It's Me Against The Music: Revisiting/Sorting Out My Music Collection - Round 2!

[Mvnl]

It's Me Against The Music: Revisiting/Sorting Out My Music Collection

As we speak I own ̶2̶5̶5̶7̶ 2531 physical albums and 5155 CD singles.

Young me would probably have envied me but someone maybe should have warned him that there comes a point where completism takes over on quality control, (potential) favourites get lost within the piles of 'quite enjoyable' releases and a hobby starts verging on becoming a burden.
So, loosely inspired by Marie Kondo, I've decided it's time to start sorting out my entire collection and with that my past (and potentially myself ?).

Just maybe there is such a thing as 'too much music'. Or I just need a bigger place.​

My plan is to replay and revisit each* of the albums I own one at a time, reflecting on what made me buy them, what they meant to me/which memories they bring up and most importantly: how I feel about them right now!
In this process I will also be including the albums I have no intention of letting go of because besides a discarding exercise this also is a way for me to start reappreciating the albums I actually own, as well as 'the album' in general because to be honest ever since the days of iTunes/smart playlists the concept of an album as a whole for me has quite literally gotten lost in the shuffle. I also think alternating between firm favourites and ones I'm less sure about will keep it fun keep me conscious of what an album should feel like when I really enjoy it.

As with Marie Kondo this is very much a personal journey, diving into what makes me tick, embracing what I actually enjoy instead of what I feel I SHOULD appreciate and learning to articulate that even if people will have some very strong opinions on it (and I have no doubt some of you will!).

So basically this thread will dive into a whole lot of music as well as a little bit of me.

​

* I already came to the conclusion that this will take me years and when a release makes me go 'ugh, do I really have to sit through this?' I think it's pretty fair to conclude that it's headed for a thrift store straight away.

 

[bryan89]

I think I'm more excited about this than you hahahaha. I live for sorting out collections.

Also, if you wanna keep track of your CDs, I have an account on Libib where I basically scan (or manually add) my CDs just to know what I have. It's free.

 

[ModeRed]

Intrigued to see how this goes… not least because I’ve kept every CD I ever bought/was given and now at about the 3000 mark which is spilling into several rooms of the house. Not sure I’d be that good at reducing my collection (especially as I keep adding to it with new artist discoveries)

 

[Mvnl]

I think I'm more excited about this than you hahahaha. I live for sorting out collections.

Also, if you wanna keep track of your CDs, I have an account on Libib where I basically scan (or manually add) my CDs just to know what I have. It's free.

Will look into that although Discogs does a good job of keeping track (which at some point embarrassingly became necessary because I no longer knew for sure if I already owned an album)

Intrigued to see how this goes… not least because I’ve kept every CD I ever bought/was given and now at about the 3000 mark which is spilling into several rooms of the house. Not sure I’d be that good at reducing my collection (especially as I keep adding to it with new artist discoveries)

Yeah I find it challenging too because, well up to a few years ago with almost any kind of objects I just kept adding and only let go of things if they were severely damaged or replaced, and with CDs there was always the ideal of a 'complete' collection' and thoughts like 'maybe this one served its purpose and is no longer needed in my life from here on' never occurred to me. In all other categories I've let go of about 2/3rd of what I owned ever since I discovered Marie Kondo and there's hardly been any regrets but with CDs the thought that they'd always be there is strong, especially with the ones where nostalgia's involved. It's almost like ripping photos out of your albums?

 

[Mvnl]

How it started...

I was about to write a complete aural history of me vs. CDs but quickly realized most of these anecdotes will pop up organically once I start going through the albums one by one (and thus through the various eras of pop).
But when it comes to collecting I think for me something shifted when downloading became a thing in 2002 and I no longer needed to cherrypick releases. Then in 2006 I discovered Amazon Marketplace and decided to replace all of those shoddy burned discs with proper copies, as well as catching up with all the releases I never had been able to download...



In 2007 I started working at a record store, making me the very first person to see when albums were being discounted which was.. kinda great but also a bit of a slippery slope when you already have some collecting tendecies...
Then by 2009 I discovered CDwow making all of the releases that weren't even in my store extremely affordable to import too and well, the floodgates had opened.

