Denise Lu prefers buying digital music to renting it through a streaming music service.
I don’t need the entirety of recorded music at my fingertips. I just need the few curated albums that I cared enough about to collect. Having my own library means I can distinctly remember the context of every find, and that makes my intimacy with the songs I care about — the ones I can mentally fill in when one earbud falls out as I’m tying my shoes — feel especially rich.
One thing I’ve noticed about music I own is that I tend to give to give it more attention. This is especially true if I have it on CD, in which case I’m much more likely to listen to the whole album in a sitting. When I’m using a streaming music service that puts the world of music at my fingertips, I tend to be more distracted and less focused. I just don’t have the same kind of patience.
