I’ve been sick for the last few days. It sucks. I’m all mucus and wheezing. But while lying in bed all day nursing a sore head and blocked nose, I started pondering my surroundings and got thinking, `whatever happened to CD stacks? Everyone used to have them, now my room looks old fashioned with all these archaic plastic disc containers everywhere. Am I old fashioned?’

Remember going around to a friend’s house for the first time and spotting their CD stack in the corner of their room? You could learn so much about them by simply flipping through the albums they had on display. It was like a small window into their personality. A visual representation of their taste, which you could instantly compare with your own. Their collection would reveal similar teenage memories (“oh yeah, you thought Blink 182 were hilarious when you were 15? So did I!’’) classic albums that you had in common ( Jeff Buckley – Grace, Radiohead – Ok, Computer) and those downright embarrassing guilty pleasures we all have (Bon Jovi or any nu metal band from the 90s who wore their pants low and detuned their guitars lower). Ah yes, the CD stack truly is a beautiful entity.

It’s for this reason that I hope CDs don’t die out anytime soon. I know with the state of technology that music is increasingly becoming a commodity traded in cyberspace. MP3 files are replacing CD singles. And that’s cool, because I know a lot of people who find it more convenient to purchase music online rather than at their local record store. However, like newspapers surviving alongside online news, I think there will always be people who prefer the physical release. People like myself, who like being able to pay money to hold a CD in their hands. People who like going home and studying the lyrics and album credits in the booklet. And people who like to then place that album on display in their CD stack (or on the dash in the car) because it’s a reflection of their personality and what makes them an individual.

The same thing applies to vinyl I suppose. My dad has a great vinyl collection. He’s got The Beatles, John Lennon, Zeppelin – all the classics. Maybe that’s where I get it from.