Restarting Music Collection from Zero

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A few weeks ago, I packed up and drove down the majority of my possessions to my parents' house for indefinite storage, in preparation for a move to London sometime in the next few months. As I want to go there as lightly as possible - and because I'd like to take advantage of such an opportunity as to reorder my way of life - I decided to box up and leave all my CDs back at the 'rents as well.

I may indeed send for/pickup the CDs after some time, either all together or piece by piece, but at the moment, I'm operating on the premise that I need to restart my music collection, but I don't want to get anything I had before, as it may be restored at a future time. I'm really psyched about this, though, since I feel it'll give me an opportunity to start developing at least a few different tastes while not being able to fall back on my old favorites. I have bought/discovered about ten or so CDs since the storage, but I don't intend to buy much else, if anything, so as to maintain that minimum of personal effects.

Anyway, I'm excited and just wanted to share. Thoughts? Comments? Similar experiences? Advice?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 10 September 2003 06:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd be in despair. I've been collecting records for over 20 years, and pretty much need every last one of them. Just take them all with you.

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 06:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, my collection is only a few hundred CDs, pretty much. I only really started in earnest two years ago.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 10 September 2003 06:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I left England for Canada in '88. I left every last one of my vinyl records, most of them hungrily devoured by friends who turned into voracious gannets, yet others probably still hidden away among my parents' Neil Diamond records. I brought cassettes of the stuff I couldn't imagine living without. But I miss a lot of those records -- the New Order, Cocteau Twins (Peppermint Pig!!!) and Sisters of Mercy 12"s, etc.

I love my CD collection but barely a week goes by without me thinking about some of the stuff I had on vinyl.

In other words, be careful. It's liberating to wipe the slate clean, but if you love music, these decisions can weigh on you.

Then again, I'm a packrat, so... *shrug*

― David A. (Davant), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 07:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you really leave all of them behind Girolamo?

I've been through something similar several times (staying with mates, going to college, squatting, travelling, moving in with girlfriends, etc.) but I never even attempted to leave everything behind and this does seem incredibly drastic.

Like David, my approach was always to identify a bare minium of essentials, tape them, and take those with me (even when I was travelling so light that I didn't have a proper stereo, I always at least had a Walkman!).

More recently my partner sold the house she had a few miles from mine and bought one by the coast and we seem to spend most of our weekends down there now, so I made copies of a couple of dozen "essential" CD's to keep down there (OK, OK, I admit it, I used it as an excuse to retire a few old ones down there and replace them with their new re-mastered extra-bonus-tracks equivalents - damn it, you bastards know me too well!) just in case the couple of CD wallets I always have in the car just aren't enough(!).

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

You need to visit FOPP and go straight to the 5 quid sections, then the 7 quid... We've got a branch in Bristol - especially great for replacing old vinyl really cheaply.

― Jez (Jez), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 11:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I've found that "storage" is merely an unweildy and often expensive stop-gap between one's home and one's trash dumpster. If it's not worth the trouble to take with you....is it worth having at all?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 11:16 (twenty-two years ago)

You should only buy in chronological order

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 13:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you really leave all of them behind Girolamo?

Yes. As I stated above, I have bought a few since which I plan on taking with, but I think that's all I'm taking (for the meantime).

I've found that "storage" is merely an unweildy and often expensive stop-gap between one's home and one's trash dumpster. If it's not worth the trouble to take with you....is it worth having at all?

Understandable idea, but it's literally everything - and I really love almost all of my collection. Actually, I'm almost 100% sure that the CDs will be restored to my newer collection at some later point in time, but I quite honestly have no need to be lugging a monster-size box of CDs all over London while I'm looking for a place to live. And, like I said, I think it's a great experiment in forcing me to expand my tastes, since I don't want to buy anything I own that's in storage, so I won't be able to fall back on my old favorites - I'll have to find new ones.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 10 September 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, my heart goes out to ya, Girolamo. I have my vinyl collection (unplayable at the moment, as I no longer possess a turntable) scattered between an ever-mountingly-expensive storage space in lower Manhattan and my mother's basement out in Long Island. At last count, I have accumulated approximately 2660 compact discs (not counting my wife's disc collection, which I've unforgivably negelected to merge in with my own, given the appalling amount of Van Morrison and Simply Red discs therein) which take's up a very large hippopotamus' amount of space in our ever-shrinking apartment here in NYC. We've recently learned, as mentioned in another thread, that we are expecting a child in April, meaning that space will soon be required to accomodate the trappings of parenthood (everything from crib onward), which means alot more of my silly stupid shit will either have to go [A] into storage, [B] into the trash or [C] become objects of "temporary-albeit-indefinite loan" to friends of mine (as some vintage Clash, Cop Shoot Cop and Iggy Pop framed posters have since become).

`Tis a bitch.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I've done this! Packed up my 1000 or so LPs & 400 CDs & left 'em behind while I went to London for 3 years. I took nothing which scared the hell out of me, but I came back from London with another 400 CDs, about 300 7" singles & 20 or so LPs, so it wasn't all bad! It actually helped me refocus on what I wanted to listen to - no debt of history hanging heavily over certain albums etc. When I got back after I had got everything back together again, I ended up selling a load of stuff that I had left behind - I just didn't care about some of them any more. All in all a very cathartic experience and I'm much happier now having gone through it.

Good luck!

― Bill E (bill_e), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

have done this. went awol for 4 years. can't take but a coupla cassettes in a backpack. and without the history you can focus on the now and LOCAL.

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I always sympathized with that approach, Gaz, but I think it's a little too cold somehow.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

well i didn't have any choice! and it was good. i remember getting really excited on a bus swerving 'round the himalayas when a hindi version of karma chameleon came on the radio. unfortunately all the other backpackers made the driver turn it off and put on a stone temple pilots tape...

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Case logic, guys!

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Embrace the void, Ned!

― Bill E (bill_e), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

er, you too, Nick!

― Bill E (bill_e), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Plastic wallets, guys!

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Thursday, 11 September 2003 00:21 (twenty-two years ago)

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