I spent a large part of the day organizing the overflowing stacks and boxes of CDs that were blocking the area around my desk. It had gotten to the point that, after I'd trip and curse, I still couldn't find things I wanted to hear even though I knew there were in there somewhere and what's the point of that?
I tried to be ruthless in deciding what I really wanted to keep, and filled a grocery bag's worth of various discs - mostly from 2008 press mailings - to take to the trade-in store. Maybe half of them I had a chance to listen to, and I apologize to the rest. But I need to make space for the new year's bounty. As it is, I'm falling behind in tracking many fine new albums that have come in so far this year.
My facebook status for today: "Marianne has too many CDs (cry me a river)."
Yeah, it's a nice problem to have. And then there's all the downloads I've been pulling in, too. As I mentioned in the last post, the Village Voice didn't run my full comments about preferring physical CDs to zip files and audio streaming.
To which my delightful cousin-in-law posted (I'll repeat it so you don't need to refer to the comments area):
"Physical vs audio files debate. Hmmm, you get more quality in the plastic disc version until you scratch it. I always find it annoying that only a handful of CD's contain the encoding that has the track data on that. The great power of ripping them on the computer is the power to search, organize and cook up your own playlists. I'm such a picky person that I love the ability to download a single 99 cent song from an album from Amazon (with no DRM nonsense) rather than cough up $15 for an album. If they really wanted plastic to be competitive they would create encoded CD's that can play on multi-speaker arrangements (like concert DVD's today). Wait a minute, already have that with Netflix streaming in..."
Which gives me a great excuse to post what the Voice didn't use:
I miss CDs. In 2007, on my blog (I gave them the URL, hoping for some hits!), I tracked the number of CDs that I purchased or got in the mail from publicists or bands, plus a handful of full-lengths that I downloaded from press sites or bought through iTunes and emusic. The grand total was just over 1000.
In 2008, I stopped counting, but I know there were many fewer physical CDs sent - the preferred delivery system became zip files and streaming. That makes sense when time is of the essence for a story, but it doesn't when it's pushing a new band I know nothing about. I get a half-dozen emails a week asking me to download a new release to check it out.
I know...I'm complaining about being offered free mp3s (cue the world's smallest violin as I assume the martyr pose) but I miss liner notes and band photos and a better sense of who these new artists are - just the kind of thing I get from CDs. And I don't have the time, bandwidth or hard drive space to store dozens of albums that I may or may not want to reference. I honestly try to give everything that comes through the door a fair listen and it's easier when I can grab a few CDs as I head for the car or the office.
I know I’m a dinosaur in the digital world. And I still love me the vinyl, too.
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and that's where I'll leave it for now.
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