But where there used to be at least some quality control at the start, record fairs and thrift stores (with their 50 cent copies) definitely gradually changed that, cause going home empty-handed was not a (satisfying) option and so the bar went from 'absolute favourite albums' to 'this has a few songs I like' to 'hey I recognize this!', 'I should probably own this as a pop fan', 'well for 50 cents I can't not buy this' and 'omg, my father always used to play this!'.


... how it's going.

By 2019 I owned.. probably more albums than the average person?
Which wasn't a burden per se but I did notice that when I randomly picked an album from my shelf to decide what to play I'd often had to grab at least 3 or 4 times before I held one I actually felt like listening to.



It was then that I stumbled upon the whole Marie Kondo thing and as someone who had never gotten rid of anything (I mean, I still owned outfits I wore in high school 20 years before) as well as being permanently overwhelmed when it came to tidying because 'where to even start??' the idea of 'only hanging on to the stuff that you actually enjoy' was an eye opener and something that in plenty categories since has led to a lot of progress and a definite change in purchasing habits.
But CDs are my Achilles heel because there's such a mix of memories/nostalgia & of course the music (for which these days you don't necessarily need the actual physical release but my brain crashes when I put too much thought into that part). I mean with a sweater it's easy to think 'I only wear this when everything else is dirty and I don't like the way it feels on my skin' and 'I'd prefer a wardrobe where I could blindly pick any item and enjoy wearing it'. With CDs there's just.. many layers. There's music I don't wanna hear today that might just be what I feel like tomorrow, there's a whole lot of music I don't 'love' but is still perfectly enjoyable. Wouldn't I get tired of my faves if they were all I'd hang onto? Shouldn't I keep all of it just in case?

Despite all of that in 2019 I quite succesfully narrowed down my collection to about a third that I was really fond of. There were enough cases of 'why did I even buy this?' or 'do I really need 3 versions of 1 album?' that really didn't hurt to put aside.



And then, whereas with other stuff I got rid of it ASAP, I fell into the trap of 'I could probably sell these one day'.
Long story short: I still own every single one of them today.

In 2020 I did another round of Kondo and ended up thinking 'if I could only find 50 more that can go I can get rid of an entire shelf!' which led to me discarding some releases that I'd end up missing pretty soon. It did(n't) help that the Right Back At Ya podcast made me rediscover and reappreciate acts that were actually exactly my brand of pop, but currently in boxes in my basement.



Ever since I've had the intention to go through my entire collection one last time (including the boxes of already discarded albums) with a kinder 'you keep whatever you want to keep' approach, which led to me first dragging all the boxes from my basement back into my living room, then eventually getting sick of them being there and stacking all the CDs in my kitchen cabinets and under my bed and postponing it for months.
And that brings us to.. last week...

(Good thing I did not go with that comprehensive aural history huh?)

 

[Eric Generic]

Hurrah, so glad you've started this at last!

 

[Mvnl]

Hurrah, so glad you've started this at last!

So am I, I think!
Though right now it feels like I have some catching up to do (I should probably let go of the idea that I HAVE TO document every single step I take because it shouldn't become a chore, but I feel at least the early steps of the process are 'too relevant' to ignore. Let's just say I probably have another post or 2 in me before I can get to any individual albums)

 

[Mvnl]

About Last Week.... (Round 1)
I think almost a year ago I got the idea of going through my albums one at a time because it actually seemed like a fun project, interesting exploration of what makes me so damn attached even to albums I don't really play anymore, as well as a nice way to rediscover old favourites. I had this idea to combine it with a blog, then got lost in 'deciding what to call it/which service/theme to use' limbo. Meanwhile I couldn't start sorting out my collection because 'I want to document the process on my blog and I don't have a blog yet, so...'.
There's nothing I like quite as much as postponing. One might even argue this entire exercise is also a way of postponing actually getting rid of anything. <Insert 'I don't understand the question and I won't respond to it'.gif>

