[Currently listening to "Winter" by Caroline, off her album Murmurs.]

I got an email during my first year of college.

It was a form email from one of Metallica's lawyers. The form email threatened to sue me if I didn't stop downloading their music. For free. With Napster. I got a good scare and a failing grade in the Ethics of Music and I stopped downloading music during the hours while I was in class learning about Philosophy. (Internet connection speeds were a tad slower then. It took all day to download an album.)

Embarrassment about stealing (arguably embarrassing music) aside, I don't buy albums in stores anymore. And I miss that. I remember being in college, staying up until midnight for the release of Radiohead's Kid A.

Around 12:01am Patrick and I rushed to back to his seafoam green sedan, struggled to get the packaging off the CD (the real reason digital music has taken over. CD packaging), carefully placed said disk into the player and listened to the album start to finish. Who cared what time it was? This was how music was meant to be listened to. Hot off the album presses.

Those days are over.

Now, I love the variety Pandora and Last.fm provide. I love that I can get an album for half of what it used be. In college we saved up to buy albums. Now, it's convenient. One click, one song.

[Currently listening to "Set Yourself on Fire" by Stars, off the album Your Ex-Lover is Dead.]

There are aspects of the listening experience of days gone by I miss.

I miss the clacking sound of the anti-theft devices music stores put on their CDs. 

I miss the repeat button that you had to push, actually push and hold down, when you discovered your new favorite song.  I miss the feeling of a CD booklets in my hands. Flipping the pages, getting to know the artists by how much or how little thought they put into their booklets.

The other thing I miss? Long Playing Maxi Grooves. Those albums you could put in and listen to the whole way through. Pandora is a truer reflection of the state of our fractured, technology-rich lives.

[Currently listening to "Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzalez, off the album Veneer.]

Yes, Pandora has changed my listening life for the better. And so has the iPod.

But on occasion, I miss the dangerous music days. The days when you had to fight to get to your music. The days when you had to rip the packaging off to get to that CD. Those days when you had to worry about surface scratches.

I miss those days that made you bleed for your music.

[Currently listening to "The Greatest" by Cat Power, off the album The Greatest.]

[This post was written for #best09. Share your bests from this year.]