Nostalgia for Physical Media(sicpers.info)
sicpers.info
Nostalgia for Physical Media
https://www.sicpers.info/2025/02/on-nostalgia-for-physical-media/
43 comments
Similarly, something I kind of miss is being "stuck" with an album.
When I was a teenager, I would occasionally buy a CD and put it in my car. A lot of the time, that was basically the only music I listened to for a month, maybe more, so I would become pretty intimately familiar with the album, and it would play continuously as I was driving. I would listen to all the songs on the album over and over again, and a lot of the time songs that I initially didn't like all that much actually became my favorites.
With the advent of Spotify and its brethren, it's much easier to only listen to songs that you instantly liked, because pretty much every song ever made is directly available to you.
Obviously, you can just play the whole album on Spotify, and maybe if you're self-disciplined enough then you could force yourself to listen to an album over and over again on there, but I have always found that pretty difficult, and my streaming ends up being kind of an echo chamber of stuff I already know I like.
To be clear, I do think that the streaming services are, generally speaking, much better than what we had in the 90's and early 2000's, but there are aspects that I miss.
When I was a teenager, I would occasionally buy a CD and put it in my car. A lot of the time, that was basically the only music I listened to for a month, maybe more, so I would become pretty intimately familiar with the album, and it would play continuously as I was driving. I would listen to all the songs on the album over and over again, and a lot of the time songs that I initially didn't like all that much actually became my favorites.
With the advent of Spotify and its brethren, it's much easier to only listen to songs that you instantly liked, because pretty much every song ever made is directly available to you.
Obviously, you can just play the whole album on Spotify, and maybe if you're self-disciplined enough then you could force yourself to listen to an album over and over again on there, but I have always found that pretty difficult, and my streaming ends up being kind of an echo chamber of stuff I already know I like.
To be clear, I do think that the streaming services are, generally speaking, much better than what we had in the 90's and early 2000's, but there are aspects that I miss.
This is one of those "the medium is the message" things. The album per se became a widespread art form because the message of LPs is the album. It's how you experience that medium. It was preceded by an era of long-form live high-art music and short-song-focused popular music, in early mass reproduced recordings and as played by folk and popular musicians—when we got LPs we started collecting those haphazardly onto albums for convenience, then artists began crafting the LPs as their own, whole works, or at least paying close attention to song arrangement and selection on them.
We're back to a world of disconnected songs, in some ways. It's not uncommon for an artist to release a bunch of singles then just, later, collect those into a nominal "album" for physical sales, like the earliest days of LPs. Some artists seem to only release singles for streaming (I see this a lot in off-mainstream hiphop). I think only the idea and marketing power of the thematic album-tour is really keeping the form of the album alive as a shaping force for music.
We're back to a world of disconnected songs, in some ways. It's not uncommon for an artist to release a bunch of singles then just, later, collect those into a nominal "album" for physical sales, like the earliest days of LPs. Some artists seem to only release singles for streaming (I see this a lot in off-mainstream hiphop). I think only the idea and marketing power of the thematic album-tour is really keeping the form of the album alive as a shaping force for music.
> We're back to a world of disconnected songs, in some ways. It's not uncommon for an artist to release a bunch of singles then just, later, collect those into a nominal "album" for physical sales
As my parents have often informed me, an album on which you liked two of the songs was a good one, and one on which you liked three was a great one. Mostly you bought an album for a single track that was on there. But, publishers would frequently release "greatest hits" albums consolidating many popular songs onto the same album.
This seems to be basically identical to the system you describe that we have now, except that in the "single track" phase of the process, the track costs $1 instead of $15.
As my parents have often informed me, an album on which you liked two of the songs was a good one, and one on which you liked three was a great one. Mostly you bought an album for a single track that was on there. But, publishers would frequently release "greatest hits" albums consolidating many popular songs onto the same album.
This seems to be basically identical to the system you describe that we have now, except that in the "single track" phase of the process, the track costs $1 instead of $15.
Yeah, despite me missing the positive experiences, I definitely would buy albums as a teenager and end up hating most of it. I remember really disliking Light Grenades by Incubus, for example, after buying it purely because of a song I heard on the radio.
