I’m a metalhead. I have a pretty sizable CD collection so I really only take recommendations from metalheads that I know and trust and even then, I’ll usually check it out on youtube first to make sure it’s not a fluke decent song on an otherwise lousy disc (looks at Muse). Usually one of my friends will turn me onto something, float me a loaner. If so, I add it to the list of CD’s to pick up the next time I come up on loot.

Sometimes, when I’m hard up, I might go to Metal-Archives and just browse. Sometimes you get lucky. Years ago, I found that some specific labels seemed to sign a certain sound that I often liked. I’d often go to their site where they usually had audio clips to listen to. Most of them are gone now, but Century Media survived, and I still hit them up a lot. Again, needle in a haystack kind of thing but it’s so worth it when you find something better than great.

I buy the CD. I listen to it all the way through while reading the liner notes (if applicable nowadays) and take note of the track numbers I like. After, I burn those songs to MP3 and move them to my audio server. The CDs will go into one of a trio of shelves that hold my other discs and once there, may never see a laser again unless I loan it out or have need to play the disc in a player.

For the car, I use a Surfans F20. For the yard and woods and work, I add on a 80W portable speaker. At home, I usually play my burned mp3 files on a client computer thats tied into a stereo system and the network by using winamp (often with the enjoyable milkdrop plugin). It really whips the llamas ass.

Sometimes I use youtube for convenience but considering ads, auto-play and the algorithm, and now playlist swamping (for those who turn auto-play off), youtube is only good to listen to one song and then shut it off. The algorithm actively drives me away with it’s ineptitude. Not particularly relevant, but enough so that I thought I’d take a moment to shit on them for it.