The Cloud

I thought this post by Bob Boilen's was interesting--he details how he deleted all of his music in favor of the "Cloud." Now he can listen to his music everywhere, without relying on his hard drive.

My collection of LPs is around a thousand. I have about 2,500 CDs. Listening to my digital collection would take 76 days. These days, most people aren't filling up walls with albums and CDs, maybe a small stack of special vinyl. For many, the library of the future looks something like Spotify — nearly everything you could imagine, delivered with little effort, like an old AM radio signal into your home or car, but with much better sound.

How true. In my life, people listened to records (or 8 tracks), and then cassettes. You recorded music onto cassettes to create mix tapes.  Then you upgraded to massive CD burners and then burned CDs off laptops. Then iTunes came along, with mp3s and other digital tracks. And now Spotify and the Cloud.  How absolutely amazing technology is.

And trust. My husband still keeps his CDs on a shelf, though there is no real reason to keep that massive collection anymore, is it? Maybe a few jazz albums or something else that isn't on our computers. 

I do miss the tangible, as Bob references, like reading the lyrics and liner notes. But how remarkable we can take our music anywhere. It's pretty darn cool.