Your geekiest music collecting pet peeves

Curtis Mayfield's "Supefly" springs to mind

xpsot of course

Hello!

that said, i remembered worse examples of this - those smiths cd singles did the same thing (full width album case for the first part, double case for the second part thus rendering the first case completely superfluous). and belle and sebastian who re-released their first three cd singles as a box of 3 20 minute cd singles rather than putting all the music on one disk.

also, double cd cases. some hinge from the middle, some hinge from the edge and it's never obvious which is which.

no tracklisting on the outside of the case is worst when said case is still in the shop and security sealed.

one more: primal scream - echo dek.

or the sleeves that are folded such that you have to get your fingernails inbeteween the paper and the plastic .. knowing full well that the process is going to rip/fold/crease the booklet .. when sliding it out ..

BTW - pump up that point re lettering being wrong way around .. i mean c'mon ! tis not rocket science ..

Trying to file 3" CDs.

Filing all your Kool Keith or MF Doom or Wu-Tang stuff in one section, then forgetting that you did that.

When you only have one CD by a band, and its in a slipcase, so you totally forget you own it.

Really tight grippy holes in a CD case. You tug and tug and tug and the CD doesn't come out until it snaps in half (this happened to disc 3 or 4 of my Anthology Of American Folk Music!)

someone still attempting to play with the severe limitations of cd packaging is commendable...i like a little mystery with my artwork...i like something i can leave on my desk and someone will walk by and pick it up and say, "what's this."

if i'm looking for a specific song by an artist i will have allmusic-ed or amazon-ed the tracklisting before i go to the record store...problem solved. i don't see the packaging as just being an album information holder. put me in a mood, surprise or confuse me...and to quote the movie Night of the Creeps, "thrill me."

one concession...actuel and blue jazz releases that had to stick with two panels. they used the front like a movie poster and the back like a one-sheet. nice.

Or indeed, the opposite, where the feckin' CDs are constantly falling out (see: Pierre Schaeffer, "L' Oeuvre Musicale")

Those Impulse reissues are absolutely the worse for this, after looking at the enclosed booklets two or three times they look like they've been passed round the changing rooms a couple of dozen times by the Turkish Olympic Wrestling team

Try holding the edge of the case with your fingers and pressing the center thingy (like you have to do with some DVD cases).

those slightly-larger-than-the rest cds (Orange Juice The Glasgow School comes to mind) that don't fit on the shelves w/ the rest, and consequently lie forgotten, elsewhere

call me lazy, but i demand TRACK NUMBERS next to track names. counting thru the list to find the number of the track you want to hear next is a constant frustration

how about those ultra-sticky clear labels across the top of new cds? WHY CANT THAT GO ON TOP OF THE SHRINKWRAP? WHY??

re: above posts: Deerhoof's The Runners Four: i broke the case trying to open it, then, the cd was stuck in the center thing--took ten minutes to free it, and, finally, on the back: NO TRACK NUMBERS!!

CD cases that have a bunch of plastic prongs that are supposed to hold the disc in place but have instead shattered leaving the album floating in the case while plastic shards rattle around.

Artists who have the first few releases in very similar packaging that looks great on the shelf only to switch graphic styles and go from a digipak to a jewel case after a few releases. Anymore the only reason I really want to keep albums is nice packaging.

Those paper cases that still have the seat for the CD never seem able to hold it in place, so if you move the album it's always falling out. And fuckin' slipcases that are so tight and of such cheap material that you can't help but rip them when you pull out the album (happens more with tiny cds). I also hate buying jazz reissues that have all of the liner notes printed like on the LP, only shrunk down. What, I'm supposed to use my loupe to read about the line-up? Motherfuckers.

Brand new, shrinkwrapped CD albums, that when you open them, the teeth fall out, so it can't 'hold' the CD anymore.

OTM!!

And I've never found anything "special" about them either,

those slightly-larger-than-the rest cds (Orange Juice The Glasgow School comes to mind) that don't fit on the shelves w/ the rest, and consequently lie forgotten, elsewhere
Yup. The worst recent offender was the deluxe version of the new Belle And Sebastian, especially since in retrospect I would have been perfectly happy with the other version. (Or no version at all?)

I love that comp, but yeah, fuck the packaging. I took it in the van the other day, but left the cardboard slip at home because i didn't want it to get fucked up and bent in my bag. My friends were like "ooh, what's this track?" I had a full jewel case and full liner notes, yet there was NO WAY for me to know what song it was without the cardboard sleeve!

Also - I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YEAR THE TRACKS ON COMPS LIKE NY NOISE WERE RECORDED!! ALRIGHT?

http://www.toponeraegunbuster.com/cd01-obi.gif

Grab the fucker out of the sleeve, slap it down on the turntable and stick a needle on it, what's the big mystery?

ALSO- re-issues that have identical sleve design to the original. all i'm asking for is some tiny itty bitty type that says "This edition reissued 20xx." I know you can look at the quality of cardstock to tell the difference but there should be something comprable to the edition numbering found in the first few pages of a book. The new 99 reissues are a perfect example.

Or Trojan CDs from the early 90s in which wrongly numbered tracks are, in turn, recomplied on other albums such that the WRONG ARTIST AND THE WRONG SONG are credited! I can think of several examples of this. For instance the Music Club "Jamaican Deejays" album which has been partly compiled from Trojan's "Give Me Power" Lee Perry comp., so that a Dillinger track is actually a wrongly numbered Upsetters' track. Which is an instrumental. On an album of Jamaican deejays.

the last prince buster cd i bought had less track titles than actual tracks.

one of the orchids lps has a track on it that isn't in the listing *AND* two of the tracks are segue together as a single track on the cd but are listed as two on the sleeve. confusion.

> re-issues that have identical sleve design to the original

and re-issues that *don't* have identical sleeve designs to the original 8) - my copy of artificial intelligence 2 doesn't match the copy of artificial intelligence 1 because the writing on the spines has been changed (smaller and moved) in the later editions. looks messy.

1. when the rpm is not listed on a record where it is not immediately obvious which it is from listening.

2. when one format is packaged in a way mostly reserved for another--for example: 5" records that are the size of cd's or cd's packaged in a full-size LP sleeve (rare, but it does exist). I simply CANNOT file them alongside a different format. I also hate awkward packaging of any type that makes the item hard to store (main culprit=box sets)

when you cant find burned cd's cause you got way too mnay of them.

the fact that in burned cd's you dont really know the titles of the songs.

The new 99 reissues are bootlegs, I think.

I also hate the cardboard gatefold cd cases, where you have the little flap. Like Giant Sand's Glum. I always manage to scratch the disc taking it in and out.

really? i thought they were legit...

what about the no new york reissue?

my pet peeve is when SLSKers use crappy systems for labeling and organizing their music.

but yeah, that fucking no numbered tracklisting on the back of cd cases bugs the shit out of me.

1. "The Black Album" is withdrawn. Not released until four years later, making it hard to tell whether it belongs between "Sign "O" The Times" and "Lovesexy" or between "Diamonds And Pearls" and the nameless one in the shelves.

2. The "Lovesexy" CD consists of only one track, making skipping impossible

3. Releases an album in 1992 that has no name other than a symbol (Led Zeppelin did the same thing in 1971, but did at least hint in interviews that "4" might be the name of the album)

4. Changes his artist name into the same friggin' symbol (So where to put his albums in the shelves from them on?)

5. Spends the 90s releasing albums under various monickers, making it hard to tell whether they are Prince albums or not.

roffletastic

Don't forget that Sign O The Times could fit on one disc.

I don't think so.

what about the no new york reissue?

that's questionable.

Rhino is really good about this, especially their Nuggets sets (although I wish they'd called the new one Nuggets Something so I could file all 12 disks together).