Then last week I finally decided to just randomly grab 10 CDs from the boxes throughout my appartment and sort them between 'definite keeper'/'definite goner' and 'I might need to relisten to these first' piles. Another 1142 soon followed.
I didn't include the ones currently on my shelves just yet because the majority of those are definitely staying and these 1152 were quite enough to process for now.
I've already documented this process with pics of all piles in the CDjustice thread (which also led to me realising that a thread on here might be more low-threshold than the whole intimidating 'blogging' thing). For the full process I'd recommend reading up on that, it's a clickable link, but for completion's sake I'll post the pics of the 'go' piles here in a spoiler tag (apart from the one or two I'll use to brighten up this post):

Spoiler: Goners

A few insights based on this first round of sorting:

- I definitely own too many CDs.
At one point the discovery there was yet another box I'd previously overlooked filled me with dread instead of any sense of excitement. Marie recommends putting all items from one category together in one big pile, if just for the shock effect of how much you actually own, but even having a pile of 50 CDs on my living room floor felt overwhelming enough to make me feel like 'can somebody come and just get rid of these already?'

- It didn't take me very long to realise: OMG if I want to replay all of these albums one at a time that means these piles will be around for many more months, if not years!?! (Of course I could still play them after they're gone but that will just remind me of what I no longer own and sorta defeats its purpose)
It definitely made me decide to at least make some proper cuts (and probably do a round 2) before I start replaying any of them and limit that part to albums I actually feel appealed to listen to. Because life's too short, and my appartment too small.

- Marie has a very good point recommending to get rid of anything you decide to let go of right away because apart from the maybe 20 or 30 CDs I'd actually missed I've now come across 100s of CDs that made me go 'awww, remember this?'.
In hindsight rebuying the few albums I actually missed probably would have cost me less (energy) than the mentally draining process of having to let go of each one of these all over again. I currently got more potential stayers than there's room for on my shelves and that's frankly just giving me stress and making me feel guilty for wanting to hold on to some of them, and THIS SHOULD BE FUN.

- the 'in between' pile was a pretty good move cause I'd probably still be stuck with my first batch if I'd forced myself to go with either stay or go. But the current 'undecided' pile (628 albums) is absolutely intimidating, which encourages me to be a bit more harsh on it. If I'm gonna be really honest with myself there's definitely some cases of 'I like this but let's relisten just to make sure' vs. 'I have no feelings either way about this album BUT WHAT IF IT'S ACTUALLY GREAT AND I JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET??'. And let's be realistic, when there's at least 800 albums on my shelves I love listening to, what are the odds I'll ever sit down to make time for albums I'm ambivalent about?




- there's definitely some recurring themes in my discard pile:
• 'I probably just bought these because they seemed too cheap at the thrift store not to take them with me'
(Ed Sheeran, Jessie J, a second copy of a Kelly Clarkson christmas album I already owned?)
• 'last picks in a '3 CDs for 25 euro' deal' or anything like that.
(usually ones that seemed 'nice enough to have' but I'd never felt passionate enough about to buy on their own, which in hindsight tells it all really)
• 'my dad always used to play this when I was young'
(Sade, Enya, Dire Straits. I won't deny hearing one song on shuffle every other year makes me nostalgic but there's zero desire to ever listen to any of these in full and right now I even find it hard to imagine that 'this is what my dad used to play when I'd rather have heard my own music' ever made me go 'OMG! MUST HAVE!')
• Greatest Hits of acts where it felt right to have 'all the songs I know' on my shelf but realistically I've never felt appealed to actually listen to any of them front to back (Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin, Faithless, Eurythmics, Macy Gray, Fatboy Slim, Elvis.. there's many)
• Anything pre-late 90s. Not everything but a lot for sure.
I think it's a mix of them actually looking 'old' and just feeling like thrift store, it being from a time before I consciously started consuming music so there not really being any proper nostalgia or sense of it being 'my music' + the nostalgia that's there not being a pleasant kind?
• I've noticed a lot of 90s dance acts going as well (Haddaway, Mr President, DJ Bobo). Part 'why did I actually get the album? These are all about nostalgia for me and the nostalgia's with the singles' but I also feel that that part of the 90s doesn't quite tick my nostalgic box like it once did?
• Double copies. Most of the time cases of 'bough the regular edition first and got a deluxe later'. Or a store sending a second copy after the first didn't arrive, and them then both arriving later. Either way, when you think 'why the hell is Bionic/J-Lo/Between Us leaving': that may be why.
• Albums that I felt I should own/are much cooler than I am.
Just because my taste is diverse enough to appreciate some Portishead, R.E.M. and Fugees in between my Britney and Steps doesn't mean those artists and full albums of them genuinely excite me or even remotely feel like 'me'. I don't think I ever bought anything because 'it would look cool on my shelves' but I definitely think there was a sense of 'I should own this!' where I'm now like 'no I don't'. Oh and there may have been some thoughts of 'but what if start dating someone who likes <insert artist/genre> and I need just the album to put on' but once again: life's too short, and so are my shelves.

