In just a few weeks of self-hosing a Navidrome server that I’ve also made accessible from outside my house, I’ve noticed a significant shift in my listening habits. I’m doing so much more re-listening to albums in my collection than when listening to Apple Music.

Apple Music often leaves me with a sense of FOMO – there’s always something else or new to listen to, making it rare to listen to the same album twice. Contrast that to my Navidrome box which has about 150 CDs or so. The collection is growing, slowly.

Each week, I’m enjoying hunting for cheap used CDs to rip that will fill holes in my collection. I’m finding that after I rip a CD and load it up into Navidrome, it appears under the “Recent Albums,” section that I default to. And so I end up listening to those albums a few times a week. It’s a completely different experience to listen to the same few albums over and over throughout the week. I can’t remember ever doing that with Apple Music.

I’ve still got my Apple Music account to support listening on our house full of HomePods, but between Navidrome and Play:Sub, I’m really enjoying digging into a collection of music that I own. Some of these albums I’ve had for ages and it’s great to revisit them like old friends. (I’ve got on a Cannonball Adderley album that’s been in my collection for probably 30 years at this point—it’s amazing how quickly I can recall his solos on certain cuts).

A quick tip for my future self and other users: If Navidrome stops syncing with last.fm, simply navigate to the profile->personal link in the upper right corner to troubleshoot.