I remember the feeling of excitement when I was younger about going into my local CD store when the latest album came out. I remember being about 11 or 12 going with my grandfather to the store trying to buy an Eminem cd. I remember not being able to buy it without parental consent because of the “explicit lyrics.” Being born in the 90’s I remember rocking the old school cassette players, and then they were upgraded to Sony cd players, no earbuds though. It’s funny how times have drastically changed and how media and music is constantly being upgraded. I would like to continue the discussion we had in class about how we generally listen to music and which apps or devices we tend to use for this. I will reflect personally upon my experiences using different music apps, explaining the ones I use the most and why, and also the ones I haven’t tried yet and why.
I remember not even knowing what an “app” was, and now in today’s age they are EVERYTHING. I have to stress the everything because that is legitimately what they are. There are apps for everything, let alone just music. Personally I am not a tech-savvy person, and not going to lie, I still listen to cd’s (on occasion). The Compton CD is permanently stored in my car, in my “music” box so I do occasionally listen to that. My main music app is Pandora. I know most people don’t like it because of the ads and the variety of songs they play, but it suits my needs. For instance, when I drive back home to Boston, I usually keep my Pandora running, until I get tired of a station, then I’ll change it. I like how they somewhat upgraded the thumbs up and thumbs down and skips, so now I can have multiple thumbs ups and downs for different stations rather than just a total amount for the whole app of Pandora. This also applies to the skips. Also what I like about Pandora is that I can do other things on my phone while still listening to a station, unlike with YouTube.
I have also begun to use Spotify as well. When I first downloaded the app, it gave me a trial period of making playlists and being able to choose which song I want to listen to. I enjoyed this, but when the trial was over and I wanted to listen to a playlist, I felt like it would keep repeating the same songs. Unlike Pandora, with Spotify the skips are in general throughout the whole app, not just for the different stations. So I guess you could say I’m one of the people who doesn’t like paying for something that I can get for free. This is why I keep my Pandora, and Spotify, and don’t upgrade. I could pay the money and get Spotify so that I can choose exactly what song I want to listen to, but I use YouTube for that.