Maybe it’s a generation gap-thing, but I still prefer to buy CDs. It will be a sad day for me when brick-and-mortar record stores have disappeared. For me, there’s a certain joy in browsing record store racks. I often come across albums that I didn’t know existed sitting on the shelves. You can’t really find unknown gems with iTunes’ search feature, since you have to know what you’re looking for. And I find that the best way to discover new music is by browsing through CD collections of friends and borrowing discs of artists whose names I’ve heard but whose music I’m not familiar with. It’s much harder to browse through someone’s MP3 files and borrow music that way.

I also think the MP3 culture has ruined the way I listen to music. I find that I don’t spend as much time acquainting myself with new discs that I buy like I did in the past. Usually, when I buy a CD it gets ripped straight to my MP3 player, and I find myself skipping through tracks more than I did when I would play the physical discs. There’s likely a lot of good music in my MP3 player that I’ve glossed over just because I didn’t give it enough time to grow on me like I would do in the past.