It's not that I haven't been listening to music, it's that I haven't been listening to NEW music. I had been feeling out of the loop, music-wise. So when we ended up at Streetlight Records a couple of weekends ago, I HAD to buy something. When I bounded up to the boyfriend with my hands full of new releases from some of my favorite indie rockers, his response was, "Isn't that stuff you can buy on iTunes?"

It probably was stuff I could buy on iTunes, but I just can't bring myself to do that. I still think of mp3s as samples of something I might want to buy in the future. Buying an ENTIRE album in mp3 form scares me. What if my computer explodes? What if my iPod dies? AT THE SAME TIME? Unless I've burned all my mp3s onto CDs, I couldn't listen to them! So I download an mp3 or two, and then go out and buy the entire album. Call me old fashioned, but I like doing it that way.

I think my other reason for this is that I'm an 'entire album' person. I like to hear the whole thing, in the order it was intended. I'll start to pick my favorites after the first couple of listens. But I'll continue to listen to the whole album, because sometimes the songs that didn't really grab me at first become my absolute favorites. I don't feel like I can do that with mp3s. Especially since I almost always listen to the iPod/iTunes on shuffle. If it's something I don't like, or don't feel like hearing right then, I hit next until I find something I do want to hear. I could be missing out on some really great tunes by shuffling music this way.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop listening to the iPod. But it does means that as long as they keep making them, I'm going to keep buying actual CDs and listening to them in their entirety. Only then will they be added to iTunes to be shuffled with the rest of my collection.

Honestly, it shouldn't surprise me that I feel this way. I still buy records sometimes, AND I own a turntable to play them on.