I have a collection of CDs. I don’t listen to them directly; I have instead an iPod Classic for myself, and a self-hosted Jellyfin media server for my family. Below is a list of the CDs I own (updated as I obtain more):

Billie Eilish — HIT ME HARD AND SOFT; boygenius — the record; CAKE — Comfort Eagle; CAKE — Pressure Chief; CAKE — Fashion Nugget; Cavetown — Sleepyhead; Cavetown — Worm Food; Chappell Roan — The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess; Charli xcx — brat; CHVRCHES — Love is Dead; Clairo — Charm; The Crane Wives — Coyote Stories; The Crane Wives — Foxlore; Erasure — Chorus; Hozier — Unreal Unearth; Hozier — Hozier; Joss Stone — Mind Body & Soul; Keane — Hopes and Fears; Magdalena Bay — Mercurial World; Mitski — Laurel Hell; Mother Mother — Grief Chapter; MUNA — About U; Noah Kahan — Stick Season; Owl City — Ocean Eyes; Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher; Phoebe Bridgers — Stranger in the Alps; Porter Robinson — Worlds; Porter Robinson — Nurture; Porter Robinson — SMILE! :D; PVRIS — Evergreen; Queen — Greatest Hits I, II & III: The Platinum Collection; Soccer Mommy — color theory; Troye Sivan — Blue Neighbourhood; The xx — xx

Why CDs?

I’ve grown increasingly frustrated as streaming services decline in quality while also increasing their subscription prices. Not only that, but streaming services pay virtually nothing to artists. I decided to start collecting CDs and listening to music I enjoy on my iPod, free from algorithms and suggested content. Purchasing CDs is a legitimate way to financially support the artists as well.

I find that I now listen to full albums rather than cherry-picking individual songs like I would have on Spotify. Viewing albums as the primary unit of music as opposed to singles has changed the way I enjoy music (and I just think that’s neat!)

Benn Jordan’s Why Spotify Will Ultimately Fail and Spotify’s Phony War On Bots are excellent videos that explore the unsavory details behind the music streaming business model (not just Spotify). There is no better time to take control of your music; it sounds better without corporate greed.

Converting FLAC to ALAC

The iPod Classic is not capable of playing FLAC audio files (at least, not without Rockbox). In order to sync my FLAC CD rips to my iPod, I have to convert them to Apple’s ALAC format. To do this, I use the all-powerful ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FLAC -map 0:a -acodec alac $OUTPUT_M4A

Since I’m typically converting an entire CD’s worth of files at once, I use the following command:

ls **/*.flac | each {|it|
  let newname = ($it.name | str replace "flac" "m4a");
  ffmpeg -n -i $it.name -map 0:a -acodec alac $newname;
  rm $it.name;
}

The shell used here is nushell, but other shells can do the same thing (find -exec in POSIX, Get-Item -Recurse | ForEach-Object in Powershell, and so on). Or you could just install Rockbox and save yourself the trouble of maintaining two copies of your music library, lmao

Happy listening!