Before the algorithm. Before autoplay. Before you could shuffle an entire decade— There was the medium.

The dusty record bin. The car radio dial. The mixtape you spent two hours making and three weeks regretting.

This is the story of how we used to find music—and how The Feed turned every format into background noise.

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When Format Mattered More Than Followers

Music didn’t always live in your pocket.

You bought it. You held it. You flipped it over.

Radio made you wait. Tapes made you rewind. CDs made you pay too much for one hit and twelve fillers.

But it meant something. The format was part of the ritual.

Fun Fact: Tower Records once made $1 billion a year. You had to go somewhere to discover music.

Now it comes to you. Relentlessly.

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Vinyl, Tapes, and the Glory of Tangible Sound

Vinyl cracked. Warped. Popped. Tapes hissed. Snapped. Tangled. CDs skipped if you looked at them funny.

And yet? We loved them.

You didn’t just hear music—you chased it.

You recorded songs off the radio with a cassette deck and an itchy trigger finger. You learned patience by fast-forwarding through dead air.

Every medium was a filter. You had to earn the replay.

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The Download Era: LimeWire, iTunes, and Lost Files

Then came MP3s. Napster. iTunes.

We went from scarcity to saturation.

Suddenly, music was everywhere. And somehow… it meant less.

Hard drives full of songs you forgot. Playlists you never finished. Albums you downloaded and never played.

The library got bigger. The attention span didn’t.

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Streaming: The Feed’s Final Form

Now we live inside the Feed.

Music finds you, not the other way around.

You skip in seconds. You swipe without hearing the hook. You don’t listen—you scroll.

The medium is now invisible. The platform is the message.

Spotify. Apple Music. YouTube. TikTok. They don’t care what you love—just that you don’t leave.

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Final Note: Rediscover the Medium

Not everything has to be instant. Not every song needs a skip button.

Sometimes the medium is part of the magic.

Buy a record. Burn a CD. Make a mixtape for no reason.

Take the long way back to loving music.