Sunday, February 06, 2022

CDs, road trips, and nostalgia

Reflecting on a lost medium
London, ON
March 2007
This photo originally shared on Instagram


A lot can change in 15 years.

That's how long it's been since I took this fast-snap of a sleeve of CDs. Back in the day, no road trip could get started before you had lovingly built and burned a perfectly curated stack of discs.

By the time this pic was taken, CDs had already replaced cassettes in the road trip toolkit. 8-tracks were largely before my time, but I imagine they had their time in the dusty dashboard sun, as well.

Fast forward to today and CDs are mere memories for most of us. Most cars can't even play them anymore - with the removal of input jacks, it's Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, USB, or nothing.

All of this new tech is infinitely more convenient - pulling together playlists for a long trip now takes minutes instead of days, and not having to wrestle with physical media is a godsend, as well as a welcome safety enhancement.

But no smartphone could ever capture the light quite as dramatically as a CD. And no virtual playlist will ever be as visceral as a Sharpie-labelled disc or mixtape.

The stories of our lives, played out in song, are no longer things we can hold in our hands.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #random #cd #audio #music #roadtrip #old #technology #stilllife #photography #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded #lifeinthemargins

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