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The last type of collection was the Archive, a shrine-like version of the Cabinet that was kept pristine, in A-to-Z order, perhaps with additional separation of albums and singles by genre, rarity, region of release. My best friend had the beginnings of an Archive, stuffed with immaculate copies of Suede, Beck, every CD the Britpop band Mansun had ever released. I remember the day he added an obscure import copy of Ash’s 1995 single Kung Fu. This CD had come all the way to England from Japan. When we held it we did so in awe, by the farthest corners of the case, like teenaged auctioneers. Recently, I messaged him to ask what became of that treasured Ash disc. Oh (he said) he got rid of almost all of his singles years ago. They took up too much room. His import copy of Kung Fu was gone, maybe to someone else’s collection by now, maybe to someone’s bin. “I feel weirdly sad to think of you without a copy of Mansun’s Taxloss to hand,” I wrote. “I did keep my Mansun singles,” he wrote back. “Thank God.” The great shedding of CDs began, at least for me, around the turn of the millennium, when the world went online. I remember first seeing the music-sharing software Napster in action in early 2000. Using a dial-up connection, it took someone an hour to download Soul Bossa Nova (Original Mix) from the Austin Powers soundtrack. A year later, I visited a friend at a US college where the students had access to broadband. Using Napster, or one of the many equivalent pieces of file-sharing software that were proliferating at the time, tracks were downloadable in minutes. Whole albums by Gorillaz, Gabrielle, Ginuwine fell off the internet over the course of a day, like apples. Around 2004 I started consolidating my albums and my singles on a desktop computer, ripping the CDs I already owned to my hard drive and sending the contents from there to an MP3 player. It was probably because I was a Piler, never a Racker or a Shelfer, let alone an Archivist, that I found it so easy to leave CDs behind. The first four albums by Belle and Sebastian had been in heavy rotation for me for years, always in and out of the stereo. Once I’d digitised these albums (in the 2000s, the work of minutes), I hardly touched them again. In 2005 I bought a lozenge-like iPod Shuffle that was about the size and weight of a packet of chewing gum and had room for 20-odd albums. At home, the computer replaced the stereo as a music player. I had dozens of albums, secure on a hard drive, playable with a double-click. View image in fullscreen Adrian Utley and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. Photograph: Des Willie/Redferns Where did you end up, my Belle and Sebastian CDs? My Blur by Blur? My Grease and my Nows? Some of these CDs were so overhandled by the time of their abandonment, the printed lettering on top of the discs had rubbed away, the grooved inside of cases had chipped or gone, and the plastic faceplates were grazed and foggy. Did I give the Belle and Sebastians away? Did they end up in landfill, with my friend’s abandoned Ash and Suede singles? I know the Belle and Sebastians didn’t make it as far as my last bin bag, a gathering-together of CDs belonging to me and to my wife that we gave away when we moved flats in 2012. By this point we were both listening to music through a subscription streaming service – Spotify at first, then Apple’s equivalent. Even the invisible MP3s on my computer’s hard drive had started to feel fiddly and archaic, an unnecessary burden: so, of course, the last of the CDs had to go. I made the argument to my wife that we should do a clean sweep. I took all the discs we had to an Oxfam on Kentish Town Road. I remember handing the bag over dubiously, with no faith in the resale value of the contents. What a cool thing, I told myself, as I walked away unencumbered, to own no albums… yet somehow to own every album. What freedom! What choice! I don’t know how long it took for the regret to sink in. Three years? Five? I know that I miss my pile of CDs now. I miss the fussy, fusty process of deciding to put one on, a rummaging hand, a scour for the correct disc, the colours and the fonts and feel of the plastic circles, lightweight yet at the same time heavy with associative feeling. I miss having signposted reminders of songs or records I loved during specific eras in my life. Streaming’s better, on the whole. I’ve paid out so much money in monthly subscriptions by now I have to believe it’s better. My access to new or unheard music has expanded. My diet is more varied. But something lovely has gone. Pointless denying that. Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture is available to listen to on Apple Music, I see. So is a 2016 album of Grease tributes, including Boyz II Men singing Beauty School Dropout. My current subscription gives me access to about a dozen volumes of Now covering 2021 to 2024. The Beatles’ Red Album is on there, with an animated tweak to the cover that renders John, Paul, George and Ringo vanishing away into nothing. As I look at this graphic on my iPhone, propped on the desk beside me, it looks as if the band are repeatedly fading into the depths of the device, there to join the pixels, the compressed data, the algorithms, the nudging search results – innovations that enrich as well as complicate today’s curation and consumption of music. View image in fullscreen Photograph: Gordon Scammell/Alamy If it meant swapping what we have today for what we had then, I wouldn’t go back. I’m too greedy for the new stuff and too impatient to be fed with music when I want to be fed. That cover of Beauty School Dropout by Boyz II Men is decent, it turns out, and I never would have listened to it were it not for this opening up of a digitised music landscape, where one discovery leads to another then another, seamlessly, more or less infinitely. Piercing through the convenience of this, though, comes the regret about my old CDs. When my primary school-age children want to put on music in our home they have to find a phone, mine or their mother’s. They have to scroll or type on a screen, press play, then wait for the mysterious rearrangement of ones and zeros that will bring Taylor or Oasis or the first track of In the Heights out of a wireless speaker. It’s an impressive process. I still find myself wanting to whistle, amazed by how far music tech has come. But there’s an absence now, some loss of connection with the initial creators of these pieces of art, some loss of awareness, too, about the spots they occupy in time and space. For my children, attentive listeners though they are, Taylor might as well be a direct contemporary of Liam and Noel. All three of them might have grown up together in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Manhattan, or Stormzy’s Croydon, or in a Kings Road boozer of the 1960s. Now that music is invisible, everywhere and nowhere, served up track by track in capsule form, there aren’t the same indicators about provenance, influence, chronology, originality. We don’t have a CD player in our home any more. There is one, never used, in our car. Perhaps I’ll stop in a charity shop the next time I pass one: buy a few CDs. Perhaps I’ll go down to the Oxfam on Kentish Town Road and see if I can buy back one or two of my CDs. If any of them are still there, I reckon I’d know them at once. The half-torn HMV label on Expecting to Fly by the Bluetones. A curved moon of acrylic missing from the corner of my Trainspotting case. I’d recognise them all, right away – old mates. Tom Lamont’s debut novel, Going Home, is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Three musicians on their love of CDs View image in fullscreen Photograph: Dennis Morris Bashy: ‘Vinyl is great but it’s very much a luxury’ British actor and rapper There’s something about the tangible nature of CDs that really appeals to me. I released an album recently, and even though it was online and people were listening to it and talking about it, it only properly landed with me when I had the CD in my hand. That physical feeling gave me a sense of completion. There’s a video of me on my Instagram opening up the CD and taking in the artwork for the first time. It’s something I really care about. I was born in 1985 and grew up at the intersection of vinyl, cassettes and CDs. The first album I bought on CD was Kiss the Game Goodbye by Jadakiss and I ended up collecting hundreds and hundreds, which I stacked up in my room like a work of art. You could see someone’s musical taste through their CDs – mine included 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Trying, Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – whereas now it’s hidden away in your phone out of view. Vinyl is great but it was expensive then and it’s very much a luxury now. For young kids from working-class backgrounds, the CD was a way for us to spread our music in a cost-effective manner. So it was essential in the London grime and hip-hop scenes before social media. In 2008 I put out The Chupa-Chups Mixtape, which I pressed up on CD myself, attaching a Chupa-Chups lollipop to the front of each cover with Sellotape. I put it in barber shops and local clothes shops for people to buy and the lollipop helped it stand out visually. Then it started to take on a life of its own. People would tell their friends about it, or they’d burn up a copy to share around. Thanks to that mixtape, I ended up making the theme song for the film Adulthood. It helped me lay my foundations as an artist. Streaming has its advantages, but a lot of people are missing that physicality a CD gives you. The artwork and the liner notes and printed lyrics become an extension of the music. You can get a feeling of what the album is about, or who the artist is, before you’ve even pressed play. So I don’t