How long has it been since you actually went out of your way to go shopping for CDs?

If you’re like me, it’s probably been a while. And if you’re a 20s something or younger, chances are fairly good that you haven’t shopped for CDs in your entire life.

Oh how the Internet (and Apple) has changed things.

Earlier today, as I was cleaning out my desk, I recognized that most of my old CD collection was, well… pretty old.

Then I thought, I haven’t actually purchased a real life, unburned CD since the summer of 1999. Even worse, I’m not 100% sure a pure play “music store” even exists in my local shopping mall.

Where do you get your music?

These days, I rarely pay for music. There are so many ways of getting free music online that it really seems like an unnecessary luxury to buy a physical, pre-burned CD or download a ton of MP3s when you have such a wide variety of cheap (or free) options readily available online.

Especially if you’re the type of person that quickly tires of new songs, and must feed your addiction with a steady stream of new releases. Until the late 1990s, that was a fairly expensive habit to feed.

As for me, my favorite places to find free music are:

1. Slacker.com. By far, my top choice for free streaming music on the web. The streams are always updated with new releases, you can customize a broad range of stations to meet your demands, and you have a generous “skip the crappy tracks” allowance.
2. YouTube.com. Almost 99 times out of 100, I can find whatever song I’m looking for within the YouTube network. In the rare case I can’t find the song I’m looking for, I just do a Google video search, and I’m almost certain to find it.
3. Pandora.com. When all else fails or I want something new, I’ll flip over to Pandora. It’s a good backup, although in my opinion, the music choices aren’t updated as quickly as the Slacker music database. However, it has a huge following and still remains a solid option.

As you can probably guess, I don’t have a MP3 player or strap an iPod to my arm while jogging through the neighborhood. Taking music with me wherever I go has never been that important to me, so I haven’t felt the need to make the investment. Not when these cheap alternatives are available, and that old school contraption — your car stereo — is still a semi-decent place to find tunes. That is, of course, if you can suffer through the constant advertisements.

So what about you?

When was the last time you actually shelled out a few bucks to buy a CD?  Do you have a better streaming music site than the ones listed above?  If so, be sure to leave a comment below.

Photo by FourthFloor