Music my way and the highway

I really enjoy music and my musical tastes continue to evolve over time. What has evolved much faster then my taste in music is how we consume music.

I started collecting 45's as a kid and then moved onto LPs after my Grandfather convinced me that I would get much more of the artist if I bought the album instead of just the single. I collected my LPs and still have many of them today nicely boxed up waiting for a good enough reason to use them again on my Bang & Olufsen tangential tracking turntable that I also still have.

Soon the cassette joined the fray (we will skip the eight-track era, please) and new albums were immediately taped to capture the vinyl LP at its best (not before carefully cleaning it with the discwasher). Often the LPs were then sold at a $1 discount to new to finance new LPs and more taping. This freedom soon led to "mix tapes", the predecessor to today's playlists.

The CD era soon followed and the great "recollection" started as not only did I buy new music on CDs, but I also bought CDs of LPs and tapes I already had. This led to buying furniture to hold the CDs in their appropriate splendor. Today I have very nice built in bookcase filled with CDs that are really if ever used.

Digital music brought in many new options and recollection opportunities, but also introduced the concept of renting music (a much more efficient method then my buy, tape, sell process from the late 1970's). While the iPod folks rave (with good reason) about their musical experience (and my kids and I also have iPods), I really think the concept of renting music is the future.

They have been a number of musical rental ideas that have come and gone in my life including such services as Rhapsody. For now I have settled on Pandora, whose QuickMix feature allows me to create a "radio station" that plays only the artists I enjoy with just enough new artists to keep the evolution of my musical tastes going.

While I worry about Pandora's commercial model (I am actually a paying Pandora One member), their service offering is excellent, delivering every artist I have ever wanted via a user interface that works via the browser, desktop client and now my Blackberry. This versatility allows me to have my music even if I want to take it on the highway or most anywhere else.