think the CD format is dead or has ever died, it’s just been overlooked for a while because of the digital music revolution. I’m really glad to see it resurfacing. Interview by Killian Fox Bashy’s new album, Being Poor Is Expensive, is out now. The Chupa-Chups Mixtape can be streamed here. 1Xtra’s Album Launch Party with Bashy is on BBC iPlayer Kitty Liv: ‘CDs give you an insight into the journey of an album’ Singer-songwriter, member of Kitty, Daisy & Lewis) View image in fullscreen Photograph: Dean Chalkley I was born in the early 90s and CDs were the biggest thing when I was growing up. I used to get them for Christmas presents, and sometimes I’d go to Woolworths and choose one. I’d burn them a lot and make my own compilations. It was such a straightforward thing to do as a kid on the family computer. It would be a huge mix of anything I was listening to at the time, from Elvis’s greatest hits to Daniel Bedingfield, T Rex and then random stuff by Eminem, a combination of whatever was popular at the time with music I really loved. I remember going to my local cafe, Mario’s in Kentish Town, and if I made him a CD, he’d give me a free breakfast. I was probably about 10. Streaming platforms are good for discovering new music, but in terms of the listening experience, I think CDs are a great thing. Music has become quite disposable now, and with streaming, there is not that sense of urgency to listen to new music. If there’s a new song out, I might give it a listen later, whereas with CDs, it was like: “I’ll get the CD and I’ll put it on in the car and listen to the whole album.” Having the attention span to listen has been lost, certainly with the younger generation. I hope that will come back because when you make music, it’s great when someone else gets an insight into the journey that you’ve had making that record. Interview by Tess Reidy Kitty Liv’s debut solo album, Easy Tiger, is out now on Sunday Best Recordings, on digital, vinyl and – of course – CD Joe Mount: ‘Hidden tracks are just not hidden any more’ Lead singer/ guitarist, Metronomy View image in fullscreen Metronomy on stage at the 2009 Reading festival. Photograph: Simone Joyner/Getty Images We were a tape household and we weren’t in the first wave of people to buy a CD player, but eventually, one Christmas, my sister ended up getting a ghettoblaster with a disc player. I just remember then having to try to build a collection and feeling a bit begrudging that I already had loads of stuff on tape. The quickest route to getting a CD collection was buying magazines that had cover-mount CDs on them, and so a lot of my earliest ones were from Q magazine or Select. One, which I still have, was called Be There Now. It had Radiohead, Wire, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Talking Heads and Talk Talk. That was ’97. In the Britpop days, there were always inventive ways of making you buy more music. I remember having a Pulp CD and it had three slots for discs, but you had to go and buy individual singles to build up this collection. I never really splurged a load of money on them and I soon veered more into vinyl. A lot of the CDs I owned I still have and they’re at my parents’ house. There’s the Aaliyah record, the one with a picture of her and the red cover. I’ve also got the Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf and In Search of... by NERD. I think music streaming is not too bad, but I do slightly lament the fact that hidden tracks are just not hidden any more. It was a glory age of actually concealing things on discs. The first time I remember hearing a hidden track was on the Lemonheads’ Come On Feel the Lemonheads, which has a hidden reprise at the very end. The other thing I miss about the format is the printed artwork. I think that’s a really nice thing and people got quite creative with the different types of CD cases that they made. In terms of durability, however, CDs have never been good. When my wife and I left the first flat we shared together, she had an enormous CD collection, and I was trying to organise it all and every case I opened there was no CD in it. They were in a DJ folder, completely scratched. I very passive aggressively put all the empty CD cases in a box and she wouldn’t let me throw them away, so I had to label it “empty CD cases”. We’ve still got that! These days, you can go into charity shops and find decent albums on CD for 50p. I like doing that ahead of car journeys and enjoying the fact that you don’t need to care about them too much. You know they’ve already had their first usage and it’s like an act of recycling, like having the last crack of the scratched CD branded luggage swing tags. TR The ability to truly focus on an album seems to be fading, especially among younger listeners. I hope that changes, because when artists create music, it’s rewarding to know that listeners are engaging with the full story and journey behind the record.

