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Today, I was flipping through Sony’s year end promotion booklet, which I finally found, hidden in my parents’ room. Yes, twice every year (mid-year and end-year) Sony’s product catalogue becomes my obsession. Prolonging the joy, and building up my anticipation, I would read from front to back — making sure I read the boring pages on home theatre systems (can’t afford them anyway), television sets (all I want for Christmas is cable television) as well as waterproof video cameras (for what use?) And then, the good stuff comes — the music section.

Yes, in every catalogue I look forward most to the section on Sony’s discmans.

From a straw poll of around 50 SMU people it so happens that only I still use a discman. In fact, my discman is just about 1.5 years old already. Yes, I spent $200 on a discman that came with free portable speakers (and damn cute ones.) In a similar straw poll, it also seems that I am just about the only person still purchasing CDs legally, and thoroughly enjoying them. That’s like a $20 a month expenditure (used to be, now kind of lazy to buy =)

So why did I get a discman, and more importantly why one so recently? It would make some sense if it was a few years old, but I only bought it in June last year! Haha. Well, I have to say I really enjoy listening to albums. Some albums are just meant to be played in its entirety, and not as a collection of singles. Green Day’s American Idiot and Oasis’s Heathen Chemistry are two very good examples. In a world of quick fads and when every music company wants to capitalise on the ever-changing tastes of the youth market, I find it a joy to purchase albums made by really good artistes, where you can really see the effort put in (by artiste or management) to make the album a cohesive thematic experience. Ultimately, isn’t that what good music is about? Which is why getting an album by a local band ain’t a problem for me. Electrico and Amanda Ling rocks!

Why then can’t I convert my CDs into mp3s, and simply use an mp3 player that can play hundreds of albums? Haha, I guess it’s just not my thing. Besides the fact that it is such a hassle to rip the tracks off the CD (I am damn anal about proper ID3 tags), I just don’t like the idea of having access to a huge library songs at one point of time. For one, it only encourages me to illegally download songs (such a tiring process), and also it just doesn’t suit my nature. I’m like, such a one-CD man? Haha. But seriously, I prefer listening to a single album over and over again. I think I enjoy the music even more this way, and with mp3s the temptation to just treat music as a means of passing time. Besides, if I want to just listen to random mp3s, I could just do it on my laptop.

So what did I see in this year’s catalogue? Well, disappointingly only one discman. Yes, only one. The same catalogue 1.5 years ago had 5 designs I think. Haha. But I guess by the time I graduate and start working, I won’t really have the need for the discman anyway, and so at least my discman’s lifespan can be reached. =) And so my discman, so lovingly christened Jane. And her lovely speakers, two cute furry ones (with legs!) so lovingly named Johnson & Johnson.

You know, you could just get me an mp3 player this Christmas and cure me of my insanity.