Digital Declutter: Step 4 The Music

In my process of Digital Decluttering, the biggest point of concern for me was music. I have always been a music lover. Over the years I’ve accumulated vinyl, CDs and cassettes, made mix tapes for friends and then fell in love with portable music devices (yes, I even had a Minidisc player!) and finally iTunes.

Since the rise of streaming music and curated playlists, I felt like I was spending more time collecting new playlists and songs than I was actually listening to music and that’s not on accident. The apps are built to keep you scrolling. The casino-like vibe of Spotify and Apple Music lend themselves to endlessly scrolling for the next new album, playlist or collection. When you add in the addition of “radio stations”, curated playlists by other artists, audiobooks and podcasts, its easy to get lost in adding various content to a TBL (to be listened) rather than actually enjoying a song, album or book.

There is a theory in the digital minimalism/detox community that recommends going back single use devices like music players, ereaders, cameras, a watch, etc instead of depending on your phone to do all those things. If your phone is your watch, if you pick it up just to check the time and then see 15 notifications its easy to get hi-jacked by the urge to check the notifications. The same thing can happen if you pick up your phone to play some music or queue up an audiobook. “Notifications! Must check!”, then 20 minutes have passed and you no longer remember why you picked up your phone in the first place. Or maybe this is just me?

I bought an iPod

This could just be a me problem but it had become a big problem. So, I did the unthinkable. I bought a refurbished iPod, started re-ripping the mountain of CDs that I had stored in the basement and started to rebuild my music collection from scratch. I started with an empty Music library (not matched or connected to my Apple Music streaming account) and added tracks and built new playlists. It was daunting but after a couple of hours, the process became cathartic. I didn’t need the whole album, just the tracks I really liked. I was able to build different sorts of playlists then I had created in the past.

The experience had the vibe of moving house. At first packing and unpacking is daunting but then you get into a groove and start making decisions about what you don’t want to pack up and drag to the next place and what you had forgotten you loved. The process of building a new music library was my version of moving house.

Adding music to the iPod

I filled the new iPod with the songs, artists and playlists that I loved. I started jamming out to tunes. However, there was a little hitch. As a result of streaming services, I had not purchased any music — physically or digitally– in almost a decade so my new MP3 library is definitely showing its age. There are some artists and albums that have been released in the last decade that I would like to have on my iPod that I will have to purchase but so far I am loving just listening to music without an app recommending a “if you like this, you might like these…” or “people who listen to this artist also like…” for every track.

The other hitch is that some songs and albums I purchased through the Apple iTunes store back before 2009-ish are now listed as “purchased AAC” or “protected ACC” files. This means, in some instances, Apple no longer includes the album in its catalog (for example The Creatures Hai!). I can’t even purchase a full digital copy. I am still learning what these various classifications mean within the Apple Music world and how this will affect my ability to use this music on my ipod. Will I have to input a password to access the tracks? Mostly, I am super annoyed that even purchasing music through an online service doesn’t mean you truly OWN that music. It’s making a strong case for buying physical media.

“But that’s so expensive?!!?” If you remember in my subscription post on Digital Detoxing I talked about how much money I am saving by cancelling streaming services. I am using some of this money to pay artists for their music through services like Bandcamp (Bob would like me to remind folks of Bandcamp Fridays where 100% of the sales of songs and albums go directly to the artists) and then actually own the files. All these online services will change their formats and methods of delivery at some point and I don’t lose the music forever or get locked out of it like the “protected AAC” format.

Wired Earbuds or Not?

I did need to acquire wired earbuds to use with the iPod. I bought a budget set of IEMs (in-ear monitors which is a fancy term for better-quality earbuds — this is a whole separate geek-out category. After years of using bluetooth cans and AirPods, the wire of the IEMs was a little distracting and meant I needed to put the iPod in my pocket while I move around. Ladies, you know what I’m gonna say here — most women’s clothes don’t have enough pockets or large enough to hold more than a coin so carrying the iPod around with me is my only real challenge. When I go out for a walk, since its currently chilly, I put on a giant, ugly AF anorak but it has a big pocket to carry my keys and iPod with me easily.

Anorak • A short weather-proof hooded jacket or parka (the term is borrowed from the Inuit of Greenland) – but also a nerd, someone obsessed with a boring hobby, like watching trains or being obsessed with soccer statistics. (Anoraks have a lot of pockets for holding the notebooks, pens, etc. that such people would use.) — From USAToday

When working at home, I use the playlists and ripped CD music from my laptop and use my wireless headphones so I don’t have to figure out how to carry the iPod from room to room. I’m so spoiled by working from home that my wireless headphones work in every corner of my house including all the way out into the yard without losing signal. Using the AirPods or wireless headphones,  I do occasionally get those pesky notification beeps and boops but since its mostly business hours that I do this, it’s not too bad.

Conclusion

The bottomline, for me, is that listening to my own music that I have collected and selected and made my own playlists is a surprisingly liberating experience.

I like that when listening to my iPod, I don’t get notifications of texts, spam calls or incoming email. I can focus on what I’m listening to or doing while I’m listening. It allows me to pause and check my notification when I need to or want to and not everytime they pop up. I didn’t realize until I started this process the stress response I get from endless alert pings. Not being constantly dinged, buzzed or vibrated is reducing my stress levels in ways that are unexpected.

I will probably tip and out of Apple Music’s streaming service every now and again for new music but my goal is to make contentious choices and not listen to curated playlists. After reading the Mood Machine book, I am skeptical of the streaming music services. They are not really trying to find the best recommendations for me, they are trying to get us to spend more time on the service and listen to the music that serves them best which can sometimes be from the big publishers and not indies as well as the ever-encroaching similar sounds created by Muzak-like companies and even AI.