobby, with average vinyl costs being 4x that of what their parents paid for said albums. And with Gen-Z, it’s been similar, with an interest in buying CDs, and comments flooded on their videos like “Where do you get yours??” My god, the children will never know the struggle of Tower Records. This excitement over collection, besides a shared interest that spans across generations, races, genders, etc. is just awesome to look at. It’s the thrill of having an object, being able to perform the act of putting on music feels so powerful. Plus, the data supports my crazy theories. According to an article by Camion Associates, in 2022, vinyl records actually surpassed CDs as the most popular physical recorded music format for the first time in 1987, with 41.3 million units being sold as opposed to 33.4 million units for CDs. In the first half of 2023, vinyl records brought in 72% of all non-digital recorded music format revenues in the US, surpassing CDs by a wide margin ($632.4 million vs. $236 million).

This is so wild - and I’m not nuts! People want to go back to basics, nostalgic for a less complicated past divorced from the cloud. Regardless of age, we’re collectively so exhausted from being apart, longing to share something together again, and our love for music feels like a great place to start. Mere seconds ago while procrastinating writing this very essay, I stumbled across a 19 year old girl on Tiktok telling me to:

1. Invest in purchasing physical media.
2. Purchase a cheap used CD player.
3. Get creative with how I display my CDs (ala vinyl)
4. Bring back burning CDs (yes!!!!!!)

At this moment, I’ve never been so sure that the kids are going to be alright.

In an 2022 article from The Guardian, music writer Liz Pelly talked about how people have been getting increasingly sick of streaming services, like Spotify, and ditching those platforms to embrace physical media again. She writes:

Such reckonings have become increasingly commonplace in recent years, as dedicated music listeners continue to grapple with the unethical economics of streaming companies, and feel the effects of engagement-obsessed, habit-forming business models on their own listening and discovery habits. In the process, they are seeking alternatives.

Pelly is spot on with her analysis: technology is exhausting and a lot of us have become hip to how the music industry treats artists, so in a moment of refusal, we’re parting ways with streaming, or rather, embracing having a physical music collection. Pelly interviews other people, like musician Jared Samuel Elioseff, who said that streaming stopped him from searching for new and different music.

I’ve been Spotify-less for two years now. My musical experiences definitely feel more dedicated and focused. It’s not as convenient. I’ll reluctantly admit that I listen to less music. Although on Spotify, I wasn’t necessarily listening to stuff. I was checking out the first 15 seconds and hitting skip. Now, I have to work for it and I like that. I can use the internet as a search tool but I’m not using it as a means to listen. I really have to seek things out and research…Streaming makes the listening experience much more passive…the word ‘streaming’ is one of those things that’s gradually assimilated into everyone’s vocabulary. Before there was streaming music, what else was streaming? This idea that you can just turn on a faucet, and out comes music. It’s something that leaves everyone to take it for granted.

I sympathize heavily with this sentiment, as I too found myself losing my ability to be patient and sit through a whopping 2 min and 30 seconds long song. The instant gratification of streaming completely ruined my senses of trying something new, and forgetting that it's absolutely possible to not love something the second you interact with it. The idea of listening to music being “passive” is so incredibly sad — how have we managed to strip one of life's greatest pleasures into a transactional act?

Another article from Canvas8 literally titled: “Gen Z Music Fans Boost Physical Sales” shares with us how Gen Z has been craving something that can only be satisfied in purchasing physical music media. It reads:

As digital streaming remains dominant, this digitally-native generation is paradoxically gravitating towards tangible formats like vinyl, CDs, and cassettes, blending nostalgia with a desire for authentic, tactile experiences. This trend reflects a broader cultural shift where young fans seek deeper connections with their favourite artists, using physical collections as a form of self-expression and rebellion against the ephemeral nature of digital content.

The people have spoken, and we want more! Yes, we want to be excited by music all over again. It’s exhausting to be constantly inundated with advertisements and monthly fees and reminders that these platforms don’t care about us, or the artists, all to scrape our data and surveil us. A lot of us, quite frankly, are tired of the greed and just want to be reminded of the craft we once knew. I want to be moved by a mixtape my friend or husband made me. I want to be forced to sit, sans devices, and listen to songs picked out with me in mind, and I promise not to skip any of them. The revisiting of physical music media is reminding me of the most basic functions of music — to bring people together. It’s a communal act: whether you’re listening with others in your home, at a concert, or alone with headphones, that same piece of music has been listened to by a million others, having heard the same chords, in the same progression, with the same lyrics. You’re now tethered together. If anything, let this be an encouragement to listen to an old CD or record, or maybe even dig up your favorite artist’s album and let it play all the way through. And if you don’t already own a copy, you should. In the apocalypse when all the servers go to shit, at least you can listen to Nirvana Unplugged in your bunker.