What’s better, buying a CD or downloading the music?  Maybe there’s another way of asking this, because music is a very subjective thing! Perhaps the question should sound more like: Which do you prefer?  It’s true, music is so totally subjective.  It harbours the power to store memories and emotions and releases them with the power of a few notes.  It changes your mood, gets a party started, breaks the silence and can chase away the loneliness.

So which then, do you prefer?

I like a bit of both. Nothing beats the thrill of tearing open that plastic wrapper and cracking open the jewel case.  You gently press on the little clips in the centre of the disc and feel them release their grip, allowing you to carefully lift it out and lower it into the CD tray.

I love that.  Hearing the disc start spinning and then waiting for that first note.  That carefully chosen first track that somehow can validate whether or not you made a good purchase.  Then there’s the adjusting of the volume, getting it just right, settling down on the sofa, pulling the album booklet out and starting to page through it.  You smile at the album art, you read all the band members’ thank you’s and then you find the track you’re listening to in the booklet.  You follow the lyrics, smiling because it turns out you were singing the wrong words all along… Call me old school, but how do you beat that?

Ok, so the younger generation is probably saying “SO WHAT?”  We can buy the track and download the album sleeve without ever even needing to leave the house!  I don’t need to draw money, or drive, or queue, or search the aisles and the shelves.  I don’t need to deal with rude clerks, I don’t have to pay for B-side tracks I’ll never listen to again and, oh yes, I don’t need to own a CD player…ever, ever again.

If you ask me, it sounds lonely, boring, ever so slightly agoraphobic and totally robotic. But that’s me.  Although…I must admit, it would be pretty great buying Michael Buble’s latest offering while wearing pyjamas and sipping on my breakfast tea!