Reaching the end of a music collection


This website has covered our upgrade obsession, but what about our obsession with buying music?

I've accumulated over 1500 CDs (have lost count) over the last 15+ years, and looking through past threads, I know that this isn't even close to what some of you have.

It seems, in the last year, that most of what I buy I don't listen to more than a couple times. Or I'm just buying replacement versions of material that I already have (like new 24 bit remastering versions). Often I'm buying artists whom I'm just not passionate about.

I remember walking out of a record store in high school with the first three records of my own - Led Zeppelin IV, Rubber Soul and Surrealistic Pillow.

I'm wondering how you guys with huge music collections keep your curiosity and interest up, and how you've dealt with reaching the "end" of a music collection.
128x128turnaround
One of the best ways to expand your musical horizons is to explore new musical styles, like Marakanetz says. If you are not sure of what is good in some styles, put up a thread on this forum. The people here are very knowledgeable in a wide variety of music. You may not always agree with their taste, but at least you will probably get a recommendation with good recording quality. If you get into Jazz, you will run out of money before you ever get close to getting all the albums you want. Just Miles Davis alone has something like 60 albums out. Classical music is another real deep hole. There are thousands of different compositions and performances that you can pick from. You may not think that you will like these other types of music, but it can be an acquired taste. And many of the Jazz and Classical recordings sound fantastic on a good audio system. The acoustic instruments provide an excellent venue for evaluating the accuracy of your playback equipment. You may find, as I did, that Jazz and Classical become some of your favorites. If you do this, you will never reach the end. And that doesn't even include the other ones such as folk, bluegrass, zydeco, ethnic, alternative, fusion, etc. The music is out there, you just have to try it. Happy listening.
Turnaround,

I have begun the practice of swapping music with a group of freinds. We are all trustworthy and care for each others CD's as our own. This has evolved into something resembling a pyramid. Each of us has friends outside of the core group that participates and eventually the best music gets to be auditioned by each of us.

This began as a cry for help by yours truely to find the best blues without having to "pay my dues" through mis-spent funds. Not only have I discovered a treasure trove of blues this way but also zydeco, folk, celtic, jazz and some music I can't put a label on. We haven't had the pleasure of a classical enthusiast joining our ranks and enlightening us all but time is on our side.

As a vinyl junkie this practice has brought me much closer to my CD player since so much newer music is not available on LP. For some reason it doesn't bother me at all to loan a handful of CD's for a week while I would never, ever part with an LP for any reason.

This has been good for the music industry and has made me rethink all the controvercy surrounding MP3's and file sharing. Exposure sells product.

Happy listening,
Patrick
Turnaround - I think you answered the question yourself when you mentioned curiosity. As long as you remain curios and open minded, you'll never run out of stuff to buy. I find groups I like and then go explore allmusic.com, a fabulous website, and look for similar artists within the genre. I buy a fair number of CDs that I end up being less than enthralled by, but I also find a ton that are really good. I don't listen to classical music, so I get to avoid all the different recordings of the same piece, and I'll never own 60 CDs by the same artist, but I'm at 1000+ CDs and buy 6-8 once or twice a month without any letup. -Kirk
...david sylvian and his numberous projects with different figures, "king crimson" and its members. check out discipline records. the collection become topless and botomless as well.
I've been listening to classical music for over forty years now; first on lp's, then on cd's, now on lp's again with current analogue playing and cleaning equipment. I will never run out of music or software to listen to or learn about. Classical music can become a very important part of one's life.