I Bought an iPod in the Music Streaming Era

In the current, dystopian age of music streaming, I bought an iPod. What could go wrong?

My new iPod nestling alongside some of my cherished CD's.

Music streaming has been such a dominant force over the past decade that it's difficult to remember what it was like before services like Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube Music took over nearly all of our entire music listening habits. Tirelessly seeking out algorithmically based playlists, recommendations from bots and AI DJ's, sifting through an endless possibility of songs to choose to over a lifeless digitized display on your smartphone or desktop screen. You have to check and see if the albums you wanted to listen to offline were actually downloaded (my biggest pet peeve of streaming). The quality of listening to streams is actually pretty bad, especially if you use Spotify (Apple Music is much more catered with its many differentiating lossless formats, but a CD quality will do you just as well if you're not an obsessive audiophile). You're persistently relying on your Discover Weekly playlist to "discover" something new, when in fact you're just being spoon-fed the same "discoveries" as everyone else rather than seeking anything new or exciting, or uncomfortable out for yourself. There's the weighted feeling of renting music every month through a subscription service until you die. You're not owning anything really. You're just relying on and tethered to a service. What if Spotify just suddenly disappears tomorrow? You've got nothing to show for it, except for your screenshots of your Spotify Wrapped on your Instagram Story.

There was a point in time before all of this, when we were actively seeking out mp3 downloads of our favorite tracks, playlists to hand craft, and CD's to burn onto our digital libraries. We were discovering different genres, artists, songs through internet blogs, your friends, maybe through your personalized iTunes "listeners also bought" recommended page? Maintaining a digital library is extremely meticulous, time consuming, and much more inconvenient than simply pressing play on your Spotify Daily Mix. But with every annoyance, there's an organic, simplified joy of crafting your digital library and making it your own. It's like maintaining your digital garden, making sure everything is healthy and to your liking. It's meditative, even. It's hard to even explain this to someone growing up in a generation where they've never payed for music in their entire life. For those who do remember that nostalgic time, they were definitely the golden years compared to the dystopian, robotic, and cold way we listen to music today. Listening to your personalized digital library on a singular device, such as an iPod (or a Zune, anyone?), is arguably the most fun way to listen to music in my opinion. During our oversaturated, overstimulating world of always being tethered to the internet and your smartphone, having a device that's just for music is refreshing, reinvigorating, and gives a new sense of focus towards solitary music listening without constantly looking at your TikTok feed.

Growing up in a particular generation (I'm technically part of Generation Z at the ripe age of 28, but I'm also on the tail end of Millennial) where the iPod and digital mp3 ruled supreme, I definitely remember just how fun and how much focus I had on particular songs and albums. I had a limited amount, so I was left to listen to my only options and boy, did I listen to those options a lot. Nowadays, I listen to so much new music, I tend to listen to most new albums only a couple times before leaving them in my streaming library and not returning to them, forever to be forgotten. Of course there are exceptions (I've listened to 10,000 gecs at least fifty times probably), but during a time before streaming, I would purchase a coveted new album on CD at the local Best Buy or digitally through the iTunes store and listen to it so much, letting every new detail seep into my brain each time I listen. It was awesome. Back ten years ago, repeatedly listening to both Courtney Barnett's debut album and Blur's comeback album, both brand new at the time, is one of my favorite musical memories. It still is awesome when it happens every now and then; it just doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to.

In recent years, I've definitely noticed how my listening habits have changed since that golden age. Sure, I've discovered and consumed so many more albums, but am I retaining them as much? I've definitely been retaining the new favorites, but aside from that, it typically goes in one ear and out the other and it's time to move on to the next one. It's becoming more and more like a job or even fulfilling a task, rather than a fun hobby. I'm still discovering music like I normally do, through friends and the few remaining relevant internet blog sites (shout out to Stereogum!). That's great and all, but because of the ease of streaming, I'm consuming so many more new releases and there's been less of a focus on getting completely immersed into a particular album and letting it grow on me. It's a double edged sword because I love discovering and listening to new music. It's so much fun! It's one of my all time favorite things to do. But nowadays, there's so much new music coming out, that it's absolutely overwhelming to me. There are several new albums I want to check out almost every single week and I feel like I'm running constantly behind when I don't get to them all. There are also deluxe and anniversary editions that come out constantly and new albums that are so long it's like watching a three hour epic, so I have to plan out a whole evening just to listen to the whole damn thing just once. The new Goose album, for example, is eleven songs at over an hour and a half in total length! I'm sorry guys, I simply don't have the time when I should be revisiting the great new DJ Koze album that came out earlier this year... and I've only heard that one a couple of times because there's so much other damn new music I feel the need to check out!

