I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach my son music discovery
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…
