Back when I was in the 7th or 8th grade, I would listen to the radio sometimes when I did my homework. Some of the songs were catchy and some weren’t. Anytime my family went to Borders Books & Music, I’d go look at the CDs in the music section. I would just peruse through the aisles looking at the various cover art until I found an artist that I had heard on the radio. I would go through the artist’s discography until I found one that contained a song I had heard on the radio. My next few moments would be spent looking at the tracks and wondering if I should buy the CD or not. I had not heard any of the other artist’s songs before and it seemed silly to buy just one CD for one song and a whole bunch of others I hadn’t heard. I almost always put the CD back into the shelf, and then I would continue on looking for another artist I recognized and repeat the process all over again.

I wanted to have music, but I didn’t want to pay for the songs I didn’t want. The songs I liked came from all different artists. My idea was that kiosks should be set up in Borders (the thought of putting in other places hadn’t occurred to me at the time) where people could scroll through a library of songs, pick the ones they liked, and have those selected put onto a CD. People would be charged just one flat rate price for each custom CD that they created.

It was just an idea at the time.

If only…