I’ve reached the point where I’m done pretending I’m okay with renting my own music taste. If I don’t physically (and digitally) have the music files, I don’t actually own anything. Streaming is convenient, sure, but it’s fragile as hell. Albums disappear, metadata mutates, and suddenly a record I’ve lived with for years is gone because of some licensing nonsense I had no say in. Owning my music means files I control. Local files. Stuff I can tag properly, back up, and keep exactly as I want it. It forces me to slow down and be intentional. Music stops being disposable and turns back into a collection I actually give a damn about. I want to own and curate a music archive this next year as I do with my own image archive.
Running a home server made that idea real. Nothing fancy or performative, just a quiet machine doing its job in the background. My library lives there, backed up and untouched by algorithms or corporate mood swings. I can stream it to my own devices, on my own terms, without ads, subscriptions, or some recommendation engine trying to steer me. It feels old-school because it is, and I like that. There’s something grounding about knowing my music will still be there tomorrow, next year, or a decade from now, unchanged. Owning my music isn’t nostalgia. It’s control, stability.
I am looking for a no-cost music library management software on MacOS that isn’t Apple’s bloated Music app (iTunes) and I think I found it in Foobar2000. Dumb name, but good results so far.
