this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Nothing's stopping you from burning a CD right now. But ultimately, these kinds of nostalgic memories are less about the tech itself and more about remembering the happy times of youth. Bringing back the burned CD won't bring those back I'm afraid.
I've recently gotten into vinyl, and what I've learned is that convenience is often antithetical to experience. When just about every song ever made is immediately available to me at a moment's notice, I stop caring; I'll listen to a song I like for a little while then move onto the next one without thinking about it, and I won't form any lasting memories along the way. When music is something that takes time and effort to enjoy, I have a chance to form a memory about my enjoyment, and when I have to physically find a song in order to listen to it, it gives that song much more meaning than if I spent less than 5 seconds typing the name in on Spotify.
Actually..
I got married seven years ago. We could bring our own music to the ceremony, but it had to be on audio CD.
None of our modern computers have any optical drive, but we have an USB DVD burner. We just couldn't get any modern system to complete a burn, it just kept failing halfway through.
After many hours I installed OS X on my MorphOS PowerBook G4 from 2005 to use the built-in drive and burn through iTunes.
It used to be a cakewalk. Now not so much.
You probably had a faulty DVD burner then. I did it within the last year, using my modern computer and a cheap external drive.
Or just burned too quickly on poor quality media. It seems like as dvd drives got better the media got worse. But 15 years ago they stopped getting better, and the media kept getting worse.
That's totally on your hardware. All those DVD burners you can buy do work.
What’s stopping me is that I haven’t had a CD burner in like 12 or 15 years. But you’re right about the rest of it.
A tiny laser and steady hands should work
I don’t have those, either, lol
Very small pickaxe?
External USB ones are free in boxes of Frosted Flakes these days.
I have a genuine honest to goodness 5.25" bay mounted Blu Ray burner in my tower right now. Hey, you never friggin' know. It comes in handy every once in a while. There's a machine in my basement with an LS-120, a Zip drive, and a 5.25" floppy drive in it that all still work. Occasionally I still find myself needing to get some monumentally important ancient file off of some kind of floppy disk or other for somebody.
I was soo excited about ls120. Zip drive capacity in a 1.44 MB disc format with backwards compatibility. How could it not become the next big thing?
Because it made that noise.
Lol, oh I know. I just really never liked burning CDs anyway. I had a mini disc player, lol.
They still sell them
I agree with your point. However that's not what the article is about. It's about the social and aesthetically engaging aspects that come with physical media compared to the utilitarian services where music is presented like "tap water", and the sense of indifference that's created through abundance, hurting the artists financially.
Yeah, I miss the days of making my own mixes, sharing music with friends, etc.
I recently ripped a bunch of CDs and one of the batches was my folio in my car. I do not fucking miss having to handle CDs. The slightest scratch on the foil and it's done, scratches on the plastic and it's done. You had a hour and some minutes max that you could pack into one is you didn't have an mp3 capable player.
I love getting music on CDs, I love listening to an album straight through and the hidden song at the end coming after a bunch of silence, and making a mix that flows like a God. But it's so much nicer having all of my music ripped on my server.