In 2025, listening to music in a music streaming dominated world is utterly exhausting and I'm nearly at my wit's end with all of it. Although I'm not ready to give up my Apple Music subscription just yet (I love following and trying out certain new music releases before buying them too much!), I wanted to focus more on enjoying music through my digital library by purchasing more digital music, burning more CD's, and most importantly, listening to my library through a sole digital music player. Over the years, I've amassed a massive digital library through my iTunes (roughly 90gb worth/over 9,000 songs). Why not make a better use out of it by putting it on a device that would utilize it the best and make my listening habits much more focused, purposeful, and most of all, fun? A month ago, I bought a 5th generation iPod Classic, modded with an upgraded battery and storage (500gb worth of space). I could put pretty much all of my music onto the device, so that my entire library can be with me everywhere I go. I picked out a yellow color on the faceplate, a black click wheel, with a black metallic sheen on the back. Think of it as an ode to Barry B. Benson from The Bee Movie, or the infamously discontinued Pono music player, helmed by Neil Young himself.

Listening to "Old Town Road" at work. Don't tell my boss.

Before I get right into my experience with this iPod thus far, I'd like to share my relationship with music streaming and how that's shifted in the past decade or so. I originally got the free version of services like Spotify and Pandora back in 2011, as tools to check out/test music and see if I'd like to purchase them for further, deeper listening onto my music listening device. It was a fairly good method and I listened to a lot more albums through this, even though I didn't fully transition to streaming yet. Once 2016-17 rolled around, that's when I finally bit the bullet and purchased a premium subscription for Spotify and once I set up my account, I was off to the races. I was balancing two platforms for several years (my streaming library on Spotify and my purchased library on my iTunes/Music app) before I married both streaming and purchased music together into one Apple Music account in 2021-22. This is the best of both worlds by having my streaming and purchased library onto one service. I highly recommend anyone who has both a large digital library and a streaming one to use Apple Music instead. This is a good method that I still use to this day but it doesn't come without its flaws. The Apple layout and interface is notoriously not great and navigating your library is an absolute chore. If you want to find something specific, you can browse the search bar but if you want to enjoy scrolling through your actual library, it's a not only massive pain in the ass but it's robotic, bland, and annoying. Because of this, and this is partially a personal/mental issue on my part, but I tend to ignore my library altogether and just focus on the recent albums I've been listening to. That's exactly not what I want to do when it comes to enjoying my library to the fullest.

This is where the iPod comes into play. Now, I will admit that using this device doesn't come without its flaws either. Trying to find something specific can take patience, but you're scrolling through your entire list of artists and albums in a simplified list format, something I haven't done in ages during my streaming experience. So when you're scrolling, I'm looking at my entire library a lot more, something I have missed dearly. Because of this, I am persistently reminded of great albums and artists that I have forgotten about and haven't listened to in awhile. (...Damn, I haven't listened to Fleet Foxes in awhile, I should get back into that!) This is a more unique problem when your library is larger and it may not be an issue to you but I digress. You easily scroll by using the click wheel which I love and also have missed. (The world was truly brighter with the click wheel in the forefront. I mean, just listen to that click wheel click!) You'll have to manually shuffle songs and albums through an alternate setting (something that Apple made much easier in future generations of iPods), which is an extra step but not a hugely awful one. Another unique feature is shuffling my entire library. It can be both a good and bad experience, where it features songs I'm not always in the mood for. But having David Byrne's "The Man Who Loved Beer," a Bob Burger's "Beyond the Sea" cover sung by Teddy himself, and Men at Work's "Down Under" being played back to back to back? That's priceless.

Listening to my beloved Katamari Damacy soundtracks through my Honda Civic.

There are also super picky issues when it comes to naming and formatting your music. iTunes has and always will be annoying software that will never display your named music exactly how you want it to, so there will always be some annoying, repetitive details to comb over when sifting through your music. For example, no matter how many times I make sure everything has the intended album artwork, iTunes (or Apple Music?) goes ahead and automatically updates my Charli XCX BRAT artwork to feature the new, updated "scribbled out" album art (that's currently featured on streaming services) without asking me my permission. Updating this to a streaming service is one thing but updating this to my purchased CD on my iTunes library? That's different. It's one of the most excruciating things about having a streaming service marrying your purchased library and I can only assume it's Apple Music's fault and not iTunes'. I appreciate this constantly changing artwork gimmick to an extent, but an album cover is an album cover, man! I don't want stuff constantly changing all the time in my music library... that's why I have a personal music library! The same goes for looping videos being constantly played while listening to a song on services like Spotify. I don't want to look at this shit! It's annoying and distracts from the music. I know you can turn it off, but damn, everything is trying to be TikTok, constantly being overstimulating, unabashedly grasping for your attention and I hate it.

