From 1998 to 2013, I made 51 mix CDs (Nothing But Good Things #1 through Nothing But Good Things #50 with a special Nothing But Good Things 33 1/3 thrown in) which I shared with a small group of friends and fellow music lovers. I considered in 2013 switching to a spotify playlist, but decided instead to keep up the spotify playlist in parallel with making the occasional physical Nothing But Good Things mix. Nothing But Good Things #52 was a mix CD, but it may have been my last. Nothing But Good Things #53 and #54 were mixes I put on a jump drive. I included two notes with the mixes.
Note #1 on paper in the envelope:
There is a readme file on the jump drive. You should read it. As an aside, without being redundant with what it says in the readme file, I'd like to say just a bit about the early 50s. I don't mean the early 50s of the NBGT series. I mean the early 1950s, but perhaps you'll pick up some foreshadowing or see the intended analogy to the NBGT series. Prior to the 50s, the 78rpm 10" was the dominant format, but then Columbia introduced their long-play 33-1/3 rpm and RCA countered with an "unbreakable" 45 rpm 7-inch. Columbia, in turn, came out with a 33-1/3 rpm 7-inch. There were many formats. Some won.Some lost. The format wars were pretty well settled by the mid-50s. Maybe the same will hold true for NBGT.
Note #2 in the readme file:
Whoaaaa! What in the world? NBGT on a jump drive? On a flash drive? On a memory stick? I don't even know what you call these
thingamajiggies, but I know it isn't a CD.
Yep, that's right. In the 1990s
NBGT pioneered the next step beyond the cassette mix tape, and now we're ready
to say goodbye to the CD. It could be
the beginning of a new era, or it could just be a passing fad, but we've jumped
(pun intended) on board with full-on NBGT branding.
So how does this work? The idea here is that now you've got more
choices. Do you want to just load the
songs into an iTunes playlist? Do
it. Do you want to burn a CD? Go ahead.
There are two folders, each with a set of songs the same length as a
standard CD. Do you have a new car with
a USB port? Just pop this in and the
songs will play in the order intended (in theory anyway - I do not have a new
car and could no test this). NBGT 53
will play first followed by NBGT54. Are
you completely tired of new music but in need of a new jump drive? Well, this will work for that too. It's just a regular jump drive, so erase it
if you like and start over, but spare my feelings and don't tell me that's what
you did.Note #3 (I'm back to the blog now)
I've said this before, but I think it's worth saying again. I buy all the music I share, and I encourage those with whom I share it to buy things or support artists in other ways if they don't want more physical stuff. The greatest appeal of the jump drive for me is the potential that it's the plug-and-play music listening option of the future. I may be very wrong about that. I'll be interested to revisit this post in about 3 years.
