Before Napster you had to go to sketchy warez or emulation sites. This is before people really worried about viruses – warez is built on an astounding amount of trust to this day though you bet your ass I haven’t used it in decades. Virus-free, though. (I was savvy enough not to open .exe files from file sharing or whatever.)

I downloaded Sublime’s “Wrong Way” in sixth grade (1997-98) over a 28.8kbps modem. My current Internet is 300Mbps, for comparison, and even that’s slow nowadays. I’d like to know where Billdude got “Kashmir”, unless he misremembers. My ultra-Republican parents would have lost their shit if they knew I was listening to a song by a guy who has just OD’d about fucking a 12-year-old prostitute.

I know I downloaded Led Zep 4, Dark Side of the Moon, and The Wall off Napster track by track. And Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” and other tracks from the Goin’ South compilation that was advertised all the time I still can’t stand Lynyrd Skynyrd. Or Pink Floyd, for that matter.

I had an allowance which formed the basis of my CD collection and, later, my marijuana collection.