Showing 2 responses by bdp24

Good post, whart. It DOES feel like a race to me, hearing everything I want before the clock runs out. Not to the point of being distracted from enjoying and/or appreciating as I listen, but to the point of not squandering my precious time on music of marginal value. Of course, one often can't make that determination until the time required to listen has already been spent! A first world problem, for sure ;-).

The best thing I’ve read lately (along with Bob Dylan In America, by Sean Wilentz). In preparing for the final move of my life, I two years ago realized there were in all likelihood not enough hours left in my life to listen to every LP, CD, and tape I own even once more. For years I bought (or acquired for free as promos) more discs each week than I could listen to before the next week’s batch came in, so the backlog piled up. I listened to the most promising, keeping the ones I liked and trading in the others at Amoeba Music for other albums. Low priority albums were sitting there, unopened.

I went through them all, deciding which were no longer of interest to me (my musical taste having moved on since the acquisition of some titles). I got rid of about 1000 or so LPs, and 3000 CDs. Of the remaining 7000 or so albums (LP and CD), I am racing to hear them all as many times as possible before I leave. Some are old favorites, some are new, previously unheard, some contain music that requires multiple hearings of to fully absorb (most especially Classical). The race is on!