And that's why there were secondhand CD shops.

Yea I remember when people would just stand around the headphone booths in music stores and sample whatever new CDs came out that week. Maybe it was worse in the cassette tape era?

The headphones were gross. And to be honest, most albums only have a couple good songs anyway.

I remembered I had a friend who couldn't have any albums with swearing and I'd read the lyrics insert for him to check for swearing while he listed to a few tracks

Yes, albums weren’t $10, even on small labels. We were dropping $20+ hoping for the best. In some cases convincing ourselves it was good, just because we spent so much on it.

My budget for CDs maxed out at $16. After that, I had to moved to Napster.

I remember destinys child's survivor album was $40+

$10? That's a steal.

One of the last times I just straight up bought a full CD was 1999

Mr Bungle. California. $18

Still one of the best purchases ever, though

At Fye in 1999 CDs were $19.95 plus tax where I grew up.

And to add to that, something that used to cost $20 in 1995 dollars costs $40 in 2023 dollars.

No the average price of CDs in the 90s was about $15 and they were on sale regularly for $10-12 in some places.

I bought about 400 CDs in the 90s and still have them.

Streaming allowed me to discover 1700 songs that I love. It gave me the opportunity to enjoy countless genres. Now I export my liked songs to a spreadsheet so I never lose them. I wouldn't be able to do that otherwise. It's done great things for my music listening.

Music streaming is just ... Objectively better for everybody. Small bands can be heard, hence the indy scene booming so hard, consumers can access their content anywhere there's internet.

I think you miss the ritual around getting physical media and having a session where you just sit back and listen to the album for the first time. You could try to replicate it, but I think child-like wonder was the main ingredient ;)

There’s still good stuff out there. You just have to dig deeper, take risks, and you have to make the conscious decision to give it an active listen from front to back.

I really don't miss the days when we paid more money for a significantly more inconvenient way of listening to SIGNIFICANTLY less diverse music on much shittier devices.

I absolutely agree. I quit the streaming services and now put the money towards purchasing media I actually care about.

Bought The Pixies album around that time too, only listened to it because I'd paid for it. Still pisses me off when I hear one of the tracks

Back when i had an xperia phone it actually was able to pick up radio with headphones connected, had an app for it

You own nothing and you locked with a subscription

Who cares if I only pay 10€ a month but can access 80 million songs. Back then 10€ bought you 75% of an album and you were forced to listen to it until you started hating it.

You listen what they propose

First of this is not necessary a bad thing. The algorithm can propose music you like not music that's popular. You have to train it by making your own choices which - SUPRISE - is also what we did back than. People were influenced by MTV but at the end it was your decision what you listen to just like these days. You literally only have to enter the name of any album into the search bar. Back then the retailer did the preselection for you and only put CDs on display that would sell.

What happens when you favorite band gets removed from their library

Rarely happens because these days when you as an artist are not on the streaming services you might as well not exist at all.

The way you access music just isn't comfortable to most people including me.

My music taste is always changing. I like listening to new (to me) music, not the same albums over and over. I much prefer spotify over buying albums

The only songs that have ever been removed from my library (Spotify shows you) are remixes/mashups where the person doing it never had permission.

Not really sure what you mean by you listen to what they propose? You search what you want, follow other people, listen to playlists you or other people have made.

I signed up for some BMG deal where you get 12 CDs if you buy one. They sent me the one but I never paid them (I was 9). They sent my family a letter demanding money but we never paid. Suckers!

Not to be pedantic but Limewire wasn't released in the 90's, 1999 on the title is at least close to a good date but 1990 is way to early for programs like Limewire, that's basically universities and military only internet times.

See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire