I have never been very good at dealing with change and I’m very reluctant to embrace new technology if it means letting go of something I love. I hated it when records were overtaken by CDs, I avoided them for as long as I could. As a teenager I spent what little money I had on records, they were my most prized possessions, and I fought long and hard against having to buy CDs instead. When I did eventually accept the inevitable the first CD I bought was by INXS, a band I was never particularly keen on. I think I was still so suspicious of this scary new technology that I didn’t want to risk getting something I really liked. Of course I did come around eventually, and I’ve spent the last 20 years replacing most of the favourite albums I already had on vinyl. Now I’m a little concerned that I keep seeing bands releasing stuff on 7 inch and MP3, but no CD. I try to buy CDs rather than download whenever possible, I even recently cancelled my eMusic subscription, and I love eMusic. It’s just that I don’t listen to much on iTunes, and I only listen to the iPod when I’m out and about (which, as I’ve mentioned before, is not very often), so I had downloaded a whole lot of stuff that I hardly ever listened to, and several albums I just completely forgot I had. And I like having something tangible. As much as I appreciate the instant gratification of downloading, I enjoy the anticipation of a new CD more. I love the ritual – ripping off the plastic, opening and playing it for the first time, reading every word in the booklet, poring over the pictures - much like I did with records in the old days. It’s an event, and one of those small pleasures that I really miss when I download.

I don’t want to be left behind with technology, but I think it’s going to take me a while to warm to all the digital options available. A little while ago I joined Last.fm to see what that was about. I downloaded the software that linked to my iTunes and initially I enjoyed the novelty. It was kind of interesting to see what I’d listened to the most, but since I still do most of my listening on CD it wasn’t a very accurate indication of my listening habits. After a while it started to feel odd, and a little creepy, that people could see what song I’d listened to exactly four days, seven hours and 22 minutes ago, especially if I had listened to it on my iPod. And doesn’t everyone have guilty listening pleasures that they may not necessarily want to broadcast to the entire world wide web? It was all too much information for my liking. I think I’ll get the records out over the weekend and pore over them once again. It’s nice to relive my youth every once in a while, even though it usually ends up making me feel older than ever.