Casual Observation: Music Collections

Yes, you read correctly: 17,003 items in the music category

As far as I am concerned, the one real drawback to having your entire music collection in MP3 format on your computer rather than cd or vinyl is that when you meet someone new and go to hang out at their home, you can't peruse their music collection. And based on the music you find there (or that you don't find there), make a decision about whether you and the other person were meant to be friends. (Or whatever.)  Because despite the advice I gave to a friend long ago, you might not need to have identical music collections to be an ideal pairing, but having similar musical taste will at least make long car trips with that other person bearable.

I totally associate music collections with going back to school, college in particular. Perhaps it was because I had two heavy huge cases of cds that I just HAD to have with me every year. God forbid I left something at home. When my brother had to carry one of them up to the furthest reaches of the third floor of my dormitory sophomore year, I knew that I was going to be on my own for junior and senior year, which I was. And junior year, I lived at the far end of the fourth floor. It wasn't pretty.

There was so much music sharing going on in college. Even though I had a huge music collection and went through the college student rite of passage known as the Columbia House CD Club (what a mistake), I definitely was introduced to a lot of new music through friends from classical music and show tunes to alternative rockers to ska, ska, and more ska senior year.

And, of course, there was the ever classic mix tape, which now in the 21st century is known as a "playlist" and is shared on websites. (Remember handwriting all of the songs on the liner and patiently lining up the tape with the track so you had just the right amount of filler between the songs? I used to also make collages for the covers of the mix tapes.) If you ever want to clearly understand what the mix tape means to my generation, I highly recommend watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It pretty much says it all.

I have been taking my old mix tapes (both ones I made and ones made for me, which I saved in a very large Tupperware in my basement along with the cds I just couldn't get rid of when I left Boston) and been turning the track lists into playlists. This has meant buying songs on line that I haven't thought of in YEARS. It's actually been pretty cool. And, it's gotten me putting together new playlists. (I actually just put together a new/old one together for JR, which I burned to an MP3 disc, but I still need to mail it. It seemed appropriate to make her something concrete, as she has been the custodian of my vinyl for the last 2.5 years.)

Hmmmm, vinyl.... Remember how you had to flip the record over to hear the other side?