Here I am in 2024, reading a post linked from Kottke.org, and listening to my music files using an app called Swinsian.
Back in my music blog days I got a lot of samplers, pre-release CDs to check out before anyone else.
One of them was rough cuts and demos of ‘De-Loused In The Comatorium’ from The Mars Volta. I remember this on a CDR, shipped in a padded mailer. That was in 2003, before I moved to NYC. My goodness, this is a gem.
Bands used to post demo MP3s on their websites, too. I have a handful of those, too.
I’ve also got some files that don’t play, which I think maybe are tied to the iTunes store? Thankfully I don’t have too many of those.