Do you remember, when you were 7?

As much as having an ipod is awesome and convenient, there is one major downside that is becoming more apparent to me.

Back in the simple times where the only way you could listen to your music in a portable fashion was by owning a walkman (or discman), you really got to appreciate the music a lot more.

For me, every single day while eating breakfast, I would listen to three songs of a C.D on my discman (cause that's how much time I had to eat my breakfast), and before I knew it, I would know all the words to every single song on that particular C.D, and know what number each track was and so on. It really made me learn everything about the album I was listening to.

But now, say we buy a new album, put it on our ipod, and listen to it. We may start listening to all the new songs, but then perhaps get bored and we can easily just change the artist, song, genre, whatever. Start listening to something completely new. And while this is convenient and whatnot, it sucks because now you'll never fully understand the album. You'll never get to hear every song on that album and learn them. I guess it's too much choice. Having an ipod is owning a huge music library in the palm of your hands. Just keep switching from artist to artist, album to album, song to song. It's just too easy to not allow yourself to sit back and just listen to one album at a time.

Every Delta Goodrem album that I own, I had to listen to on my discman. And I got to know every song, every lyric, the order of each song. And yeah, it told a story. A general theme was apparent in each album, and now when I look upon them I get those feelings thrown back onto me. But nowadays, like for Paramore, a band which I have listened to on my ipod. I always click "artist > Paramore > play all". It is rare that I ever just listen to one album. So I missed out on picking up on different themes and vibes from each album. I missed out on hearing each album's story. I guess that is what I am trying to say.

Also, even when I buy new albums, I'll put them on my ipod, listen to them once or twice, then start listening to something else. Ever since I got an ipod, I've never got to know an album like I have with the Delta Goodrem ones, the Mariah Carey one, The Nickleback one and the Kelly Clarkson ones (wow, I used to like embarassing music). It's just too easy to get bored with one song and change artists.

This is another issue but I'll mention a little something about it; downloading music. It makes it harder for people to realise an artist's full potential. You can go on the net, download whatever album you want, listen to it once, get bored, go and download another album. It's literally that easy. Back before the internet, if you liked an artist, you would buy a C.D, put it in your discman and listen to the whole thing and be stuck listening to it because you simply couldn't just press a button to change it. That way, you would be exposed to everything that album has to offer and you could make a fair decision on whether you liked them or not, and whether you would purchase future releases from them, go to their show, buy their merch etc. But with ipods and the fact that it's so easy to download music, the majority of people wouldn't give an album a full chance to win your heart. Pressing a button is just too easy.

This post has made me feel like ditching the ipod for a while and going back to discman. Gotta get me some batteries.