Jump in a time machine back to 1996. I’m on a bus, headphones on, blasting Sepultura’s 1993 album Arise. I’m grinning, properly buzzing, thinking about their new record, Roots. I’ve read it’s packed with Brazilian tribal chanting, mind-bending percussion, and that filthy, down-tuned groove metal weight.

I’m on my way to my mate Dave’s gaff. He’s bought the CD and he’s got a serious sound system.

I can hardly sit still.

I get off the bus and walk the last thirty minutes to his place, picturing the cover art and guessing how the opening track will hit. Dave swings the door open, beaming.

That was normal in the 90s, when music had scarcity. If you wanted to hear something, you had three choices: buy it from the record shop for a small fortune, persuade someone to burn you a copy, or tape it off the radio in real time.

None of it was easy.

Albums were expensive. As a teenager - unless you were secretly royalty - it took weeks of scraping together enough cash. And if someone had paid for the CD, they didn’t always want to hand it out for free. It wasn’t just money. It was status. Owning the real album meant something.

Taping songs off the radio took timing and luck. You never knew what was coming next, and if the DJ talked over the intro, you were done.

Music wasn’t instant. You had to go after it.

Fast forward to now. Every album ever recorded lives in your pocket. No saving. No waiting. No bus rides replaying riffs in your head. You tap a screen and it starts. If it doesn’t grab you in ten seconds, you skip. No ceremony. No pilgrimage to a mate’s house. The friction has gone, and so has the excitement.

When everything is available, nothing feels rare. Music has shifted from something you chased to something that just washes over you. It fills the gym, the car, the gaps between emails. Albums aren’t lived with; they’re sampled. Songs aren’t absorbed; they’re background music. Back then you worshiped every record you owned. Even if you weren’t sure at first, you stuck with it. ‘It grows on you,’ we used to say.

An album wasn’t just sound. It marked a chapter of your life. You remember where you were, who you were with. You studied the interior album notes. You luxuriated in the artwork. You learned the lyrics because it brought you closer to the artistic spectacle. It gave you social capital. Limits forced deep appreciation for the piece of art. Now the soundtrack updates by the hour, and because it never stops changing, it rarely leaves a dent.

That’s the real shift. We didn’t just lose scarcity; we lost commitment. When you’d spent your last $20 on a CD, you were all in. Today, if it doesn’t land instantly, it’s gone. We traded immersion for convenience, and we are worse off for it.

And I’m not pretending I’m above it. I stream and skip tracks. The convenience is ridiculous. Any song, any time. No worries. But sometimes I think about that bus ride, that slow walk, that feeling before the first note played. That wasn’t just giddy anticipation. It was investment.

Dave steps aside, the CD in his hand. We sit down. He slides Roots into the player like it’s sacred. There’s the soft mechanical whirr; the breath before impact. No adverts. No distractions. Just two teenagers, one stereo, and a record we’d waited month’s to hear.

He presses play.

The room fills with sound, and for that hour we don’t move. We sit there, locked in, absorbing every riff and drumbeat like it belongs to us. It feels private, almost secret, like we’ve been let into something not everyone gets to hear. A small club, limited membership. And in that moment, it feels like the world is ours.