Has tech changed your musical taste?

I'm 43 years old. I don't remember the moment I fell in love with music (maybe it was the Dire Straits?), but I do remember that when I started hooking up, CDs did not exist. Then there was little to take to the ear, but today thanks to technology we have everything within our mobile reach.

Technology has not only changed what we hear but also how we consume music, which also influences our musical tastes. The question is: Has technology made music more or less enjoyable than before?

The answer is clearly personal. In my case, I would say yes and no. On the one hand, now everything is much easier regarding the musical variety at our fingertips (infinite), immediacy (real time), the ability to share with others (at a click) and cost (ridiculous).

"Today I make a more messy, cold, random, casual and lazy use of music, in many cases almost to use and throw."

On the other hand, I think today I make a more messy, cold, random, casual and lazy use of music, in many cases almost to use and throw. Before I used to pay more attention, deepened and took more advantage of the CDs that I bought (return on investment), I learned more easily the title of the songs, the position they occupied in an album, the lyrics or motivations that had led a particular author to compose his work.

How has innovation and technology changed my experience as a user? Let's take it one step at a time...

For me, the big change began on 23, October 2001, when Steve Jobs presented the iPod. It was the start of an end to the way of composing, producing, distributing and listening to music that had dominated throughout the world for decades. Jobs' reasoning was simple: Who wouldn't want to carry his whole music library in his pocket?

The iPod changed my way of approaching music for three main reasons:

• Firstly, it made it possible for me to have my music library always within my reach. I still remember how before the holidays I will carefully select the CDs or tapes that I was going to take and would spend time listening over and over again during the summer or when you spent days listening to the same tape because you did not remember to change it on the Walkman...

• Secondly, I no longer had to approach the bookshelf to take a disc, touch it with my hands or browse the booklet that came with the CDs and finally decide which to put in the player. This little magic always made a choice well thought out... However, with the iPod it happened to be much more immediate and more given to the present momentum: Turn the wheel, click and ready.

• And, thirdly, the order in which the music was heard also changed: being sequential to open the door to randomness by skipping between songs of the entire contents of the iPod,. This is extremely risky because, in my case, sometimes the reproduction jumped from the heavy metal of Megadeth to Bach's Brandenburg concerts, something difficult to reconcile even for the best DJs.

A couple of years later, on 28, April 2003, iTunes came in. Now I did not have to go to a store to get an album, it was enough with a couple of clicks... You did not have to buy the complete album, if you liked only a song, then you purchase it: Consumers’ power increased and an excellent challenge for artists and composers, who saw how technology changed the rules of the game.

I must confess that at first the virtual shopping experience did not convince me. Walking down to Madrid to buy a disc, most of the times accompanied by a colleague, walking between the Madrid Rock counters or FNAC, doubting if they would have the album you’re searching for or find any other novelty by surprise, returned home browsing the CD's booklet and anxiously looking forward to listening... All this made me think that this was how prehistoric men felt when they went hunting. Sometimes, I bought the digital disc in the first place to satisfy the desire to listen to the new album of some of my favourite artists, and then complete the purchase physically (OK, maybe a little geek, but only watching the CD on my bookshelf could satisfy my collector’s instincts).

It is from this moment that piracy became generalised (due to internet and technology), destroying composer’s revenues and a few years later precipitated the next significant milestone that would change (forever?) the way to consume music: Spotify was born in October 2008. Five years later, it is now available in 55 countries and the consumption of streaming music begins to expand.

"I think technology pushes us towards a model of consuming music rather than enjoying it."

This closes the circle: all the music at your fingertips, whenever you want, on any device and, best of all, at a throwaway price! What I pay per month for a streaming service (around 10 euros) is half of what it cost to buy a single CD 15 years ago.

By opening the range of possibilities also consolidated playlists, the suggestions of the apps depending on your tastes (if you like "X" you will also like "Y") or other apps (like DISCOVR) that allows you to relate music styles and groups. If before were my friends, what I read, radio programs or personal exploration that guided my musical tastes now is the technology itself that begins to have more and more importance on what I hear (sounds a little like "Big Brother", but that's it).

So back to the initial question, has technology made us enjoy music more or less than before? My answer is that at a certain point, it has improved but in most cases has lost romanticism, personality and charm. I think technology pushes us towards a model of consuming music rather than enjoying it, but at the same time it makes us freer to decide, so it is in your hands the use and enjoyment that you make of it.

Postscript: After all maybe the answer is much more straightforward, I'm definitely getting old…

You can contact Alberto Baltanás in Twitter: @albertobaltanas