Retrospective Futures

Today, I want to talk about the decline of physical media. Mainly, in music. Let's rewind the clocks about 10, maybe 15 years. When you used to go jamming around with your Sony Walkman plugged into your ears. Oh yes, the Walkman. I had one for well over seven years. By the time I was done with it, it had more duct tape than what would even seem feasible. The duct tape even had duct tape on it. I remember all my old CD's too. The ones I played so many times that they pretty much ended up melting. Every two minutes or so, they would start to skip like it was crazy, but I didn't care, it just made me more appreciative of the times when they played back flawlessly.
Can you remember buying new CD's? For me, it was like a religious experience. I'd go into Wal-Mart andstart looking through the aisles with the focus of a Shaolin monk. It would be almost an hour long process. "Well, this one really looks good, but I might enjoy this one better. But WOW, look at that one!" Either way, I'd end up retrieving my new holy artifact from the depths of Middle-Earth, I'd go to the checkout counter, pull out my wadded bills and scrap change, and revel in the greatness I now held in the palm of my hand. When I got home, I'd take off like the Incredible Flash up to my room, not caring what I knocked over, and jammed my new CD into my stereo. Engage headphones. Sorry Mom,  I can't hear what you're saying, and I don't care right now. I'm in audio heaven. As soon as the first notes hit my ears, I was transformed into something else. I wasn't Tyler, not in the same way. I was a freaking rockstar, opening up to an arena of thousands of people. This was my fantasy. As I would read the CD booklet from cover to cover more zealously than a priest reads the Bible, I would continue to fantasize about touring the world, hauling my drumset everywhere. This was my life, my dream, and it was good.
But now we come to the present. Where iTunes rules the music world, the selfish prats they are. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're decently priced. But when a new album comes out on iTunes, and I buy it, the magic just isn't there. Don't get me wrong I still love the music, and I still to this day fantasize about being a rock star, but the magic...it disappeared. That little boy jamming to his broken headphones, attached to his broken Walkman, listening to his destroyed CD, is still in the past, walking through the Wal-Mart aisles, waiting for that new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. And I owe him a great deal of appreciation. So, I've made a pledge to myself. When I get my own house, I will take one room and dedicate it to music. Not just throw instruments in there. No, more. I'm gonna plaster the walls with posters of my favorite bands, throw a bunch of old album arts up there too. I'll have a huge CD collection, and who knows, maybe a vinyl collection. There will be a decent stereo in there, without an iPod dock, just an AM/FM radio and a CD player. And maybe, just maybe, I'll special order a Walkman from the 90s to keep in there in good memory. The kind that skips if you shake it just a little bit.