1: Extra thin cases/cardboard sleeves, ESPECIALLY if no writing on the spine

2: Superfluous packaging/packaging within packaging, like when you buy an ECM release and it has that cardboard sleeve around the jewel case (What am I supposed to do with this thing?) or those Atlantic reissues that came out for a little while with the annoyingly thin cardboard sleeve that fit inside a cardboard digipak of sorts.

Why don't you just file them together?

Honestly it's the next set in the conceptual whole. I don't think anyone would disagree with placing part III after part II, even if their names don't line up in the alphabet

I think some people are being (or attempting to be) very conceptual and open-ended with this -- empower the listener! Our art is an implement to be employed in the manner of your choosing! We will not force upon you pedestrian details like "proper" speed!

Not my copy, no (unless "It's Gonna Be a Long Time" was edited, which would have been no bad idea)

- blank spines
- bonus unlisted tracks that come a whole minute or more after the final real track (half the time when I'm listening to discs, I'm doing something else while the CD plays in the background, and if I'm really starting to get in a groove with what I'm doing, I don't want to have to GET UP and fast-forward through the silence just to get to this track - that is, if it's worth hearing)

The latest Shadow Ring record, meant to be played at 45, also sounds great at 33.

Cleared it up for you

"It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night", I mean (although that other title would have fit better)

I see no reason to have hip-hop, R&B, electronica, dance or anything separate at all. Group everything from artist names.

Boris based their entire career on ripping off the first 20 minutes of Lysol. Yet the Melvins somehow seem to get left out of every art-farty thinkpiece on "subterranean metal" for some reason.

I don't have a problem with this, and I don't necessarily see it as "fucking with the tracklisting" - except on those Blue Note reissues which will place a bonus "alternate take" directly after the master take. THAT is stupid. Ideally, bonus tracks should be programmed after the original LP, with (if there's time enough) a delay of several minutes silence to maintain the integrity of the original album, which should appease the purists. (Like me, sometimes.)

-- Whiney G. Weingarten

And howbout the original 1999, which omitted "D.M.S.R" entirely, even tho the whole LP was barely 70 fucking minutes!

Y'know, despite the Melvins oversight (and no Naked City's Leng T'che, WTF?!) I actually really enjoyed that Wire piece. And even discovered a few records!

Plus, British beard strokers are still 100x better than American "nigel hipsters."
http://aprilfish.blogspot.com/2005/12/making-plans-for-nigels.html

and then Dale asked "wanna see something cool?" and went to the back of the bus and retrieved a signed, ted nugent bow hunting arrow.

pretty damn hot.

Classical album downloads that don’t include booklets.

those Blue Note reissues which will place a bonus "alternate take" directly after the master take. THAT is stupid.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 27 February 2006 12:18 AM (eighteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fuckin yeah not a truer word spoken in 18 years

The Melvins "Lysol" Album which is on one track - and all the music worth listening to it is buried 20 minutes in on what would be "side two" I understand the Melvins' aesthetic - but that doesn't mean I like the way they make you listen to their noise shit to get to the alice cooper cover.

From my interview with them for The Wire:

“When we were doing it,” explains Osborne, “we were thinking, ‘Everyone’s going to skip this first song, because it’s so long. I don’t think that’s fair to the song, so we’re not IDing it.’ And that’s my favourite song on the record. They have to listen to it now, or fast forward through it. Or they have to buy the vinyl, which nobody’s gonna do.”

i think its supposed to make it easy for fanatics to do a sort of A/B of a track but its always annoying. as are bonus or live tracks at the end of a compact disc. two discs or go home. i will say that i have listened to mosaic discs and the like that have 5 or more alt. tracks in a row and after awhile it just becomes a part of the background. i don't even notice it. its like listening to the longest version of "lush life" ever made.

x-post

The most recent Mosaic box I got — Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946, released late last year — actually put alternate takes at the end of each CD, not back-to-back with the original version! Someone over there finally learned!