I think the reason that Dark Side of the Moon, for example, is so loved is in no small part because it is was well tailored to be an album. The songs blend in to each other, there are repeated motifs throughout the album, it comes together as one big cohesive unit, and as such I can't really listen to "one song" on it, I usually have to put on the whole album (or at least side 2).
I think the reason that Dark Side of the Moon, for example, is so loved is in no small part because it is was well tailored to be an album. The songs blend in to each other, there are repeated motifs throughout the album, it comes together as one big cohesive unit, and as such I can't really listen to "one song" on it, I usually have to put on the whole album (or at least side 2).
Yeah, totally, it's not like all listening was to albums crafted as albums, and there's some hindsight-benefit where modern listeners who like vinyl favor the albums that succeeded at being an album-as-artform and ignore the ones that only had like two good tracks. Plus, radio, jukeboxes, and 45s existed at the same time as LPs.
Well, yeah. Even at the time, there was far far more music published than anyone could buy, especially considering the existing back catalogs. Why wouldn't you just buy the good stuff? This isn't 'cheating.'
If you were/are careful in your purchases, you could/can find plenty of albums that are wall-to-wall magic. Some that I enjoyed in my youth:
- Beatles, Revolver - Beastie Boys, Ill Communication - Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy - Metallica, self-titled ("Black Album") - Nirvana, Nevermind - Pearl Jam, Ten - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon - Radiohead, OK Computer - Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle - Weezer, self-titled ("Blue Album")
If you were/are careful in your purchases, you could/can find plenty of albums that are wall-to-wall magic. Some that I enjoyed in my youth:
- Beatles, Revolver - Beastie Boys, Ill Communication - Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy - Metallica, self-titled ("Black Album") - Nirvana, Nevermind - Pearl Jam, Ten - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon - Radiohead, OK Computer - Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle - Weezer, self-titled ("Blue Album")
I've been on a journey the past few months to listen to every single album I own (a little more than 800 or so) and if you can find that discipline I do recommend trying to listen to music in albums again. Even if it's just when it first comes out, listen to the whole album once and then just listen to the individual songs you liked. I've found so many songs that I wouldn't have liked otherwise but they either A) grew on me (similar to what you talked about) or B) I liked them within the context of the album.
It also misses that vinyl records degrade more gracefully than CDs, IMO.
> It's a format for albums, or at least for halves of albums.
Or thirds! See: Monty Python's three-sided record.
Or thirds! See: Monty Python's three-sided record.
Sure, and of course double (or more!) albums were/are a thing. There was even a limited effort at players that could automatically drop a second album on top of a first when a side finished, then start playing the second record, and some pressings that put sides A and C on one record, and B and D on the other, so you could play two sides back-to-back automatically (by stacking the two albums on such a player). Though I don't think those were ever popular enough to much affect the art form.
Then there's e.g. classical music, where it wasn't unusual for one purchased unit of music to be a small box of several LPs. The album-as-an-artform, where "album" is usually one or two records created as a semi- or entirely-cohesive piece that was nonetheless broken into a bunch of shorter tracks and all crafted for the form and experience of the LP, was mostly a phenomenon for popular forms of music. IDK if "classical" music that was actually composed during the height of the LP was meaningfully and in some widespread way shaped by the LP record like pop music was, or not (I just don't know much about that music).
[EDIT] To be clear, what I'm talking about as far as the medium affecting the form the art took and how it was experienced isn't just things like full-on "concept albums", but attention to things like consistent tone or flow or placement of songs at the start of sides, or attention to which song ends a side and how that acts to draw one to the next side, or to close the current one, or whatever.
Then there's e.g. classical music, where it wasn't unusual for one purchased unit of music to be a small box of several LPs. The album-as-an-artform, where "album" is usually one or two records created as a semi- or entirely-cohesive piece that was nonetheless broken into a bunch of shorter tracks and all crafted for the form and experience of the LP, was mostly a phenomenon for popular forms of music. IDK if "classical" music that was actually composed during the height of the LP was meaningfully and in some widespread way shaped by the LP record like pop music was, or not (I just don't know much about that music).
