When catching up with music purchases becomes an insurmountable chore

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I don't mean stuff you have to review.

I mean, when you've stockpiled records from various places - record shopping, eBay, mailorder, borrowed stuff, downloaded music, whatever - and there is so little time to actually sit and listen (jobs, relationships, chores), that you actually look upon the pile of things you were once excited to own and sigh, knowing full well that they will never get the proper attention.

It becomes so that I know that unless I dub a copy of the new Faun Fables album for my walkman and somehow listen to it at work without getting caught, or in the car on the way somewhere like the bank or post office, I'll probably never get through it.

This happens to me with books too. Am I the only one?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm almost a year behind my listening when it comes to my purchases. i'm desperately trying to catch up right now. at the moment i'm listening to the yeah yeah yeahs album for the VERY FIRST TIME and i bought it upon release.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe you should realise you have a problem and stop buying so much music?

― Jimmy the Saint (Jimmy the Saint), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:47 (twenty-two years ago)

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I have this with books, but how long does it take to listen to a record. My advice: whittle down obviously bad records -- that way you'd never have had the YYYs in the first place.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

It happens with books totally - with music everything gets a listen when I buy it, whether it gets enough listens for me to really get what I can out of it is another matter.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

In the past this used to be the case (but not in the same degree as you), but now I am obsessing over my boyfriend. hah! It still happens with books though. It used to be (and still is in some way) that I would still give it a proper listen but only after a month or longer. This didn't bother me so much: *I* decide how much I buy and I was never interested in someone else's opinion in regard to my obsessions (or anything else for that matter).

― nathalie (nathalie), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't mind.

I reckon I'm not going to be writing about music for the rest of my life and then will have plenty of time to listen to the stuff stock piled.

― Jimmy the Saint (Jimmy the Saint), Friday, 6 February 2004 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i never sigh. i look at it and think "I HAVE A STOCKPILE OF THINGS I REALLY WANT TO HEAR! HOOOOOORAY"

cos life wasn't always like this

― mullygrubber (gaz), Friday, 6 February 2004 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

This precise syndrome has depressed me for the last year or so. I always manage to listen to albums once, but I feel guilty about barely knowing stuff that seems pretty good, while continuing to buy CDs compulsively.. This kind of overlaps with my recent nostalgia for the (teenage) days when I knew by heart every note of the albums I liked.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 6 February 2004 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

It's always a chore, like homework. Same for books and magazines and movies.

Four things have made this significantly worse:

- my job doesn't allow extensive travel anymore, where I used to catch up on everything because I had so much time alone
- my wife, who seems to always have something for me to do
- my kids, who seem to always interrupt me

and #1 with a bullet: TiVo. You have no idea how much time there is to waste until you get TiVo.

― don weiner, Friday, 6 February 2004 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I always feel really guilty or antsy when I buy even three new cds and I don't get to them for awhile. However, I haven't been buying that many records lately (for multiple reasons), and it's been really nice just getting used to a couple of them before moving on.

(like everybody else, this happens a lot more with books)

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 6 February 2004 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm a librarian. i am used to having laods and loads of things i neeed to hear/read.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Friday, 6 February 2004 14:55 (twenty-two years ago)

despite being broke most of the time for the past two years, i always have a pile of like 20 cds i've bought that i look at, think "i need to listen to that," and then ignore. lately i've just been pulling out old records and listening to those - dunno why i suddenly needed to listen to the first anaksimandros album and archaic braille, but i did.

(i don't even want to talk about the 15-20 cds i'm supposed to review and add to my radio station. and i'm supposed to do it SIX MONTHS AGO.)

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Friday, 6 February 2004 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

When I moved last week, I got rid of a bunch of stuff (gave it to my brothers & dad) that I'd had on my "Must Listen To" pile for waaaay too long. I got rid of around 300 discs all together, but about 60 of those were actually (likely) really good stuff that I just had to admit that I would never get around to.

