I live in the US. I had probably 800 albums or so in 1986 when I started re-buying most of them as CDs. In the late 90s I spent weeks ripping them to 192kbps M

I live in the US. I had probably 800 albums or so in 1986 when I started re-buying most of them as CDs. In the late 90s I spent weeks ripping them to 192kbps MP3s via lame. Since then I've bought many hundreds more CDs, though recently it is usually just buying mp3s directly from bandcamp or from amazon. On occasion I will buy the physical CD because it is cheaper than a digital-only mp3 option. I just checked and I have a bit over 20,000 songs. My family has a spotify account. In the past we used pandora. I have tried them both but I always immediately come back to playing albums from my own collection. I'm in my mid 50s, and I grew up listening to album-oriented rock (AOR), and not just a stream of pop hits. I still prefer to listen to albums start to end. When an album ends, I judge my mood and think what album fits it and put that one on. That is something spotify doesn't do for me.