[EDIT] To be clear, what I'm talking about as far as the medium affecting the form the art took and how it was experienced isn't just things like full-on "concept albums", but attention to things like consistent tone or flow or placement of songs at the start of sides, or attention to which song ends a side and how that acts to draw one to the next side, or to close the current one, or whatever.
Most home stereos had a drop spindle, and most double albums has sides 1 and 4 on one platter and 2 and 3 on the other. Double albums were sure-as-heck an art form and not just a collection of singles. Between the 80 minutes of coherent music and the gatefold album cover art you could waste many an evening listening and looking at just what the artist(s) intended.
At least pertaining to vinyls, this seems to mostly discuss practical and technical aspects, but misses the more "ceremonial" aspect which in my opinion explains its popularity. Buying a physical record requires some intent and choice which you don't have in a spotify catalogue of millions of tracks. And playing a record has this physical action aspect a lot of people cherish: I enjoy it because it feels like a treat I set up for myself.
Yeah, related to this is that for some subset of people who enjoy things like physical media - it could be as simple as nostalgia and them missing they used to do.
That’s also an element of why this is popular
Add all those together and they become, well, popular
That’s also an element of why this is popular
Add all those together and they become, well, popular
I would love it if someone (let's be honest, nintendo) would bring back large physical cartridges for games. It's such a pleasure to put a large piece of physical media into a console to start playing, an opportunity for artistic expression, etc. With todays hardware you could make the games boot up instantly.
The "thingness" of older hardware had a pleasure all its own.
Also, you owned it.
EDIT: I tapped into this nostalgia in a way when I released htmx 2.0 on 5.25 & 3.5 floppy disks for the first week: https://swag.htmx.org/products/floppy
The "thingness" of older hardware had a pleasure all its own.
Also, you owned it.
EDIT: I tapped into this nostalgia in a way when I released htmx 2.0 on 5.25 & 3.5 floppy disks for the first week: https://swag.htmx.org/products/floppy
> Also, you owned it.
Don't worry: we could still make a physical cartridge with DRM that would stop working after you unsubscribe from the service :-)
Don't worry: we could still make a physical cartridge with DRM that would stop working after you unsubscribe from the service :-)
sonfoa
One important aspect (to me, at least) that the article doesn't mention is that physical media comes with actual ownership rights (first-sale doctrine), and that by whatever lucky coincidence publishers weren't able to introduce widespread DRM to physical audio media.
I use 4K Blu Rays when I can, for the best possible quality. And I continue to be staggered at just how bad the UI/UX is, compared to DVDs (which was arguably somewhat worse on average than VHS).
If I didn’t know better, I’d think the manufacturers were actively trying to sabotage physical media. That the default UX should be “insert disc, wait three seconds, hit play” is not exactly rocket science.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think the manufacturers were actively trying to sabotage physical media. That the default UX should be “insert disc, wait three seconds, hit play” is not exactly rocket science.
I love Minidisc but I did feel like it was slightly less good sounding than CD. I wish CDs had followed the form factor of Minidisc and had the little integrated holder for it. It tickles my cyberpunk retro futurism cassette cool tendencies to be putting something like that in and out of the player when you load it.
Early models of the AppleCD CD-ROM drive used caddies! Our Mac LCs at school had them. They were, indeed, very cool.
https://i0.wp.com/www.aventure-apple.com/blog/wp-content/upl...
https://i0.wp.com/www.aventure-apple.com/blog/wp-content/upl...
It’s just so freaking cool. I’m imagining the chrome utopia we would be in right now if this had continued. Yes I get that it made the blanks cost more, but it’s just so cool and commercial CDs needed a case anyway.
I've been buying CDs and LPs for a while, based on what media the music was recorded for, and I've really been enjoying the things that other commenters have enjoyed about those formats. However, the one thing that this article doesn't mention - in my experience CDs scratch / degrade too, and when they do they become almost entirely unplayable because sometimes it's impossible to skip past the scratch / defect depending on the player. The one huge advantage of digital media is that it doesn't degrade in any meaningful way (aside from random tracks being accidentally deleted, which Apple iTunes Match decided to do to my library a few years ago, after which I never really trusted it again).
It seems like an exaggeration.
