Music Op - How To Ditch Streaming

Hello, and welcome to Music Op! This is the seventh edition of my monthly music-focused opinion piece, where I write about my experiences breaking into the music industry, as well as my thoughts on current happenings and new releases. 

March was not hugely eventful for me in terms of music; the main events were the overhaul of an iPod Nano that I found (see last month’s edition for background on this) and the completion of a song that I have been working on with a friend! Let’s get started.

Goodbye streaming, hello 4-gig iPod!

Quick recap: I found an abandoned iPod Nano 2nd gen. in the cell phone recycling bin at my job last month, and against all odds, the nearly 20-year-old device still worked. Before syncing it to my computer, I investigated the music that was on it and nabbed some interesting stuff. So far, my two favorite random tracks are “Hearts on Parade” by American Hi-Fi and “Here’s to Believe” by Aslyn. 

After a week or so of listening to the leftover tracks, I went ahead and put new music onto the iPod. Since then, I have been hooked on this new listening experience. I mainly love using it on runs and at work, since it’s smaller and less annoying to have in my pocket. The roughly 500 songs it fits are either from my iTunes days, my friends’ iTunes days, my CDs, my friends’ CDs, or the iPod’s original owner. Shuffling this selection gives me songs that I may have never heard, along with stuff that I am vaguely familiar with, plus some absolute classics that take me right back to my first ever iPod.

Now here is where the personal dilemma comes in. I pride myself on how much new music I consume, or at least know about. I actively write for BLIGATORY; a group that almost solely focuses on covering new music each week. My Speed Review series on YouTube is also dependent on my choosing to listen to new music. The iPod is ruining my appetite for new music… and I am a little scared. 

There are three main reasons why I think using this iPod is more enjoyable than streaming. Obviously, the device is just nostalgic and cool to me. I enjoy seeing my newer CDs and Bandcamp purchases on the old device, and the simplicity of the system makes the music itself more entertaining. The second reason is not directly the iPod’s fault, but my Bluetooth headphones and AirPods that I use with my phone have both been giving me problems recently. The headphones are basically unusable with the phone, since the left ear either cuts out completely or starts whining constantly, even when connected by a wire. The AirPods just seem to play louder out of the left ear than the right, which might be fixable with some cleaning (of the pods or my ears, both could use it). I’ve just been using the normal Apple earbuds with the iPod, which also seem to be trendier than AirPods right now. Little do the other alternative youth of Philadelphia know that mine are connected to a far cooler device than theirs. 

The third reason is that I actually think I can hear the difference in audio quality between the iPod and Spotify, and the iPod sounds better. While this might be exaggerated by my broken AirPods, it makes sense to me that raw files sound clearer and more detailed than songs streamed through the Internet and magically pushed through Bluetooth, even if my Spotify settings are set to the highest quality. I have put lots of thought into how I digitize my CDs and download my music, but with only 4 gigabytes, I have to put AAC or mp3 files on there. I have discovered that the ALAC offers smaller lossless files, but I still feel like these lossless songs will fill the device too quickly. I would rather sacrifice a bit of quality in order to actually use my songs, and if I own the CD or digital release via Bandcamp, I can always go back and grab an actual AIFF copy. 

It has been fascinating for me to see how using a different device and library has changed my interests and habits in listening to music. I am now fully invested in iPods (again), and I plan on acquiring a few more for actual use. 

“body/bones” coming soon!

Since August of last year, my friend Lena Fine and I have been working on a song that is now taking the final steps before release. The song was an idea that she had brought to her band (which I play bass in) a while back, but got pushed aside for other new songs. Lena and I had lived together last year, and before she moved out, we wanted to record a song together, since most of her past music had been produced and recorded by a different friend in a higher-quality fashion. This one was to be a full bedroom production, which is how I work best (and what I had access to). 

Lena went to Spain last fall, and I began producing the song around a base of guitar, vocals, and simple drums that we laid down before she left. I added bass, Casio strings, another keyboard sound, and some new drums. Then I mixed, and with help from my friend Bay, we printed the song to cassette tape and bounced it back to glue everything together. Lena’s friend Adam mastered it, and the track - now titled “body/bones” - will be out soon! It will also drop with a B-side, titled “rocky beaches,” that Bay recorded with Lena a while back on cassette tape. 

I think both songs sound beautiful, and I’m very excited for the world to hear them. This was my first time fully producing a song for someone, instead of just adding to someone’s song or producing my own stuff. It was a long process that was very daunting at times, but also very satisfying now that it is complete.

The real appeal of music festivals

As I am writing this section, Coachella’s first week has just wrapped up (I do end up cramming these articles like a college paper). I haven’t been to a large music festival since Made In America in 2022, and of course the clips of seeing every artist under the sun at Coachella make me want to go to another one. My friends and I attended Boston Calling and Osheaga in high school, and these experiences were life changing and definitely some of the coolest things I did before college. 

Large music festivals are like a physical challenge. You sacrifice your comfort, cleanliness, and human needs in order to witness grand performances from your favorite artists in a sea of people, dust, smoke, and sun. At Made In America, I remember looking at the streets that were littered with trash, bottles, and people sitting on the curbs eating fried food and drinking $20 White Claws, and thinking how they paid at least $100 to be there. While it is a struggle that takes a toll on your body, attending a music festival is also like a few days in some alternate universe where everyone embraces the exhaustion and pushes themselves to the limits for live music. 

Coachella seems to be the pinnacle of current music festivals, and I doubt I will be able to attend it any time soon, as I am not rich and live very far away. Given the feasible opportunity, I would 100% be there, but it does seem like the enormous scale of that festival could take away from the experience. There are almost always sacrifices when planning your schedule of performances, and it would probably be easy to get lost or separated from your group in the massive festival area and miss performances. 

I am not trying to hate on Coachella or other massive music festivals; I am sure I’d have an insane amount of fun attending one, as I have had in the past. I just wanted to bring up this interesting view I had on music festivals in general, and how they convince people to endure grueling physical conditions through the timeless allure of theatrical music performances.  

My Top 10 favorite songs from March 2025

Playboi Carti’s MUSIC may have been the biggest and most hyped album release of the year so far, but its 30 tracks only landed one on my monthly top 10 (see my review of the album here). Men I Trust has been one of my favorite bands since their breathtaking Untourable Album in 2021, and their newest project did not disappoint for me. I’m glad beabadoobee’s “Sway” cover ended up on streaming, and Bb trickz’s “Not a Pretty Girl” is built for viral success. 

10. “OLYMPIAN” - Playboi Carti

9. “Sway - triple j Like A Version” - beabadoobee

8. “PS” - Fib

7. “Not a Pretty Girl” - Bb trickz

6. “Unlike Anything” - Men I Trust

5. “I Don’t Like Music” - Men I Trust

4. “Everything Designer” - Droogie Otis (Madlib + Your Old Droog), Boldly James

3. “Moon, Sea, Devil” - Florist

2. “Heavenly Flow” - Men I Trust

1. “All My Candles” - Men I Trust

Thanks so much for reading this month’s edition of Music Op! Go check out the past editions for more stories and past top 10s.