While Spotify has helped to drive the success of The Expeditions as a container for its soundtracks, I am moving on from my reliance on both it and the general subscription model. Whew, heady stuff, I know! The '90s called and I want my CD grove back! And I could very well break from my playlist building archetype. I want to concentrate on building my music library, like, what I actually own! CRAZY, I know!

Long gone are those days where I once owned 800+ CDs. But, I've got a armload now and they come pretty cheap these days. I rip them to FLAC and also create a MP3 version to upload to YouTube Music for my mobility. And with Exact Audio Copy, I can recover scratched up used CDs that are otherwise atrocious to listen to endure, like my recent rip of a favorite of mine, the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore. After ripping them to FLAC, I'll create a MP3 version to upload to YouTube Music for my mobility. I like FlacSquisher for this purpose, but it could be anything.

Of course, this new approach won't cleanly enchant into all of my musical desires; everything has been so one-off single driven as opposed to the entire album. For example, I never listen to one song from Pink Floyd. I gotta listen to the entire The Division Bell album. And yes, that CD is on my shopping list. But, there are a whole slew of one-hit wonders or might-as-well-be one-hit-wonders. As much as I like Howard Jones' Things Can Only Get Better, I doubt I'll ever own whatever album that came off of. The same thing goes with Kavinsky's Nightcall, though the whole retrowave genre is problematic as it is a new, niche. I might be able to find some limited run, new CDs, but I'm not interested in the sticker shock.

Then there are my vinyls that I might have to buy CD versions—at least my Simon & Garfunkel, but Bruce, too. While I know there are vinyl rips to FLAC out there, I'm disinterested in investing into the hardware for a one-time use.