As a child I have been instructed that a LP/CD/DVD is either is its sleeve or in the player but never anywhere else. My parent's CD collection have either no or very minor scratches, all of them most definitely playable. And they have been listened to, a lot.
Some of my friends took almost no care of their CDs (left them without protection in the room/car) and even then it was rare that one wouldn't play.
I'd agree that when CDs get scratched there will be parts of the CD that some players can no longer handle. The great thing is that when your CD gets scratched to where your old CD player can no longer play it, there's a good chance your computer can rip the CD without issue so you can burn it to a CD-r.
It's not a perfect solution, but in most cases, the raw data on the CD stays intact in one way or another.
It's not a perfect solution, but in most cases, the raw data on the CD stays intact in one way or another.
| The one huge advantage of digital media is that it doesn't degrade in any meaningful way (aside from random tracks being accidentally deleted
That assumes you're using a storage platform that routinely validates the integrity of the data at rest.
That assumes you're using a storage platform that routinely validates the integrity of the data at rest.
"Nice collection. It would be a shame if something accidental happened to it. Keep paying us and we'll make sure nothing does."
I'm pretty sure there used to be a word for that, back in the before days.
I'm pretty sure there used to be a word for that, back in the before days.
We have a 3 year old and came back to CDs for night time stories. I know now every company under the sun sells these special NFC equipped speakers where you buy little statuettes of your favourite characters, you put them on the speaker and it plays a story. But even ignoring the cost of the speaker, the figurines cost a fortune, like £15 each usually. You know what doesn't cost a fortune? An old Sony CD player and an album of 100CDs with Disney(and other stories) from eBay. And my son has as much fun picking the story to listen to with CDs as they always have a colourful label on them.
You sound like a great parent :)
After Netflix et. al. cancelled/didn't renew about a dozen shows I was either in the middle of watching, or really wanted to watch I ragequit and decided to funnel all my streaming service money into physical media.
A few years, lots of eBay auctions, and many bluray and DVD rips later, I've got my own expansive library that's just as convenient to watch but the no missed earnings targets can take away from me.
Next on my list is music. I've built a respectable digital library but I'd like to have that backed by CD's where possible. Vinyl is nice for my absolute favourite albums but it's not an everyday kind of listening experience IMO - bit hard to listen to my records while I'm going for a walk!
For anyone getting into physical media I would highly suggest;
- Buying secondhand. In a lot of cases this is the only option anyway, but you can get bulk lots of CD's, DVD's, and Blurays for about the same price as a month of Netflix or Spotify.
- Backing up your physical copies. An old PC with the appropriate DVD/Bluray drive is very cheap, easy to automate, and you get to have the best of both worlds.
One big caveat is that "older" formats like cassette, VHS, and vinyl are not as simple or cheap. But it's not impossible to obtain and back them up, it just takes a little more time and equipment.
A few years, lots of eBay auctions, and many bluray and DVD rips later, I've got my own expansive library that's just as convenient to watch but the no missed earnings targets can take away from me.
Next on my list is music. I've built a respectable digital library but I'd like to have that backed by CD's where possible. Vinyl is nice for my absolute favourite albums but it's not an everyday kind of listening experience IMO - bit hard to listen to my records while I'm going for a walk!
For anyone getting into physical media I would highly suggest;
- Buying secondhand. In a lot of cases this is the only option anyway, but you can get bulk lots of CD's, DVD's, and Blurays for about the same price as a month of Netflix or Spotify.
- Backing up your physical copies. An old PC with the appropriate DVD/Bluray drive is very cheap, easy to automate, and you get to have the best of both worlds.
One big caveat is that "older" formats like cassette, VHS, and vinyl are not as simple or cheap. But it's not impossible to obtain and back them up, it just takes a little more time and equipment.
This seems to be conflating nostalgia with performance characteristics, isn't it?
For example, CDs are listed preferable to vinyl because the sound quality is better. That's not my understanding of how nostalgia works. People who grew up with vinyl records may be nostalgic for them not because they're a superior format, but because they evoke a memory of former times.
