I had Apple Music. 100 million songs. I was listening to maybe 20 of them on repeat.
I’d open the app, scroll through the same playlists, land on the same artists, and close it feeling bored. I had infinite options and somehow that made me listen to less music. In my head I even started to believe there was a lack of good music coming out rather than noticing my shortened attention span and resistance to sticking with a new piece of work for too long. The spark that I had in the past listening to music started to fade a bit.
My friend Luke called me one day talking about iPods. He’d been looking into getting one and mentioned how people were moving back to them. At first it sounded like another shiny object thing. Use it for a few weeks, let it collect dust. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
I love vintage tech, especially Apple products. The design scratches an itch for me. And I wanted a way to listen to music without picking up my phone and ending up on Instagram 20 minutes later.
So I got an iPod Classic.
Listening all the way through
The biggest shift was that I started listening to full albums. The scroll wheel makes me less inclined to skip around. No touchscreen. No songs suggested by the algorithm to bounce to. I’m not checking YouTube or TikTok in the middle of a track.
Sometimes on my phone, I’d get interrupted, turn off the music entirely, and end up watching something else. That doesn’t happen anymore.
I listen through albums front to back now. Songs I would’ve skipped get a chance. I’m not just jumping to the popular tracks or the ones with a featured artist. I’m sitting with the whole body of work.
How I find music changed too. I stopped scrolling through streaming playlists. Now I follow Substacks like Assorted Tapes. I never thought I’d return to radio, but that’s what it feels like.
I’ve also started valuing the foundations more. I wanted to trace the music that inspired the artists I listen to often. Leon Thomas, Michael Jackson, Kehlani, Dylan Sinclair. Who shaped them? I wanted albums with replay value. Not just albums I’d enjoy once, but ones I’d return to for years. The kind of music that sounds good on the 50th listen.
A ritual of my own
Over time, I started building a ritual around this. Every morning, I don’t touch my phone for the first hour. I put my earbuds in, stretch, brush my teeth, and get on a Focusmate call to do some coding practice. All of it soundtracked by one album. A timeless one.
At first, I was adding anything I wanted to check out. Now I’m protective about what stays. It feels like my space. Only albums worthy of the cover flow interface make it.
It’s also how I disconnect while doing chores or desk work. Things I used to constantly check my phone through. I can still focus with music in the background, but I’m not pulled into apps every few minutes.
Everything clicked when I realized the iPod wasn’t replacing streaming. It’s a place where I go deeper into my passion for music. More intentionally. More genuinely.
I still have Apple Music. But now I also have this.