The streaming age

By Noah Gecelovsky

 

From the  iPod and Apple Streaming to Spotify and YouTube, the 21st generation has created a number of different sources and platforms to find and listen to music.  But there are still two ways of listening to music that will never die: the CD and vinyl.

“I still like CDs, I don’t know — I’m from a different time,” said Liam O’Donnell, owner of Dr. Disc record store on Ouellette Ave. “I like CDs to listen to the whole album.”

As popular as streaming music may be, O’Donnell said CDs are still selling well.

“People are just finding other ways to listen to music,” said O’Donnell. “If people have more options to get their music, it’s going to disperse it.”

The more outlets there are, the more people will spread across the different platforms.

Chloe Towers, HMV assistant manager, agrees with O’Donnell saying there are still people wanting physical copies over streaming.

Both O’Donnell and Towers agree vinyl is making a comeback.

“In the last two years it’s gotten bigger. There’s obviously the classic stuff you’d expect, but Taylor Swift was one of our best sellers last year,” Towers said about HMV vinyl sales. “We started out with a small four-foot section and now we’ve got a 30 foot aisle for vinyl.”

Artists like Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day and other new artists have released albums across many mediums including vinyl within the last three years, showing that even with technology progressing and different ways to find music, CDs and vinyl records are sticking around.