In 2006 I bought my first CD ever: Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers. A few years later, the Internet did its thing and I stopped paying for music for several years. Around 2012 or so I started using Spotify and had it since then with some years of Apple Music in between. Over all those years I discovered lots of great artists and listened to a huge number of songs, a lot of them are connected to people the once were or still are part of my life.

Six months ago, I heard a song by Austrian musician Alicia Edelweiss and bought the whole album instantly. You have to support artists during the pandemic, I told myself.

A few days ago I cancelled my Spotify-subscription. There are several reasons for this step:

• From what I’ve heard, music streaming is a pretty bad deal for artists in general. You have to support artists, especially now. This might be more expensive, but I hope, that the music will be worth it, literally.
• It feels like that I’ve listened to way too much music during the last years. Music became a background noise, I mostly listen to it during the day, during work. And while having access to music anytime is great, I somehow lost connection to the music itself, it’s nothing special anymore. I want to know the music, value its details, enjoy it consciensly, dance to it, make it something special.
• I want to own my music. I want to have a CD I can share with friends, for example, even if I’m broke.

And now you have to excuse me. There’s some music that needs my attention. Or is it me needing the music’s attention? Does it matter?