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Do I Have Too Much Music?

Mullardman

Moderately extreme...
I spent some time today working through all of the music on the hard drive of my Yamaha CDR. Just a tidying exercise really, as almost none of it is indispensable.. I have it on vinyl or something. But as I'm planning to do a lot of recording I decided to tidy up.

I've deleted a lot, as almost all of it was recorded from analogue for the purposes of making CDs for the car, or whatever. Worryingly though... I found quite a bit of music I didn't recognise immediately and one considerable chunk which I would never have purchased in a million years.. Where did that come from?...And WTF was it?

Anyway.. this got me thinking further....

I've got albums I've played once.

I've got about 50 from the D'Agostini Jazz series still sealed.

I was wondering what an old Isley Bros album was doing in my 'currently up for playing' pile.. when I noticed it was a 180gram re-press and still sealed. Where did that come from? I assume I bought it somwhere.. probably a show.. but where?

There's little doubt my memory isn't what it was. Ageing and a couple of 'brain accidents', have seen to that.. but is it worse than I thought? I'm not the only old git on here.. how are others faring?

There was a time when I could tell you every album or single I have.. where purchased etc.

I've also got mountains of second hand vinyl, mostly classical, which rarely gets an outing.

Thing is... I have this inherent 'thing' with music. As a kid, I struggled to acquire either records, or the means to play them. These days, music is almost free, but I'm reluctant to get rid of any..

Is it just me?
 
I don’t think it’s just you. A couple of duplicate purchase incidents recently have led to me putting a list of the contents of my NAS on my phone to assist when truffling for cheap CDs in charity shops.

My backlog of unlistened-to purchases is about 40 albums deep at the moment.
 
I’m in the same boat - still buy too many records that I’ll never have time to play. As well as GAS (gadget acquisition syndrome) I seem to be suffering from MAS (Music........)!
 
After a few incidents of ‘double buying’ I ended up listing all my music in Discogs and adding their app onto my iPhone. That means I can quickly check if I already have something prior to a purchase. I also have significant numbers of both CDs and records that I have yet to get around to listening to, so the OP is not alone in this.
 
Classical box sets are my downfall. I see them in the 'bargain box sets' thread, ponder for a millisecond, then buy them. A couple are still sealed, several I've played a couple of discs from and put away, only a few are frequently delved into.

What's really weird is finding albums I thought I'd disposed of still in my collection, in particular a Police album that I could have sworn I'd given to a charity shop, yet there it is.
 
Is it just me?

No, it's not. I'm of a similar vintage to yourself and have also had a couple of suspected 'brain accidents'. Over the last four years, I reduced my collection of almost 5,300 LPs, EPs, 7" singles, CDs, CD singles and cassettes to a trim 701 items, all nicely catalogued on Discogs and available on my iPhone app. The main beneficiaries were charity shops and my local record dealer with some of the better items fetching good money on Discogs. I still have playable LPs, bought with my pocket money in the mid-1960s, which give me great pleasure.

Finding something to play has become a lot easier and I'm using the turntable more than ever. I cherry-picked the DeAgostini Jazz series and rebuilt my Tom Waits collection from last year's excellent remasters. I don't miss the majority of the stuff I disposed of but do occasionally pick up re-issues or remasters of classic albums most recently Bridge Over Troubled Water, No Secrets, and The "Chirping" Crickets.

It hurt to get rid of so many items but I feel a lot better for it now.
 
I have way too much- there's no way I'll ever play some of it again, but, for me, its a repository of memory. Looking at sleeves or hearing the music triggers crystal clear memories of people, places and moments that would probably never return without those prompts. For that reason I'm really loath to get rid of anything. It's more than just clearing some clutter and streamlining the collection which I'd otherwise happily do.

Kevin
 
I’ve always viewed my record collection as very fluid and I have always bought and sold. It is currently a lot smaller than it was say a decade ago. The biggest mistake IMHO is retaining poorer later albums from artists that really only had one or two good ones in their career. That wastes a lot of space for no reason.

CDs are in overload at present due to such amazing purchasing opportunities, but I’m buying mainly classical and expanding the jazz collection, so very little filler. It is the rock/pop vinyl that was easily thinned out.
 
I like having "way too many"...I like the fact that i know it's all good or i wouldn't have bought it and hence the delightful chancing on something i'd forgotten about is...well..delightful. Luckily space isn't really a problem for me.
 
The biggest mistake IMHO is retaining poorer later albums from artists that really only had one or two good ones in their career. That wastes a lot of space for no reason.

I definitely agree!
 
TIDAL has saved me a lot of money on buying CDs, as I just play their version. But then I often buy the vinyl versions of music I like on TIDAL. So it’s not saving any money really! Quite the opposite...

