Rediscovery

Whenever I feel nostalgic for listening to cassettes, I slightly enlarge the holes in my LP's. 

Didn't everyone make tapes for the car? Remember how excited you were when car cd-players came along, then made a sad face each time you drove over a manhole cover?

I have had thousands of cd's. If I didn't like one after a few plays, it was gone. I keep around 1,500. If I haven't listened to it in 2 years, bye. As one comes in, one's gotta go. I built the storage unit with that limit in mind. 

Re: rediscovery:

My plan has always been this: I want to play them, by artist, in release order, start to finish---all of them. If an artist's entire catalog is 6 titles or 30 titles, no matter; I've kept not one title that I just can't bring myself to play. I'm not a collector of catalogs, only the music.

I intended to start with "A," of course. Somehow, I ended up playing the first four Kinks albums (that takes barely 2 hours), so I continued w/the remaining 20. (I buy studio albums only, and always have. I think I own two/three live (concert) recordings.)

It is revelatory to hear an artist's entire output in order. Is it a commitment? Sure is! However, you will discover musical connections you had no idea existed, not only within that artist's oeuvre, but to other music that may have influenced that creator, or not. If it's a small catalog, it may be completed in a day. For some artists, it may be a few days. Also, I listen to no other artist's cd's until the current artist's catalog has been completed. I'll take breaks of indeterminate lengths in between artists. I just couldn't do all of Bowie, then immediately dive into the Byrds, then The Cars, etc. I'm not a flagellant, well not that kind. This is critical listening meets comparative listening---to the music; not a single gear-thought allowed.

I would really like to play them all in release-date order someday, jumping all over the place by artist. Afterall, that's how we all acquired and got to know each of our LP's, AND formed our opinions of them individually, as well as the entire "scene.". Just to prepare would take two weekends of Excel sheets and Wikipedia. Maybe I will, if I survive this first goal. 

Don't just play your music, play with your music!

@tomic601 

I appreciate the suggestion. My sound system(s) and computers have never been allowed to touch to each other, no matter by how frail the tether. I have inculcated hatred, jealousy, and distrust to help keep them apart.

The cd racks are as enjoyable to look at as neatly-stacked artbooks are to me. I keep cd's as far away from the listening room as our current, vast estate will allow. I want to see them all just before I turn out the bedstand light, and again each morning at the crack of 9.

When thinking about what to play, I peruse my alpha database and choose. Then I am forced to get up off of my ancient arse and go fetch it (them.) It also keeps my orthopedists happier, as did swapping out my changer(s) for single-players.

I used to be a museum curator. I love being around tons of old things on shelves, (as long as they're all cataloged and ordered by me), even though I am permitted to touch and move only one thing at a time, with both (cotton-gloved) hands, or possibly lose my accreditation. Rules are rules.

B.S. (BobSeventy) 

@tomic601 

I just got to 70! For 5 years, I've approached its arrival much as a doomsday-prepper. As for the vice-grip, w/o it, I would have already succumbed, repeatedly.

I'm not a very good old, retired, white dude. I can walk to past a golf course within 4 minutes from my front door; a little farther to pass by where folks fish, and the Atlantic Ocean is 20 minutes away. 

Those little holes in the ground, next to the flags, are just too far away from each other for my liking, and everything you reel in out of the water, any water, smells bad.

As for "them," I didn't mean to anthropomorphize my cd's. I was being PC, bcs I've never known their individual gender identities. I think it'd be great if there were a word solely for a bunch o' cd's! That'd be cool; like a murder of crows or a shrewdness of apes.

I'm open to suggestions.