01/29/07 11:17 PM
As a rather serious music collector, I know that I can’t be the only one with this problem, but it’s something that has bugged me a little bit each of the past time I’ve put CDs onto my shelf and into my collection.
I often wonder when I’ll simply have the chance to listen to not only a particular piece of music again, but the CD by it, and the CD by that, and the crate of records sitting on the floor by them all. Compact discs have now been in the commercial marketplace for over two decades now, and even many modest collectors I know have aquired five hundred or more CDs in their collection. On the more serious side of things, I also know people with between 5,000 and 10,000 CDs in their collection.
Although my collection falls far, far below the 5,000 mark, I still cannot comprehend when I’ll have a chance to actually sit down and listen to a good portion of my actual collection. I have a lot of music in my iTunes library and my 20 GB iPod is almost full, but shuffle is the best way to sample the collection and even then it’s only a sampling. Sometimes I simply get a bit bummed out looking at things in my collection that have been neglected, trying to give face time where I can by grabbing something when I’m running out the door to drive the car somewhere.
Not only that, but in addition to what I already own, I’m listening to new music weekly (probably 5-10 new albums minimum), so my actual time to devote to older albums is dimished as well. I know lots of people who download at least as much music and have external hard-drives full of 25,000 songs or more. Listening to a collection that large would take non-stop play (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) for well over three months (assuming 10 songs per album) just to hear every song, and once again, that doesn’t include anything new added to that collection in that time span.
Am I going to have to wait until retirement to hear some of my collection again? Will I even like some of it by then? Do I need to take a break from new music for awhile? Help me out here people…
January 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I feel your pain. And I have no solutions. I look back at my top 20 lists from years past and realize there are albums on there that I love, love, love…and haven’t listened to in two years or more.
100gb of my harddrive is exclusively dedicated to music. And I haven’t even uploaded most of my CD’s pre-1997 or so.
I try to make little playlists in my Ipod full of albums I want to revisit so I have a constant reminder there in my Ipod to come back to these albums, put that playlist on shuffle or whatever.
Other than that, like you….I just hope that when I retire I will still like some of this stuff I love. Will I want to listen to Autechre in my rocking chair??
January 31st, 2007 at 9:15 am
I sold my iPod a few months back (I think back in September) and honestly, it was the smartest thing I did. Not only am I listening to higher quality music, but I am more likely to pull out an album from my collection that I haven’t listened to in awhile than before.
I’ve moved back to CDs, and only have a small collection of digital music (whether purchased digital or digitized LPs at work). The ability to pick up the physical disc and look through the artwork while listening to an album is wonderful. Apple can try all they want with their album art flip through features, but it will never match that.
I don’t think you need to stop listening to new music. I just think you need to re-evaluate how you listen to music.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:43 pm
the argument above regarding de-ipodization as some sort of renaissance or revaluation of music, I believe, does not make much sense. Perhaps reevaluating the approach to the ipod is what is required. It’s not ipod v. cd, but rather a supplementation. Grabbing 80 gigs of music in the palm of one’s hand for a road trip, airplane flight or for a jog is logistically superior to the cd alternative. Further, if a CD is bought and ripped, you still have the materiality of the booklet and cd for more romantic moments, in addition to the versatility and compactness of the digital files. But I wholeheartedly agree that transplanting the cd with digital is like trading online images of a painting for going to the museum (maybe not quite as bad as that).
So peter when you went back to cds, did you actually conflagrate all of your digital music files in a sacrafice to the CD gods?
February 1st, 2007 at 9:39 am
Yes, my previous post came off as ‘sell your iPod and you’ll be happier.’ I know that’s non-sense. But I feel like I have reconnected with many albums that sat unlistened on my iPod since I have gone back to CDs. Plus it’s fun pulling out a selection of discs for work in the morning.
As for my digital music conflagrating, nope, everything is fine. Like I said before (note: this is the flaw in my physical format only argument), pretty much all my vinyl sits on my computer in a digital format.
I’ll leave it as this: The iPod is a great piece of equipment. In fact, I had two of them (my 2g got me through college and survived six months traveling around Europe). But, it just didn’t suit my life as it stands. I’m content with my situation now, and at the moment, am not looking back.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
How much music do we need in life? I don’t think anyone really needs 7,500 CDs (to grab a number between your 5-10K CD carrying friends). We live in a new society now too, where we celebrate new music and we’re likely most productive now in terms of creating new music and being able to record and distribute it.
Maybe all you do is listen to the new stuff.
But you’ll likely want to go back. I have loaded my 850 CDs into iTunes and I listen to the collection each day (through iTunes, car CDs, and iPods). But there are great numbers of tracks that I *never listen to*. They’re “junk” tracks. But something psychological tells me to keep buying CDs and rip these tracks I care less about.
Is that what might save us in the future? Buying only single tracks? 7,500 CDs X 2 tracks per CD you really like = 15,000 tracks. That’s a lot, but… more managable than 75,000.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Thanks, just remembered I need to grab my iPod for the bus. I have a collection that tops 300CD’s, at least a dozen thanks to AlmostC. I have been craving some new sounds that the current budget just doesn’t give room for at the moment, thank you for making me grateful for having less at this moment… I will be around for Easter to help you unload any music you would like to part with… It is a good problem, being surrounded by so much music. You can always carve down some intake and put in a few more afternoons with the pups, wheel things, and Tster. Once again, impressed with your ambition.
ciao,
ab
March 25th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I’m 38 and have battled this problem often..I finally decided to keep my collection of actual CD’s always at 500 or less. Everytime I peruse my collection, I grab something I know I can enjoy. I trade CD’s in for in-store credit on a semi-regular basis. Everything I own (except for those CD’s you somehow end up with, that NOBODY, including yourself, wants) pretty much kicks ass.
On the digital front, everything I download (in advance or whatnot) I soon buy or delete. Period.
So, I guess what I’m saying is, keep it manageable. And only own fully loaded, no filler, massively consistent albums.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
[…] fit enough room into my schedule to listen to those (and of course doesn’t even include the rest of the collection). Thus, I made myself a very modest goal; I would take two Gould CDs to work with me at a time and […]
December 29th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
[…] I’m also excited that I’ll finally have a little more time to start going back through my collection and re-listen to a lot of things that I haven’t heard in awhile, since I’ve been known to fret about that sort of thing. […]
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