I understand what DMX is trying to say, but i disagree with him in practice. Yes, his style and Will's style are polar opposites, but one isn't more hip hop than the other. a very similar thing is happening right now with Country music. All of a sudden, because Beyonce made a country album that was successful, they want to split the genre into categories to keep the "real" country artists happy, and that's ignorant and disrespectful IMO. Will Smith's success helped pave the way for Hip Hop to be recognized and respected enough for DMX to even have had a career doing it.

It's discouraging to hear an opinion like that, but it is what it is. The crazy thing is, DMX isn't even a huge Hip-Hop music fan. He is a total R&B fan. In interviews and videos, he's discussed this. You can seem him at concerts getting lost in the music when R&B legends are performing live. I bet if Will and DMX spent any significant time together, he wouldn't be talking like that. Maybe he's just not that aware of Will's music outside of the hits. To say his music isn't rap is to essentially say KId's music isn't rap. Their styles aren't drastically different. In fact, Kid N' Play's first two albums are more polished than JJ+FP's first two albums.

https://according2hiphop.com/de-la-soul-announces-10th-studio-album-cabin-in-the-sky-releases-new-visualizer-for-the-package/?fbclid=IwY2xjawN6_lFleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFHZzJYV20yNk5VZGV0bEV5c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpSBcBSs8y83ZnWZR0iHadhGNkd_L2EduY0UDC0Fe4OcjnD_JnsODFKGZDLs_aem_wgZji5XKxK2WBhbxxXcw4Q De La Soul Announces 10th Studio Album Cabin In The Sky; Releases New Visualizer for “The Package” By Michael Dothard Image Source: Getty Images Videos by According2HipHop Hip-Hop legends De La Soul are back with their 10th studio album, Cabin In The Sky, set to drop November 21st via Mass Appeal. The upcoming project promises to be a celebration of the group’s enduring creativity, featuring production from heavyweights DJ Premier, Super Dave, and Pete Rock, and standout appearances from Killer Mike, Yukimi from Little Dragon, Common, Nas, and Black Thought. The album’s artwork is crafted by acclaimed visual artist Hebru Brantley, known for his vibrant, comic-inspired aesthetic, perfectly complementing De La Soul’s iconic style and the album’s anticipated cinematic feel In addition to the album announcement, De La Soul have released a visualizer for their new single “The Package”, produced by Pete Rock. The track blends Pete Rock’s signature soulful beats with De La Soul’s sharp lyricism, offering a nostalgic yet forward-thinking taste of what fans can expect from Cabin In The Sky. With Cabin In The Sky, De La Soul continues to push creative boundaries while staying true to the innovative spirit that has made them Hip-Hop trailblazers for over three decades. The combination of legendary producers, high-profile features, and striking visual art ensures this release will be one of the standout Hip-Hop albums of the year.

That’s awesome — I’ve never seen that one before! JJFP always brought such great energy to those early ’90s events.

I feel like the only one disappointed in the album. I guess i was looking for that oldschool classic Will and got something totally different. Bulletproof is my fav other than that i'd say. You looking for me, Beautiful Scars, Tantrum, You can make it.

I've tried watching Bel Air a few times it just doesn't click with me a show that was a comedy sitcom turned into a drama and i don't really watch drama's in the first place

So happy to see Kel back again AJ My man is bearded up lol Looking good song is dope to.

I found this short randomly as i came on my youtube earlier. Kid and DMX debating over if Will's music is really rap, this is what makes me sad. No disrespect to DMX RIP but people will never ever ever! Consider Will a ''real'' rapper 'MC and i don't think Based on a True Story helped anything or his last couple of freestyles. Why is it you have to be a street thug with cursing every other word in your lyrics to be considered a ''real rapper'' This is why rap to me will never feel like it felt back in the late 80's early 90's

Man, this is dope. Welcome back!

‘Fresh Prince’ Alum Janet Hubert & ‘Power: Ghost’s Caroline Chikezie To Guest Star In ‘Bel-Air’s Final Season https://deadline.com/2025/10/janet-hubert-caroline-chikezie-guest-star-bel-air-season-4-1236599359/ ----- Glad to see Janet appearing on this!

Nice, it's been a while since I heard this. If someone gets a good MP3 of this, please send it my way.

That’s exciting news! Will Smith and Westbrook teaming up for a multi-picture deal with Paramount Pictures sounds like a great move for the entertainment industry. Their creativity and storytelling always bring something fresh to the screen. For students studying film, media, or production, staying updated on such collaborations can be really insightful — and if you ever need academic support, assignment help New Zealand services can make tackling related coursework much easier.

Posting this 'Sky's the Limit' performance again!!

Absolutely, it really dives deep and covers so many interesting points. The insights shared are both thoughtful and inspiring. I could listen to this kind of conversation all day!

Tyra Banks To Guest Star In ‘Bel-Air’s Final Season More Than 30 Years After ‘Fresh Prince’ Role https://deadline.com/2025/09/tyra-banks-cast-bel-air-final-season-1236554616/

Amen Tim Lyte knows her style of hip hop wish Will kept to his but Lyte's album is fire i'm just greatful her songs aren't 2 minutes long

I'm begging Will to comeback with something dope. Pretty Girls just by looking at the reactions to the song just gives people more of a green lite to hate on Will as a rapper again. Just comeback with something dope get Jeff on the beat bring it with the rhymes and really show people that your a true MC Wll.