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Friday, 6 February 2004 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

My New Year's resolution this year was to not buy ANY CD's this year. This was for all the reasons mentioned above, also money is tight.
So far it's been surprisingly easy, I have 100's of CDs/tapes I haven't listened to for ages, I borrow stuff from my library and I buy magazines with free CD's on them.
I'd recommend doing this, also I'm really looking forward to all the stuff I'll buy in 2005.
Strangely enough, I don't really have this problem with books.

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Friday, 6 February 2004 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm conscious that I have got a little pile of maybe 20 CD's that I've had for a couple of years now and < have absolutely no idea what on earth I could have been thinking of when I bought them > just seem to keep putting off listening to.

There's also a similar pile of stuff that I've either got through trades or those niggling bonus discs or "rarities" or "remixes" that you sometimes get - especially with "Best Of"'s.

I guess the average is probably a month; far higher at the moment 'though after binging in the sales though, and I'm conscious that I need to be a bit more disciplined - nothing I'm really excited about waits more than a week to be heard 'though.

The thing that's starting to concern me far more than the amount of stuff that I still haven't managed to listen to at all, is the rapidly growing proportion of my collection that I haven't listened to for ages and in particiular the ones that I've only listened to once and need to < may never > get round to listening to again and more thoroughly.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 6 February 2004 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes - and the feeling that you can't listen to one of your favourite albums cuz you've got to do your homework first, ie. give a spin to your new pruchases..

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 6 February 2004 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I decided this year I was going to hold off on going to the record store to get something "I have to have", and instead return to things I haven't listened to more than once, or only partially, or a long time ago. I've been doing a decent job at it, actually; I've only bought three CDs so far this year, and I've listened to all of them once. They need to go back into the rotation.

However, I can think of a bunch of things I need to get RIGHT NOW, so we'll see how I hold out as the year progresses.

― Jeff Sumner (Jeff Sumner), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

My favourite record store closed last week. So I'm sorta looking into the possibility that I'll never buy anything again. Because I hate malls.

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

that's what mailorder and eBay is for dude!!!

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 6 February 2004 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

It happens with records, with books, with DVDs. All of 'em. I am sometimes bemused by it all but hopefully not as depressed as I was.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 7 February 2004 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

(I also note that for about fifteen years I've practiced 'rainy day listening' or the like -- buying/getting something I know I'll like and then...waiting. And when the metaphorical or literal rainy day hits, it's there for me. In ways intense constant conversations like on these boards sorta force my hand a bit these days.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 7 February 2004 17:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Ned, I'm like you in the rainy day department. I still have an unopened Doors live album and when get to it, it will be like vintage wine. It's too bad, though, that I have discarded so many of the empties along the way.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 8 February 2004 06:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Jim, is it one of those Rhino Handmade things? Always been curious about those but haven't purchased any of 'em.

And yeah, I totally suffer from this problem. Christ, do I ever! I'm positive I have a few lps hanging around that I bought EIGHT YEARS ago that I haven't listened to yet. Positive. But I think that kinda comes with the territory of being a vinyl junkie. I always assume that once I retire I'll have ample time to go back and sort through the collection. Very much looking forward to it, in fact.

― Broheems (diamond), Sunday, 8 February 2004 06:29 (twenty-two years ago)

when i retire (and am old) will i still think ed og comeback record has been worth keeping for my rainy day?

― mullygrubber (gaz), Sunday, 8 February 2004 07:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Must... stop... reading... this... thread...
So familiar . . . .

― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Sunday, 8 February 2004 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Broheems: It's an Elektra release. I can't put my hands on it right now, but it came out in 1969 or thereabouts.

― jim wentworth (wench), Monday, 9 February 2004 03:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I tend to find there's like a cutoff date of a few months, after which anything still unlistened will totally lose it's lustre/constitute a huge insurmountable mental block. So y'know, more of a faint pang of regret that I can't bring myself to give a shit about record X anymore rather than wishing I had enough time to listen to it.

I'm crap at listening to music anyway, I have to wait for a period where I feel receptive and then cram in as much as possible.

― ferg (Ferg), Monday, 9 February 2004 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

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