Album Cards: Rebuilding the Joy of Music Discovery for My 10-Year-Old
by Jordan Fulghum, October 2025
Albums you can hold again.
When I was 10, I blew every dollar I had on CDs. I remember sitting cross-legged on my floor, flipping through jewel cases, memorizing liner notes and lyrics, and most importantly developing my own taste for music.
My 10-year-old doesn't have that. Music just sort of... happens. It's like it's infinite and invisible at the same time, playing from smart speakers, car stereos, my phone. Endless perfectly curated playlists, designed to fade into the background. The default listening experience has become both literally and figuratively formless.
So I thought: what's the modern equivalent of that CD browsing experience? Maybe what's missing is something tangible that he can flip through, or even collect.
I could combine my old CD-collector brain with today's tech: take something fun and collectable (trading cards), dress them up with album art, and add NFC tags so they can be tapped to play the album on our home speaker system, all without a screen.
Away I went.
The finished product. Pick a card, any card.
The Setup
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