The Hilary and Trevor arc will always be some of my favorite episodes. That man bunji jumped for her and splatted on the ground like a Looney Tunes character. LOL!

That's the frustrting thing AJ we know. Will can put out better music than Pretty Girls who ever co signed on this song and told him it was good needs to be re evaluated but yeah Will experimenting is okay i still play Born to Reign at times especially during summer. i think you hit it on the head Will's been gone for so long it just us oldschool heads want that FP vibe back with his music.

https://people.com/karyn-parsons-says-her-fresh-prince-of-bel-air-character-was-almost-cut-before-shows-premiere-11811942 Karyn Parsons Says Her Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Character Was Almost Cut Before Show's Premiere 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' aired from Sept. 1990 to May 1996 By Angela Andaloro Published on September 18, 2025 12:59PM EDT Will Smith and Karyn Parsons as Will and Hilary.Credit : Joseph Del Valle/NBCU Photo Bank NEED TO KNOW Karyn Parsons portrayed Hilary Banks throughout The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's run from Sept. 1990 to May 1996 Parsons looked back at her time as Hilary, as well as some of her other notable roles, during an appearance on the All Bets Are Off podcast, hosted by Robby Vegas The beloved sitcom recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of its debut The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was an unforgettable career highlight for Karyn Parsons...that almost didn't happen. In a recent episode of the All Bets Are Off podcast, the actress, 58, chats with host Robby Vegas about the 35th anniversary of the beloved sitcom's premiere. Looking back at her time playing Hilary Banks, Parsons reveals the character was nearly cut from the Banks family at the suggestion of some executives at NBC. When it came to developing the character, Parsons says, "The writers were pretty incredible. They were great from the get-go." Hilary Banks, Alfonso Ribeiro, Will Smith, Daphne Reid, James Avery, Joseph Marcell, Tatyana Ali. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty I "And then, as the show went on and new writers came in, I think they did a really good job of taking into consideration who they were writing for and how they work, and they were getting used to the character that I was creating," she continues. "The character that was on the page when I got the show was very thin... It said she was a model type, and it had her talking about Bruce and Demi and stuff. It didn't have a whole lot going on." "As a matter of fact, Brandon Tartikoff, who was the president of NBC at the time, when they were auditioning at the last network audition, he turned to Susan and Andy Borowitz, who created the show, and said, 'I think we should get rid of the daughter character. I don't... it just seems redundant,' " she recalls. Karyn Parsons, Janet Hubert, Will Smith, James Avery, Joseph Marcell, Tatyana Ali, Alfonso Ribeiro. Chris Cuffaio/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty "And [Andy and Susan] said, 'Just wait. Wait until this girl comes in.' They told me this story later. And I came in and did my whole weird affectation that I guess nobody else was doing." Parsons says that the affectation that became Hilary's signature — a mix of Malibu kids she got to know growing up in Santa Monica, as well as "my friend Leanne and my cousin Garland" — was born of her "trying to figure out how this character works for me." "The affectation, at first, seemed over the top. Like, maybe it's too much. But it kept carrying me. It worked. Judy Richmond, who was the amazing costumer on the show, she said that when I put the clothes on, that I became Hilary. And it was a little bit true," Parsons says. "Once I put the clothes on, my body started to change. My whole hips kind of fell and this lazy attitude just started to take over and once I started with the way she spoke, it just all fell into place." The role also allowed Parsons to embody someone so different from herself, which was "so fun" for the actress. "I was raised very much the good girl...and Hilary was the opposite," she explains. "She said whatever, unapologetic, I want this...she just said it and that was never me, so it was so fun to be able to be that person."

Cool interview with Janet:

I don't mind Will experiementing. It's just not cool that he waited 20 years to drop and experimental album and won't follow up with the kind of material we know and love him for. "Pretty Girls" was a huge misfire. I'm wondering how many people along the way were down for this. When Will would do something musically over the past decade, he would generally get lots of love....but then he did something the opposite of what got him the love with "Pretty Girls". He needs to follow up with something dope. Walking away on "Pretty Girls" will just be weird and a poor choice.