Coming up: The first 70 or so CDs actually left my house. How about that?
These definitely don't all qualify for a full on write up but I might have some final thoughts on some of them + it definitely gave me some insights on where to go from here...

 

[Mvnl]

I am now relistening Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below after realising I already got rid of it yesterday.
This is going just swell.

 

[Isobel]

I have 1,362+ items in my collection, the vast majority on CD. I can't imagine ever parting with any of them, but storage is an issue (just got a new shelf a few years back and it's mostly full now). I see my collecting slowing down in the near future as I finish off my long-running wishlist of older albums (Discogs makes this easier and cheaper than ever) and then just buy the new releases that mean the most from each year. All this to say, you have more discipline than I do!

Looking forward to reading your musical memories, content like that is why I hang around in pop forums.

 

[Mvnl]

I have 1,362+ items in my collection, the vast majority on CD. I can't imagine ever parting with any of them, but storage is an issue (just got a new shelf a few years back and it's mostly full now). I see my collecting slowing down in the near future as I finish off my long-running wishlist of older albums (Discogs makes this easier and cheaper than ever) and then just buy the new releases that mean the most from each year. All this to say, you have more discipline than I do!

Looking forward to reading your musical memories, content like that is why I hang around in pop forums.

I have felt myself sorta slowing down in recent years when it comes to just 'buying anything with music on it' but then I did just earlier this year buy 60 volumes of Now Music from Ebay, and since I discovered Recordcity I've been ordering quite the few japanese editions of albums I love so much I just couldn't wait to buy them again.
It's a bit silly really cause on one hand I feel like I'm constantly racing towards completion asap, and at the same time that point never arrives because I'm always on the lookout for something new to 'want'. (I have a feeling this, like many other things I'm gonna share is not strictly limited to music and quite the reality check)

And yeah I always love those kind of stories myself as well. Recently found Eight Albums where people reflect on 8 albums that mean the most to them and I love those kind of stories (although infinitely better when revolving around music I actually know/like). Which is also what kinda convinced me that besides being (maybe) a little self important just me writing about (music &) me will probably be enjoyable for a few people too.

 

[Isobel]

Love that "8 albums" site, all new to me so will be a good read later. Of course, the first few I clicked on have little in common with my taste and have albums I've never crossed paths with, but I'll read those too because I'm always interested in how people connect with music.

Spoiler: A related tangent

A while back I came up with the 12 albums that most shaped my taste (most of them discoveries made in childhood or early teenage years). I'm not someone who's totally stuck in the past musically, but I think most of the new music I click with can be connected back to these albums, which all prepped me to seek out those kinds of sounds. I haven't done any write-ups yet, but I have the playlist up on Spotify:

 

[Eric Generic]

"Life's too short, and so are my shelves"

Post of the era.

 

[Mvnl]

Love that "8 albums" site, all new to me so will be a good read later. Of course, the first few I clicked on have little in common with my taste and have albums I've never crossed paths with, but I'll read those too because I'm always interested in how people connect with music.

I had that intention, just like I had the intention to submit my own 8 (but I wanted to add a link to my blog in the bio bit, and since I had no blog yet it was yet another thing I didn't start...) but in the end ended up mostly reading the parts that most users included as 'their guilty (childhood) pleasures' (okay rude, cause those are like my actual favourites?).
Your list has quite the classics on it! Am sure you'll come across a few of those on the site, as well as eventually in this topic!