"Old man yelling at cloud" rant aside, I've been really enjoying my iPod adventure so far. I've been using it for a little over a month now and I've been rediscovering old stuff, loving classic favorites, and jamming to new ones. I've been listening to it in the office at work and I have gotten many eyeballs on it with everyone smiling and shockingly asking, "is that an iPod?" It's been wholesome and it's honestly a rad conversation starter. I've gone on walks outside with it by connecting my Aftershokz headphones to a bluetooth adapter that's connected to the iPod's charging port. It's a little pricey, but the adapter is worth it if you want to change the song or adjust the volume without grabbing the iPod. I haven't ran with it yet but I'm certain it will be a great running companion in the near future. I've been driving my car with the iPod connected instead of my iPhone and it's been a more engaging listening experience, where I purposefully decide what to put on ahead of time before I start driving. I've been relistening to albums that I haven't gotten around to that much since I purchased them, such as David Byrne's Grown Backwards, Beck's Guero, and Django Django's self-titled debut. I've been listening to albums in my collection that I've nearly forgotten about like DeVotchKa's 100 Lovers (which is a beautiful album, by the way). I've also been burning CD's from my local library to beef up my collection. Don't look at me like that... I will eventually buy most of these on CD, ok? I even preordered a new album from Bandcamp that I will listen to on my iPod when it comes out. It's called Chamber Music for Lawn Mowers by Sage Martens (M. Sage and Lieven Martens), which is an ambient concept album about lawn culture and the negative environmental impact caused by humans cutting and maintaining grass. It also features sounds from actual lawn mowers, which is pretty sick if you ask me. It will be a fun, more engaging way to listen to new music that seems more personal and purposeful, rather than just going mindlessly on Apple Music, swiping to it, hitting play, and then scrolling through the dreadful daily news.

Listening to Beck's The Information wirelessly on my walk via a Blutooth adapter.

Only time will tell how much I will use this thing, but I'm hoping to make it my primary music listening device and overall I'm hoping I will be listening in a more fun and engaging way. I know this isn't the ideal situation for everyone. The convenience of a smartphone is quite undeniable, but I'm trying to break the habit and addiction to my iPhone little by little. Sure, I can listen to music on it (and probably still will from time to time, especially with new releases) but these portable digital rectangles aren't good for us, guys. They're just not, and I'm totally sure that I'm not the first person to say that and I certainly won't be the last. Social media is a separate issue on its own, but tethered to an addictive device like the smartphone, it's a poisonous, mentally degrading and time sucking combination. I've been off of Instagram since September of last year and I permanently deleted my Facebook account, even though I haven't been on there in at least three years. Not only because, fuck Meta and fuck Mark Zuckerberg, but because those are the only two social media accounts I have used. (Sure, YouTube is also considered a social media platform but I see it more as a video streaming service). I never fell into the temptation to have a TikTok account and thank god for that. I can't imagine how much of a time suck that would be and how much time would be mindlessly spent on there instead of dedicated music listening. No shame to those who are addicted though. I totally understand. It's designed to be like crack.

This essay has been about a bit more than just my iPod journey, and that's okay because I'm touching on a lot of important subjects when it comes to listening to music and consuming art the way it should be intended. I'm absolutely loving it so far and can't get enough of it. It excites me to listen to more music and become less distracted from all the other digital clutter around me. It's both nostalgic and invigorating to listen to music this way. Looking back over the past decade streaming music, I've definitely noticed that things are trajecting downward in terms of the quality ways we've been listening to music. There's too much music being thrown at me overwhelmingly all at once and more time is being spent dedicated to many albums on the surface rather than actually digging further deeper into them. To me, the value of music is quite expensive and priceless at points but from the perspective of most consumers, major labels, and the major streaming services, the current value couldn't be any lower. I strive to listen to music for not just my benefit, but for the artist's and the environment's benefits too. I didn't even get into how much pollution is caused by streaming music and how that impacts our global carbon footprint. At the end of the day, I try to consume music in a way that's hopefully valuing it the way it should be. Whatever "value" that is truly depends on the listener but at the very least, I hope it's worth more than a monthly $12 subscription to a giant Swedish corporation that funds both military-industrial tech and podcasters that spread wide misinformation, one that doesn't treat music as an art form, but rather treats it simply as content.

Most importantly, I want to have fun listening to music while supporting the artists I love, to spend more time dissecting albums like I used to. I love devices that are geared more towards its actual intentions and the classic iPod is simply that. No distracting text messages, emails, social media posts, or YouTube videos. Just a good ole click wheel, a tiny ass LCD screen displaying cute little album art, and great music coming directly out of it. I'll most likely write a follow-up piece in the near future on what I've experienced and learned from my iPod journey. Thanks to those who've stuck with me towards the end of this essay! Maybe it's time to pull out your own dusty old iPod out of your cupboard and rediscover your old listening habits and why you loved listening to music back before streaming.