It seems like millennials do not roam far from home without one. Their phones are cluttered with several of them, in fact, much of their phones’ storage is dedicated to housing these beloved items. The age of technology and liberal morals would be much different without the holy and coveted playlist.

While a playlists allows songs to live in a musical melting pot alongside other music it may have never been paired with if it was not for the unique demand of the listener, they are really only a great place for singles. Playlists have stollen the limelight from one very outdated version of listening to music: a hardcopy album.

A CD. An ancient piece of technology that might as well be put on the endangered species list right next to the polar bears and giant pandas. Thanks to Spotify, Pandora, and other online streaming services alike, there seems to be less of a need to collect physical albums. Many car companies have even picked up on this declining trend and have eliminated CD players from their newer vehicles. Current MacBooks do not come with a CD/ DVD drive, requiring the purchase of an external drive if the user finds it necessary.

Yet, I still choose to line my shelves and fill my car’s glove compartment with physical, hardcopy albums.

Why? Because there is an experience that is taken away from the listener when he/ she decides to only listen to a few singles from an artist’s album (much like what happens when a playlist is made). You are robbing yourself of the majority of the storytelling that goes into an album. Everything from the song order, artwork, and inner notes that are left on the CD packaging tell a part of that narrative. An album is not just a collection of songs that an artist decided to write and pair together, it is a representation of the time period it was created in.

Most albums have a theme or goal that connects all the songs together. For instance, Zac Brown Band’s Jekyll & Hyde attempts to have each individual song derive from a different genre, making for a very diverse musical experience. Some albums even have their own interludes, much like the very iconic introduction to the The Beatle’s eighth album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which really sets the whimsical tone for this historical Beatlemania time period.

By far the best benefit from listening to music in its original album format is hearing the deliberate song order. The best example I can give of this exists on Panic! At the Disco’s A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. The song “But Its Better If You Do” foreshadows and fades perfectly into the band’s popular single “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” which appears next on the album. Both songs have the same cello plucking cords that echo into each other.

I could only imagine that it will become harder and harder to listen to compact discs as the years go on, as they are very rapidly fading out of style. Yet, I will never stop listening to music in the way it is created to be. I may not be able to hoard CD cases around my room or face the struggle of trying to open an albums plastic packaging for much longer, but thanks to Spotify, I can still listen to albums in the proper order.

I will agree that variety is the spice of life and sometimes listening to a hodgepodge of songs better suits the situation, but I ask you to give your shuffle button a break every once in a while. I guarantee there is a part of a story to even your favorite musician's work that you are missing out on.