Fads pass quickly, electronics are updated, and items that once were prized and considered timeless become obliterated. We mourn for them briefly, as technology outnumbers and outwits them. Yet one item that has experienced a slow and depressing decline into the landfills of yesteryear is the American Jukebox.

A few years ago, I first saw it: the Electronic Jukebox, with its fluorescent lights shouting against the wall and its screen changing every few moments from one one-hit wonder to another. A rapper’s necklace hangs low, and his platinum record poses next to his weary grin; a blinking button below him yells at you to poke your finger and purchase.

At first, the Electronic Jukebox seemed like a great new invention, with its ability to find almost any song one was craving for at the time. So, it was a fun gadget to play with when going to this one bar. However, as these machines started to pop up all over the place, they became less a novel item and more a reminder that the old jukeboxes once there had been tossed aside.

The Electronic Jukebox too had now become just another advertisement campaign. For an additional dollar, you can get your song to play before the previous purchaser’s choice. Instant gratification is here to stay, for better or worse.

The old-style jukebox represents more than just the old days; it helps to illustrate and define a specific place, like Gooski’s Bar in Polish Hill, one of the few places in Pittsburgh, PA that still keeps its old jukebox intact. The music found with each flick of the song pages shows a collection that has been carefully selected over the years by different waitresses, bartenders, bouncers, and owners.

Tom Waits, Blur, Beatles, Pogues, AC/DC, Stiff Little Fingers, James Brown, Dead Kennedy’s, Joan Jett, Spoon, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, Misfits, Black Flag, and Arcade Fire are just a sampling of the great mix that Gooski’s Jukebox offers its customers. It even features albums from local artists, and titles such as GoldSoundz and Dark Path are scribbled in messy handwriting on lined paper and dispersed in between hit records of the past and present.

With the ability to now download songs and albums online, it is important to support the music industry, especially the smaller, lesser known bands. At the brillobox, a bar in the Lawrenceville section of the city, albums are changed up every month or so, keeping the regulars refreshed and the new customers inspired. Plus, it’s a way to support the local music stores.

“Our jukebox definitely creates a certain mood and atmosphere for this place. People notice it when they are here,” said Brian O’Korn, a brillobox employee.

Bars, however, are not the only places that the jukebox has been sent to pasture. I used to walk into the VIP Diner in Jersey City, NJ, pop a quarter in, and play “You Ain’t Nothin but a Hound Dog” three to four times before my Nana ran out of change. I fear that today, if they are even still hinged to the cracked walls of diners everywhere, one may just stare at the dusty thing, wondering where the headphone jack is.

Just like the comeback of LPs and fanny packs, I beg the hipster-trend setting kids on the outskirts of cities everywhere to prevail; bring my Jukebox back, and while you’re at it, try to find me a bedazzler.