I'm going to express an increasingly unpopular opinion here: I like having my music on physical media. Even though most people I know have turned largely to streaming their music instead of buying CDs or other physical formats, I prefer the physical option for a number of reasons. One is simply the visceral nature of it - you don't get the same thrill of the search and eventual discovery of something in a brick and mortar store if you're just searching online through a bunch of streamable titles. You don't get the satisfaction or appreciation of being able to hold it in your hands, read through the liner notes, look at the photos, etc. Streaming, contrary to popular belief, is not as good for the artists when it comes to compensation as most people think.
And very importantly, once you own a physical copy of something, you own it. There's no possibility that some media company is going to take it away from you by discontinuing a service or losing their rights to stream it (think of Netflix losing the rights to a number of very popular series, or Barnes & Noble pulling out of the European e-book market as just two instances of this).
In 2020, while working from home due to the COVID-19 situation, I undertook the task of ripping all my CDs to WAV files for eventual use with a home media server setup. That setup is now a reality, and though I only occasionally play CDs at this point, I still maintain the collection I've built since getting my first compact disc player in 1991 or 1992 and I frequently add to it, despite the ongoing challenge of storage. I've gotten rid of tons of stuff over the years, but what is in the collection now is likely to stay there moving forward if for no other reason than to provide a backup for what's currently on the media server.
Below is the list of everything in my physical music collection as of this date, available as an Excel file. This will be updated periodically.
Music Collection (Excel file)
