Radio, Vinyl, Cassette, CD & Streaming Forms for Music

The forms through which I have listened to music over the decades of my life have greatly changed.  Part of this has to do with my money-making ability, nonexistent in my childhood and easy to come by later on, that enabled me to purchase albums and singles...the other part concerns the changing forms themselves.  In the beginning, during the 1960s, I got most of my music straight from the radio, initially a portable family model that was usually tuned in to either WQAM/560 for music and WIOD/610 for talk.  Then in the Christmas of 1964...I was eight...my sister and I each received our own little transistor radios, and I was inseparable from mine, that is when I wasn't at school.  My parents liked to buy albums back then, all in the traditional vinyl format of course, and were partial to the Beatles...later they bought stuff from the Bee Gees, Byrds and the Mamas and Papas, among other favorites of theirs.  When eight-track cartridges came out none of us used them...we skipped straight over to the innovation of cassette tapes: I bought quite a few of these in the 1980s and 90s and often recorded my favorite songs straight from the radio for my personal listening.  Back in the 1990s I decided to explore the complete works of some of my favorite acts, and so I went through period of buying vinyl used albums (one of these I'm discussing tomorrow).  For years they've all been lined up on a high shelf in one of our closets, never being played anymore although I don't have the heart to get rid of them.  I guess in a way that's hoarding, which I intend to make a topic for a future article. It took me a while to adapt to compact discs when they began to be used, but to this day I prefer them to MP3s and streaming audio whenever I have access.  Nowadays, though, it is easier to search my favorite albums and artists on YouTube and endure the necessary ads between each track...but when I find an album to my liking, I'll either go over to Amazon and purchase the CD or check it out when available from my local public library.  Listening to CDs for me is completely tied in with driving...sometimes it takes a few listens to an album to really know which songs resonate with me. This summer I've discovered a number of good CDs that current acts have released and having been listening to them in my car...makes commuting with the never-ending construction and distracted/aggressive/impaired drivers easier to endure.  I'm aware that there will always be newer ways for music to be conveyed...I'd just like to retain the choice as to which ones I get to use...

Quote of the Week...from Dick Clark

Music is the soundtrack of your life.                             ---Dick Clark

Dick Clark, of course, was the host of ABC's long-running Saturday afternoon hit show American Bandstand, on which young folks dressed in the era's attire got down and danced to the hits of the season, with a special guest act present to perform (or lip-sync).  Although I usually had better things to do as a little kid at that time on the weekend, I also kept up with the hits on the radio and, starting with the year 1964, tied them in with the goings-on in my life.  So when I hear a familiar old song on the radio, it invariably associates itself with its time of greatest popularity...and where I was and what I was doing then.  Music...particularly popular music...has been an important element of my life, although in the last two or three decades I've found myself having to be more selective in finding songs that mean anything to me.  I've bought quite a few albums over the years and listened to many, many more and have a mental list of my all-time favorites.  In a few days I'll begin discussing them, in countdown format, one by one...I'm not yet sure how many albums I'll be including in this blog project.  But I know, like most of the others I've done, that it will be fun...including the assembling of my list.  One caveat: they will be my personal favorites and not necessarily a statement regarding their level of artistic achievement, so music snob/critics be forewarned...