Back when 15 bucks was a lot of money to me, I bought Led Zeppelin's debut album after listening to it on in-store headphones at HMV-every day for a week. The first play, though, is one of my most powerful musical memories: I felt those first two chords roll into my head and watched my arm raise up, hand in an autonomic rock-fingers salute. When I finally brought the CD home, I was so excited that I broke the jewel box trying to breach the security sticker. By college-aka the Napster era-I was no longer shelling out for music; but if time is money, I was still paying. I'd hear a song and get curious about the artist. Then I'd steal some tracks. A song could take an hour to download, and storage was far from free. So to ensure I didn't waste time or space, I'd do research to see if the band was worth it: cruise a BBS, talk to friends. I'd listen to it several times. If a song was good, I'd burn it to minidisc. (Yep, I'm that guy.) Bad tracks got trashed. My mixes were amazing. The process was full of what technologists call friction, the supposed enemy of a good user experience. Yet those college-era mixes remain among my favorites. Friction or no, that music I worked so hard for has more staying power than the crap I'm playing now. In pathetic midthirties-guy fashion, I try to stay relevant. I subscribe to Spotify's curated new-music playlists and delve into the app's Discover tab. When I find something I like, I add it to a playlist. But here's the problem: Even though I like a song when I add it, I'm soon tired of every track in that queue. Is modern music that bad? Is it just me? I wonder what a neuroscientist would say...
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