Did you click this because you already have your favorite picked and you’re pissed off that I even have the nerve to put them against each other? That’s OKAY! I really wanted to write this to give each the benefit of the doubt and mentally break’em down.

Let’s do this.

FIGHT!

Vinyl
From the second records first came out until the end of time, when new music is released, it’ll be referred to as a record or an album, no matter if it’s listened to on a computer or a phone. That alone says a lot about the lasting impression that this format has given us.

There are so many reasons why vinyl is incredible. The sound that it makes when you lower the needle onto the record. The amount of respect/admiration someone has when they walk into your place and see your collection of vintage vinyl. The fact that the album cover is big enough that it’s an actual piece of art instead of just a holder of music. And finally, there’s not another format that truly allows you the afternoon delights of finding an incredibly rare record for an unbelievable deal.

Vinyl is a community of people rather than just a way to listen to tunes and will always hold a special place in my heart.

Compact Disc
If you’re an ’80s kid like me, you definitely had a CD collection. If you had a car, you had a big book full of your favorite CDs and you would flip through it at stop signs, lights, and before you actually went anywhere. This was the first time you listened to your own music in a flawless format. Exactly as the artists wanted you to hear it.

When you upgraded to a six CD or one of those massive 100 disc players at home, you could have hours upon hours of your favorite tunes playing without having to change anything.

While it doesn’t have the warmth and community like vinyl, it definitely has the overall quality.

MP3
Some of you probably grew up knowing very little of the formats above. You were lucky enough to grow up in the age of digital music. But, even though anything you could possibly want to hear will now and forever be at your fingertips, you missed out on an incredible time to be alive.

MP3s hooked us up with both true library portability and overall sound quality. With telephone service, we’ve got the added possibility of streaming almost anything we want at any time anywhere… there’s really little to be sad about when we think about MP3s. They offer it all. Minus the heart and warmth of something like vinyl.

It’s everywhere, all the time.

Live
What’s not to love about live music? And by no means am I talking about the other show-goers, this is purely a music post. Being able to see someone who creates not only the music we like but the entire culture? Being able to not only hear the music but see the passion that goes into making the sounds that only they could perform? Even sitting here writing this makes me want to go to a show.

The only true negative to live music is the fact that it’s not up to you when you get to see the band. For most of us, we can’t call up our favorite band and ask them to swing by the office later. Although if you can, that’s incredible and we should hang out more often.

VERDICT

I guess that depends on you.

I’m torn between the warmth of vinyl, the quality of CDs, the accessibility of MP3s, and the straight up passion of live music.

They all move to the next round to fight another day.

What are your thoughts?

Reach out on Twitter!

Honorable Mentions

Tapes
Before you could pick whatever songs you wanted to stream on your mobile device, tapes were how you got your portable music on the road. Well, if the song you wanted to listen to played at the specific time you wanted, and you had a tape in to record it, and your tape player worked, and it didn’t eat the tape, and you pressed play before the song started so you didn’t miss the entire beginning of the song…

Reel to reel
This was even before my time, but I’ve heard about it in passing, and it sounds just horrible. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

8-Tracks
If there was a time in music that it basically all looked like video games, this was the time. I wish I was there so I knew more about these things.

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