Cleaned out the cds today. Little Guy had done a number on their order system these almost 2 years he's been mobile and it had gotten downright impossible to find anything other than the cds we had bought since the last time he "rearranged" everything. I've kept my musical plethora (is there any other way to put it?) in 2 identical cd shelves all these years since college and they've been living next to my side of the bed in our bedroom (no other place to put them in the house) along with my knitting WIPs and yarn stash. When Little Guy could crawl and felt like visiting me (usually I was folding laundry or something) he soon discovered this and, totally ignoring the yarn and bags thank goodness, he proceeded on numerous occasions to take cds out and put them back. Sometimes they went on the same shelf, sometimes not. Sometimes they were upside down, sometimes labels didn't show, and sometimes they were stacked on top. Sometimes they were left on the floor for me to find. NEVER were they in the same spot or organized genera. NEVER were they in any way shape or form anything but chaotic in their order. He never tore them, took the cds out, or threw them; he only wanted to arrange them. I did try to stop him on several occasions but due to the evidence above, didn't hold to it because, well, he really wasn't hurting anything other than my need for order and it kept him busy while I did whatever it was I was doing. So what if I couldn't find my Lovin' Spoonful Greatest Hits when I needed to get that "You Know You Gotta Make Up Your Mind" song out of my head. I at least knew it was there somewhere.
In the midst of all this financial redo-ing I've been cleaning out (I know, I never needed a financial situation as an excuse to "clean out") and it had hit the point where everything had been gone through. Even the two storage boxes of random electronic junk had been cleaned out 4 months ago when we were on the search of the Sirius satellite radio (a search that continues to this day). All closets, Christmas decor, dishes, cabinets, shoes, kid clothes had been organized and cleaned out at some time in the past 6 months and the WIPs had been dealt with, including stash stuff. Even my fabric was organized. All had been distributed, donated, and anything not being useful was gone. I kept thinking that there was something else I wasn't cleaning out, possibly avoiding, and it didn't come totally clear until I cleaned out the truck of all the cds what that was. The music collection. It had to be next.
Before I was into much anything I was in to music. Not all kinds but I've always enjoyed good music. And I bought a lot of it. It never bothered me much because everything I bought I listened to a lot. Now times have changed, tastes have changed (but some are the same), and some things get collected for the sake of collection, not for true listening appreciation, and those things needed to be weeded out and moved on. I needed to take off the rose colored glasses and be perfectly honest with myself on what I will continue to listen to and what I have not and WILL NOT listen to ever again.
It was a little wistful, a little painful, and a little dirty. They had gotten dusty. The Beatles were hanging out with 1995 Boys II Men and Prodigy (I told you he did a number on my organization) and Coltrane was lost in the middle of Bob Dylan. I did find Lovin' Spoonful and now have that song stuck in my head again. And I was reminded yet again of my crazy fascination with 60s rock and funk. LOVE that stuff! It's kind of funny how rock has kinda gotten back that way and those are the current bands we are listening to and own. I could tell what we had fished out and listened to because they were in stacks rather than lined up in rows and in even a crazier order but at least were more current. Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs were staying cozy with Flight of the Conchords and Frank Sinatra could still hold his own (that's Hubby's cd; I was always a Bobby Darin fan). But I digress. I found the old high school cds that helped me through teenage wasteland and the college cds I bought because it was cool to listen to them and anyone with music sense did, who cares that I didn't really like them. I found my year of Phish, Rusted Root, and Talking Heads and my long love of Belle and Sebastian (Hubby steers clear of that collection). I found those cds that I really liked them but HATE now because they became so over played (Paula Cole, leave us be. Please.) and I found those that I'm not sure why I have them but I still think I need to keep (help! "Blonde on Blonde" and "Highway 61 Revisited"! I only listen to "Nashville Skyline" because Bob sings on those, I only like a few songs on the others. I turn in other cds for that, do I hang on to these because it's Bob?). I realized I only truely liked Radiohead through "OK Computer"; Kid A spoke a totally different language I knew others appreciated but I'm never going to listen to by choice. I also have a bigger collection of jazz and swing than I thought (really nice surprise!) and my classical collection is slowly filling out as we broaden our horizons and need the genius of those. And I'm a harpsichord nut.
So now there is a stack of cds to go now (I think I'm going to wait until I visit LMSS and subject her city to my rejected music tastes; plus there are some pretty good cds in there, I just don't want them anymore), a stack to listen to to make sure I don't want them anymore, and the 2 cd shelves still nearly full but now with things I know we want to keep. I feel ok about it but I still feel like I could go through it again and weed out more. Oh well. You gotta start somewhere. And I'm keeping Sly and the Family Stone to help me through it.
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