The more I think about it, the more I think I wouldn’t mind CDs as much if everyone just had the good taste to release their stuff in digipaks!

I still haven’t seen those massive label catalogs available for download yet either. Maybe the artists and albums I am waiting for are too obscure.

I don’t find CD sound to be compressed, but I always had trouble keeping an LP sounding good. I actually wore out three copies of Heart Like a Wheel. I’ve not worn out a CD yet… but I have lost mp3s to a hard drive crash.

I have often thought the same thing. I don’t know why the labels haven’t figured this out yet because it would be easy money for them. There’s a lot of old stuff that I’d love to be able to get either on CD or as MP3s.

I usually download entire albums unless it’s an artist that I’m not a huge fan of, but just like a couple of their songs. Or sometimes I’ll download a hits package and then buy a couple of favorites that weren’t included individually. I always burn a CD copy and print out the artwork and put everything into a slim jewel case.

I also recently subscribed to a service called Carbonite — http://www.carbonite.com/ . For $50 a year, which is a very reasonable fee, they back up your entire hard drive so you can retrieve your files in the event of a hard disk crash. It backs up automatically every day. That should alleviate fears about MP3 files being lost. In fact, it’s a good idea to do it for other files on your hard drive besides just music. Just something to think about.

I agree. I should’ve been more explicit when making the original post, but I actually grew up with the tail-end of vinyl. I remember buying 45′s and albums all the time, then moving to cassette, and then in eighth grade, making the switch over to CD. I was well into college before burning CDs was a reality, and I resisted the iPod thing until I finally tried it. Now I’m hooked!