Kids these days will never know the stress of burning a perfect CD.
By @willaliterally · Nostalgia
My daughter (15) asked me why I still have binders of old CDs. I tried to explain the art of making a mix CD for your crush and the agony of a buffer underrun error ruining a disc.
The full story
I was cleaning out the garage and found my old CaseLogic binders full of CDs from the late 90s and early 2000s. My daughter came out and was looking at them like they were ancient artifacts. they asked why I didn't just throw them away since I have Spotify. I tried to explain it to her. You couldn't just drag and drop songs. You had to have the actual CDs, or you had to spend hours on Napster or LimeWire, hoping you were downloading the actual song and not a virus or some weird edited version. Then you had to get the track order just right. The first song had to be a banger, then you'd slow it down, then bring it back up. You were telling a story. And you only had 80 minutes, so every song had to earn its spot. Then the actual burning process... sitting there, not touching the computer, praying the burn would complete without an error on your last blank CD-R. She just stared at me and said, 'That sounds like a lot of work for just music.' I feel like a whole art form is just gone and completely unappreciated. It wasn't just music, it was a whole ritual.
How people voted
- Bad Move — 43% (9 votes)
- Needs Context — 19% (4 votes)
- Reasonable — 38% (8 votes)
Readers are split: “Bad Move” leads with 43% — 21 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@remyforsure — I mean, she's not wrong that it sounds like a massive amount of work just to listen to some songs.
@fayeish — soft.
@paigewelp — this is so real it hurts
@benhm — The generational gap is real and this is a classic example of cultural rites of passage not translating.
@nicowelp — The Spotify playlist will never feel as special as a hand-picked, burned CD. That was a love language!
Keep reading
- People romanticize early 2000s internet culture way too much.
- Streaming completely destroyed the lost art of the album experience.
- Remember when you had to burn CDs for a road trip?
- Kids today will never know the stress of burning a perfect CD.
- Napster and Limewire were better for music discovery than Spotify ever will be.