"Life's too short, and so are my shelves"

Post of the era.

Thanks, I quite enjoyed it as I wrote it. Which is also a reminder that as much as I can think up what I want to write, it's during the actual writing that the more interesting stuff comes up.

 

[Eric Generic]

Everyone's relationship with music is nuanced and can change through their lives, and that's made even more complex when you collect physical media for a long time (running into decades). I have never really "got on top of" my own collection, it built up in a rather unusual way under very unusual circumstances, and seems to undergo quite significant changes every few years.

 

[Mvnl]

Everyone's relationship with music is nuanced and can change through their lives, and that's made even more complex when you collect physical media for a long time (running into decades). I have never really "got on top of" my own collection, it built up in a rather unusual way under very unusual circumstances, and seems to undergo quite significant changes every few years.

I know in general when it comes to music I'm extremely loyal and there's very little I once loved that I now not at least still enjoy but at the same time I've already been surprised by how there's some releases that once clearly meant enough for me to buy them where I'm now like 'ermmm, okay??'.
Marie also had this saying about if you have trouble letting go of something that no longer serves you it's either fear of (regrets in) the future or trouble letting go of the past, and I think I'm going to have to admit there's also quite a few releases where one of those (or both)'s the only reason I haven't discarded them yet. They all very much feel like pieces of me, even if they're ones I'm no longer fond of. But that might also be because I always saw my collection as this linear thing with the line only ever going up and up and up.

 

[Eric Generic]

I do think at first most people just imagine their collection going in that way without even thinking/realising. You're so caught up in the moment, and back in the 80s you'd have tons of new stuff coming at you every week, you almost don't stop to process it all.

Add in to that, for me, a conscious desire not to look backwards beyond my year zero, and rarely buy anything "old" (ie pre-1984) and it's not hard to see how by the middle of the 1990s my collection was a bit of an odd fish. No CDs of music before 1982 (a Squeeze comp was the oldest, chronologically, although I bought it in 1987), tons of flop albums from 1987-1992 which I seemed to get based on the flimsiest of whims (maybe a decent review, a nice sleeve, a single I liked) rather than a collection of "classic" titles. I catalogued my collection as it looked in 1994, as we were moving house and I needed to put everything back in order once we settled in, and I still have that A4 binder.

 

[Mvnl]

I do think at first most people just imagine their collection going in that way without even thinking/realising. You're so caught up in the moment, and back in the 80s you'd have tons of new stuff coming at you every week, you almost don't stop to process it all.

Add in to that, for me, a conscious desire not to look backwards beyond my year zero, and rarely buy anything "old" (ie pre-1984) and it's not hard to see how by the middle of the 1990s my collection was a bit of an odd fish. No CDs of music before 1982 (a Squeeze comp was the oldest, chronologically, although I bought it in 1987), tons of flop albums from 1987-1992 which I seemed to get based on the flimsiest of whims (maybe a decent review, a nice sleeve, a single I liked) rather than a collection of "classic" titles. I catalogued my collection as it looked in 1994, as we were moving house and I needed to put everything back in order once we settled in, and I still have that A4 binder.

Is there any particular reason for that conscious desire?
(If it's something traumatical, no need to share anything you don't want to, but then I don't assume you have any trauma from before you were born...)
I think we all get albums on whims (I'm sure plenty of mine will be covered here) as well as most collections only really making sense to their curators! What was that catalogue like? Wouldn't mind a pic of that!

 

[Mvnl]

Quick cuts - batch 1
Especially in these early stages there's gonna be some albums that don't quite justify a full replay/writedown but I'm intending on giving even them a tiny bit of love (or at least 'attention') because it may very well be the very last time I acknowledge their existence. (I wanted to add 'Does this sound ruthless? Good.' but in a lot of cases it will say absolutely nothing about the quality of the albums which I feel I need to emphasize given the amount of legends and classics I'll be cutting)

Anyway, this saturday I went to a local record store that buys and sells second hand CDs with a tiny pile of goners just to see how it would pan out. I was kinda relieved they took the whole lot, basically just checked for scratches and that was that.
Got 5 euros for the lot which I was kinda fine with cause: a few less CDs, a bit more money, win-win.
For future reference I asked if they basically accepted any type of music and they said yes (spoiler: they lied).