I don’t like accumulating ‘stuff’, so vinyl is always a dilemma for me - either just use digital, saving space and money, or have a turntable and end up with a minor hoard of LPs taking over the house. Perhaps the answer is to be more judicious with vinyl purchases and thin out those that don’t get listened to.
 
I’ve always viewed my record collection as very fluid and I have always bought and sold. It is currently a lot smaller than it was say a decade ago. The biggest mistake IMHO is retaining poorer later albums from artists that really only had one or two good ones in their career. That wastes a lot of space for no reason.

Quite. For me, artists/bands are allowed one duffer, any more and they've had it, however many reviews say that their nth album is a 'real return to form'.
 
I'm always a completist and collector as well as a music fan having grown up collecting stamps, postcards etc etc its a habit that is hard to break.
Having the collection catalogued originally on a spreadsheet helped, especially with "unofficial copies" and digital format only downloads, but also now use Discogs. Which has been a blessing and a curse as its too easy to order something you have heard and want immediately!

I learnt to my cost long ago that selling vinyl I didn't quite get at the time sometimes lead to massive regret later in life when my taste broadened/changed/developed.
This one being a prime example of one I bought secondhand, sold on soon after, and now will want to find again
 
A few years ago I got rid of about 300 Cds that I had listened to once and had no intention of playing again. I have not missed them.

That said, I now have at least as many as I did then and, again, there must be some I will not listen too again. If space becomes an issue, I will have another cull.
 
I find using tidal a great help. No need to buy albums unless they are on vinyl with good artwork and sound quality.
 
I spent some time today working through all of the music on the hard drive of my Yamaha CDR. Just a tidying exercise really, as almost none of it is indispensable.. I have it on vinyl or something. But as I'm planning to do a lot of recording I decided to tidy up.

I've deleted a lot, as almost all of it was recorded from analogue for the purposes of making CDs for the car, or whatever. Worryingly though... I found quite a bit of music I didn't recognise immediately and one considerable chunk which I would never have purchased in a million years.. Where did that come from?...And WTF was it?

Anyway.. this got me thinking further....

I've got albums I've played once.

I've got about 50 from the D'Agostini Jazz series still sealed.

I was wondering what an old Isley Bros album was doing in my 'currently up for playing' pile.. when I noticed it was a 180gram re-press and still sealed. Where did that come from? I assume I bought it somwhere.. probably a show.. but where?

There's little doubt my memory isn't what it was. Ageing and a couple of 'brain accidents', have seen to that.. but is it worse than I thought? I'm not the only old git on here.. how are others faring?

There was a time when I could tell you every album or single I have.. where purchased etc.

I've also got mountains of second hand vinyl, mostly classical, which rarely gets an outing.

Thing is... I have this inherent 'thing' with music. As a kid, I struggled to acquire either records, or the means to play them. These days, music is almost free, but I'm reluctant to get rid of any..

Is it just me?
Like you I've mostly been able to remember where I bought records, how much, who I was with etc. and have found it deeply worrying when things turn up in the pile that I don't remember buying. All I can say is that this has been happening occasionally since my late 20s, still happens, but doesn't seem to be getting any worse, so I've concluded that it's not a symptom of early onset Alzheimers but, yes, is a consequence of having too much music.
 
Thanks for the replies chaps. It seems I'm not the only one ...

And today I found I have a few sealed duplicates from the D'Agostini Jazz series. Not sure how that works....:confused:
 
It's a quiet illness... I've spent the last couple of years building a vinyl setup. Lovely (and expensive) bits of hi-fi and loads of new LP acquisitions... but while doing so I seem to have also doubled my not inconsiderable CD collection without realising I was even buying them! The £20/month I save by not subscribing to Tidal, I'm spending on cheap CDs - taking a punt on music that I'm not sure about.
Most of us here are high functioning addicts of one sort or another.
 
Last year, DJ Dave Haslam talked about selling all of his records: he referred to collecting as ‘the tyranny of stuff’. The problem about being a collector is that you can't see an end game: you start to realise how much of a problem it is when you run out of storage space and albums start to clutter the room. Haslam's inferrence was that it took over his life and it can be a release to simply let it go.

He recalls talking to Pete Tong about his decision to sell his record collection. Tong expressed his horror at this, but when asked where his collection was confessed that it was split over his homes in the UK and America, and that most of it was in storage and he hadn’t even laid eyes on it for years. People here will have albums that haven't been played in over 5 years, but we're simply not able to let them go.

It was only while I went through the laborious task of cataloguing my whole collection on Discogs that I realised I had albums I couldn't remember - or what they contained. I got rid of a few, but nowhere near enough. Before I knew it, they'd been replaced with a bunch of new albums.

At some point I know I'll need to let all of them go to someone who 'might' continue to love and appreciate them (and that's a whole new topic). Until then, I really need to do some pruning...
 


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