About time for another update.
I discussed all of this with my therapist, twice now, and one very fair point was that I need to start making decisions, and not just for each invididual album, but more generally what I'm aiming for with this and which criteria I use. Oh and stick with them instead of wanting to keep all options open. (which ironically may be exactly why I want to hold onto everything!) Cause as it is my mind kinda changes with every new pile, which makes me want to go back to ones I'd already 'finished' and has me constantly secondguessing myself.
I kinda need to make a set of rules or reasons I can fall back on whenever I get stuck or too much in my head so I can go 'ah right, this is what I was going for', cause as it is thoughts like 'but do I really wanna do this?', 'what if I might miss it some day?', 'well I don't like it but I kinda feel I should have this' keep getting in the way.
The compilations (which I may save for later now) were a very confusing mix of things.
For starters: one thing that makes them slightly easier is I don't need to listen to any of them cause I know all these songs by title (and if I don't it's telling as well). But there the easy part ends. Cause as opposed to regular albums it's very rare with these not to have a mix of songs I love and songs I (at best) don't care about.
What I did find interesting is that back when I got most of these I very much focussed on the ones I loved.
Like 'hey a best of 1999 compilation that has 12 songs that were amongst my essentials of that year!' > BUY.
While now it seems those 8 less essential other songs which I'd probably skip on a playthrough weigh a lot heavier. Might just be streaming and overall thinking "If I want to listen to the best of that year/the sound of summer 2003/the best movie themes ever I'm better off making a playlist". But then there's convenience.. when I suddenly feel the urge to put on the sound of a certain time am I really first gonna sit down and compile a list (which requires a whole lot of decision making of its own) or do I actually kinda like these pre-curated compilation albums? They're also a lot easier when it comes to my habit of 'throwing one album into my daily (smart) iTunes playlist to revisit it'-ritual.
Oh and there's the: 'not quite as easy to download or stream as proper albums' factor too.
With things like the Hitzones (dutch Now, but worse) I have considered ripping them all and then letting go (but feels like quite the chore) even if just to make sure I won't end up collecting them all over again later. Also consider putting them all into a drawer or box or into one of those CD binders to save space but still have them around if I ever crave revisiting them, but a part of me feels very resistant to anything that feels like 'avoiding making proper decisions'.
For a split second I actually considered just getting this over with, letting a buyer take away all of these boxes and be done with it (to be fair a few years ago I already decided all of these could go), cause the few releases I might actually end up regretting probably don't weigh up to the amount of energy this is taking me. But then I decided I wanna be able to go through this instead of around it. I wanna be able to make these decisions. To learn to accept that I may end up regretting some of my choices, and that I'll survive when that happens.
So yeah, all of this is still doing my head in. And even though my therapist gave me a 'clear' assignment of writing down some rules/guidelines before starting, I find it pretty hard to come up with any 'one fits all' rules that will work for every possible album when there's so many different tastes. Apart from maybe 'only hang onto ones I really like' and 'be honest with myself'. Cause if I really am 'What if...?' probably means 'no'. (Any thoughts like 'what if one day I wanna dive into the full discography of Mariah Carey', 'what if I suddenly crave putting on a Motown compilation?' or, the worst of all, 'I may not like it now but what if it will grow on me in time' (what time? With the size of my collection how likely is it I'll give a song or album I don't already like enough time for that to happen?) + all of those other scenarios that haven't happened once in the past 10 or more years.)
The whole 'relistening one album at a time' plan definitely is something I won't be doing for now cause that would be spending a whole lot of time and energy on albums I feel indifferent about. Might get to that after I narrowed my 600+ 'doubt pile' down a bit further.
For now my main thing to decide is: do I go through things alphabetically (which allows me to mix in the albums on my actual shelves, for a proper comparison with releases I properly like/to double check for double copies/to also check which sleeves/inlays need replacing now I still have an abundance of cases), or randomly to keeps things a bit more varied & surprising (and not have to deal with 'judging 8 albums by one artist back to back')?