​

Jewel - Pieces Of You
So I only have minor memories of this. Back in the day I didn't own this CD but my best friend in high school did.
Just like with my dad's music for quite a while the CDs she had/played at her place later on became ones I bought probably to recapture a little bit of days gone by. (God this sounds sad)
Musically I liked Foolish Games (although these days it's one of those songs that gets me sad in a non pleasant way, like it's just a little too dark and not in a 'great powerballad to cry to' kind of way?), You Were Meant To Me and to a lesser extent Who Will Save Your Soul, and apart from those I only really remember Adrian for.. not liking it.
We (or maybe just I?) used to tease my friend by going 'Adriaaaaaaaan' in the whiniest tone when it came to this album.
Good times. But not good enough to ever need to hear that one again.

The Platters - Gold
When I came across this one again (which was basically an instant goner for the budget compilation look alone) I quickly checked whether You're More Than A Number In My Little Red Book and Kissing In The Back Row Of The Movies were on it, for which my appreciation has recently grown. Only after googling just now I realised those were by The Drifters.
Potato potato. It's gone.

Alicia Keys - Unplugged
Definitely got this in a '3 for 25 euro' deal and I'm pretty sure it was a 'pick number 3'.
By then I'd liked quite a few of the songs Alicia had done (and for me the best was yet to come) but Unbreakable did nothing for me and this unplugged compilation was not quite the 'all the songs I love and know in one place' experience I bargained for.

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swings
Going by my memories my dad's favourite band, besides the Eagles. If I never hear Hotel California again I'll be a happy man.
It's not like I ever loved Dire Straits either but I do remember hearing The Killers' version of Romeo & Juliet on the bus to work in 2008 and getting strangely emotional, like it opened a little door inside of me of a part I'd forgotten was there?
So at some point I felt this was a nice little time capsule to own. That point has passed.

Snow Patrol - Up To Now
Apart from knowing Run thanks to Leona I mostly associate Snow Patrol with the time I worked at a record store where everyone's taste was a bit more.. credible than mine. It's kinda weird how sometimes the music you care for the least eventually becomes the most nostalgic because you never chose to listen to it for so many years?
Typing this I feel weirdly appealed to put this on on Spotify to check if I didn't make a mistake, but going by what I usually enjoy to listen to I really don't think I needed a 2-disc compilation of Snow Patrol on my shelves. If it were still there it would be there as a love letter to my record store days, but I'm pretty sure there's still albums to come that do the same thing while actually being a good listen.

Also bye to:
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of... Now can someone tell me, just as with all Best Of's ever, whether the name is or isn't actually part of the title?
Portishead- Dummy
Weezer - Pinkerton
Prince - The Very Best Of
The Script - The Script
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
3OH!3 - Want
Mary J. Blige - Reflections (A Retrospective)

So, those were the first quick, relatively painfree, cuts.
This is your cue to tell me how wrong I was, how much more money I could have made, and how much I'm gonna regret these some day, if not for the rest of my life!

 

[Eric Generic]

If that Private Dancer is an earlier pressing, with a black (or is it purple) label side rather than silver it's quite nice to have (but not sure it's worth too much, I found mine for £3).

As for why I didn't look backwards for the first 10 years of my collecting, I think it was partly because I didn't really get into music until well into 1983 (and didn't buy anything until 1984) and also with CD I had this thing where if an album was from before the CD era (or I was buying it "posthumously") then I would get it on the format I'd have chosen in 1982/83/84 etc. So at that time I would get Ocean Rain, or Building The Perfect Beast, or Rumours etc on vinyl or cassette rather than CD. I also didn't upgrade/rebuy anything I already had on cassette/vinyl with the CD edition for a long time. I stayed with this philosophy until the mid-1990s when catalogue stuff began to appear at mid-price a lot more and I began to start creating mixtapes of my favourite tracks from 1984-1994 and not all of those tracks would be on a Greatest Hits that I had bought.