For myself, personally, I'm only slightly nostalgic for vinyl (we didn't have a record player in my house, but my babysitter did), but I have a ton of nostalgia for his lowest-ranked format, 8-tracks. That's what my dad had in his 60s-era Chevy pickup with an aftermarket 8-track player. I think of riding next to him on the bench seat and pulling out a tape from the black leather case that fit under it, containing a total of, I think, 6 options. We could both sing every song on them, and would do that in the parking lot when we waited for my mom to get off work. It was a terrible format, but the nostalgia factor is through the roof.
CDs, I can take or leave, I guess. For me, the CD was a thing I could burn MP3s onto and play through my CD player, attached via cassette interface to my 1987 Beretta.
For example, CDs are listed preferable to vinyl because the sound quality is better. That's not my understanding of how nostalgia works. People who grew up with vinyl records may be nostalgic for them not because they're a superior format, but because they evoke a memory of former times.
For myself, personally, I'm only slightly nostalgic for vinyl (we didn't have a record player in my house, but my babysitter did), but I have a ton of nostalgia for his lowest-ranked format, 8-tracks. That's what my dad had in his 60s-era Chevy pickup with an aftermarket 8-track player. I think of riding next to him on the bench seat and pulling out a tape from the black leather case that fit under it, containing a total of, I think, 6 options. We could both sing every song on them, and would do that in the parking lot when we waited for my mom to get off work. It was a terrible format, but the nostalgia factor is through the roof.
CDs, I can take or leave, I guess. For me, the CD was a thing I could burn MP3s onto and play through my CD player, attached via cassette interface to my 1987 Beretta.
SD-Cards are a currently widely used physical media.
Even my streamlined slimed-down minimalistic MacBook Pro has an SD-Card slot.
We can make SD-Cards with music and movies on them a reality, we just have to walk to our nearest convenience store, grab a 64Gb version for 10 bucks, put stuff on it, and give it to a friend.
Even my streamlined slimed-down minimalistic MacBook Pro has an SD-Card slot.
We can make SD-Cards with music and movies on them a reality, we just have to walk to our nearest convenience store, grab a 64Gb version for 10 bucks, put stuff on it, and give it to a friend.
It would be interesting to see a world where more media than just Nintendo videogames were sold as physical media cartridges like read-only SD cards.
My kids have these music players called Yoto players. They're extreme DRM, but still fun and really accessible for little kids to use. Content "comes" on these NFC cards about the size of a playing card. You stick the card in a slot on the top of the player, it plays the music cached from "the cloud". It would have been neat to have something about as durable as this but not an entirely closed single-vendor system.
My kids have these music players called Yoto players. They're extreme DRM, but still fun and really accessible for little kids to use. Content "comes" on these NFC cards about the size of a playing card. You stick the card in a slot on the top of the player, it plays the music cached from "the cloud". It would have been neat to have something about as durable as this but not an entirely closed single-vendor system.
That's probably exclusively because pro cameras still use SD cards
I think OP is overly focused on sound quality. When I was a kid, I didn't appreciate any material difference in sound quality between vinyl, CD, and cassette. I listened to music on cheap walkman headphones or a small boombox, or in a car with standard cheap speakers. Cassettes were better than vinyl because you could play them in your car and because they were writable: you could record songs off the radio or make mixtapes on them. CDs were better than vinyl because you could play them in your car and better than cassettes because you could replay or skip tracks with a push of a button.
Cassette tapes are underrated. They sound great on my cassette desk, and they will always be cheaper than the other formats. If you sold your physical media a long time ago, or are building a collection for the first time, consider getting some tapes.
I find interesting that the slow fading of physical media is one thing sci fi has gotten wrong for the last hundred years or so. Even the most futuristic visions involved some kind of physical media and/or connection.
The presented story has to make sense to the audience, and showing two characters interacting with an isolinear chip, data crystal or whatever hints at "she just gave him a futuristic floppy disc with the plans for Chekhov's Gun" more than claiming to have sent a sharing link via IM.
Yeah but physical computers have been replaced by holographic tablets and artificial intelligence.
Somewhat related: Anyone recognize the keyboard in the header image? Looks extremely similar to an HP 95LX series but isn't one I recognize.
This would remain true if they sounded just like CDs but otherwise worked like vinyl.