Music. It’s probably one of the best things humans create and the easiest to enjoy.

While I’m a fan of various types of art, there’s only one that we can enjoy while enjoying other aspects of life.

For example, while I also enjoy movies, television shows, photography, paintings and just about anything creative, I can’t watch a movie while driving.

I also can’t read while enjoying a painting and I can’t do my chores while looking at a photograph.

No matter what type of music you enjoy, just about everyone listens to music while performing some other daily task.

That became more of a fact as the invention of portable music players resulted in the development of smaller and smaller devices.

Soon, there was the mp3 player that could allow music lovers to carry thousands of songs whereever they went.

This invention also helped boost the rise of digital music downloads, which subsequently resulted in the decline of physical music purchases.

While I do enjoy having access to an entire collection of music on one device, physical copies are still ideal. That’s because an mp3 player, or any device, can and will break.

And while our access to the Internet means that even if a malfunction occurs we can reacquire those previously purchased songs, nothing says longevity like a physical copy.

That’s why I was glad to see that the Recording Industry Association of America reported this week that sales of CDs and vinyl records is on the rise, while digital sales are declining.

That means there’s hope for physical copies of just about anything artists create.

From movies, to photographs and especially stories.

Sometimes it seems that we’ve become too accustomed to today’s quick access to information and artistic content to realize how much effort was put into its creation.

Physical copies provide us the opportunity to hold something in our hands and take a moment to reflect on that fact.