MP3, and later MP4 players were part of a huge shift during my teens, everyone had one or wanted one, they came in different sizes and colors and they all had personality through their design.

This was during a time when manufactering of such things was getting easier and cheaper, so tons of cheap brands appeared left, right and center. Competition was/seemed healthy.

You had a thumb-drive-size capable of playing hundreds or thousands of hours of music. MP4s had a little screen you could watch stuff on. I remember watching the #Transformers movie on mine, right before I got mugged and lost it - Only had space for a few tracks though. I remember ripping tons of CDs during that time. But also using piracy as a method of discovery.

And yet in retrospect was also such a short-lived industry.

Died too young. Centralised, heavily-licensed streaming where artists get the shit end of the deal then showed up. Everyone preferred it. To this day I still buy albums, some physical, most digital, but always DRM free. Stream my own music library and put adding something new to the library feels genuinely good.

#Reminiscing #Teens #Music