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The Big Takeover > essays

My Music Collection Has Become a Forest

by Dave Heaton
20 June 2007

I’ve probably thought, and written, too much in recent years about the practicalities of music-collecting, but still I persist. A few things lately have me thinking about the best ways to organize and keep track of my CDs, records, tapes and MP3 files. One is, of course, the ever-present issue of space (ever-present, that is, for big-city small-apartment-dwelling) – which only matters because I care some about the aesthetics of my home and thus don’t feel like living among stacks and stacks of music. Another is my ongoing quest to keep my music collection meaningful to me; to not keep getting more music just for the sake of having more things. But the third one was more of an event: this week my computer’s hard drive crashed and wiped out my iTunes library.

On the one hand, it makes me glad I haven’t given myself over to the computer era completely, though if I did so I certainly would have been better about keeping back-up copies. At the same time, I feel liberated somehow. My iTunes library is now a blank slate, ready to be built again. Most of the music came from my own CDs, anyway. It’s got me thinking, though, about how my music collection no longer resembles one collection, but a maze of interlocking collections. The iTunes library is like a mirror version of my CD collection, but only reflecting some of it back. But a mirror that also picks up other random things, and that changes day to day.

It’s similar to the other intersections among formats – the way I’ll have an album on CD, cassette and record, just because I kept coming across a cheap copy I couldn’t pass up, or because I forgot I owned it. How did I get so many different copies of Purple Rain, for example? Who’s to say – it’s a philosophical question. The music industry is certainly helping my collection become more of a forest, with all of their reissued and repackaged version of the same music (a trick I only sometimes fall for).

I’m feeling this growing desire for a map. It sounds ridiculous, really, but I’ve started the Sisyphus-like task of documenting every piece of music I own. Keeping a spreadsheet or database of it all: a foreign task for someone unmathematical and unorganized like myself. Never mind that I get more music, for reviewing or from purchasing, on a near-daily basis. Right now it feels like a worthwhile use of time…or am I experiencing one of illnesses you get from spending months wandering about un-navigable territory?

What does everyone else do? Is it only anal-retentive types with too much time on their hands who endeavor to keep track of everything like this, or has this become a necessity for those of us who aren’t ready to keep up on all the old formats, or aren’t ready to turn our cherished records and tapes into an untouchable digital format, to turn music into air?

Filed under music music industry

Comments

This raises many points which I’d rather not think about at this point in time.


— Tim B.    2007-06-20 12:11    #

If space becomes an issue for you, then I suggest keeping the current year (2007) plus the prior year (2006)purchases at hand, and put everything else in boxes and storage. (Attic, closet, or rented space). I haven’t done this myself because I have enough space,but I have tracked my listening habits and find that this is where I go 90% of the time, only digging into the archives on occasion or when I want to share something I just finished discussing with a friend. I keep a Word Document list of my current year (and prior) purchases to avoid duplication. Let me know if this has any merit for you . . . .


— Mike Clarke    2007-06-20 17:43    #

When I was in college, my roommate would have parties in our room. After one night when posters disappeared from my wall, I became paranoid that my albums would be next and started a database just to keep track. I keep my recent (this year’s) purchases in a separate rack and merge them with my main racks at the end of the year, at which point I enter them into my database. Likewise, I do an annual purge of redundant, disappointing or otherwise unplayed stuff (usually 50-100 CDs) and move then into another database. I can carry this info on my Treo and always know what I’ve got.

But, yes, it’s a bit crazy to do so.


— Mr. Odd    2007-06-21 11:40    #

Yeah I think I’m definitely moving towards the database thing – I’ve typed up the titles of maybe 1/4th of my CDs so far. It’s so time-consuming though – and when I start thinking about all the other stuff (documenting my LPs, 7”s, cassettes?) it starts getting way crazier. Mike’s idea about keeping just the past year stuff on hand is interesting, but I dont want to get too “new”-centric. I like seeing the older stuff so I remember it. Thanks for the ideas, though.


— daveheaton    2007-06-22 15:09    #

I’ve had a database going ever since my apartment was burglarized and I lost about 700 CDs. Thankfully, I had insurance, but, it was tough remembering exactly what I had.


— unrequited    2007-06-25 12:39    #

database wouldn’t do me any good unless i had access to it while shopping. my pile of unintentional dupes grows…


— loves    2007-06-26 17:18    #

I do this. Well, I did it and kept current up until a year or so ago when I had to move all my CDs and I lost track of the piles I had entered and which I hadn’t. I mark down the artist, title, record label (if there are several versions of an old title) number of tracks and running time. It is very time consuming and really serves no purpose (my home insurance doesn’t cover CDs, I asked) but comes in quite handy when friends borrow CDs or for settling arguments (“no, [i]Tumbleweed Connection[/i] came out before [i]Goodbye Yellow Brick Road[/i].” If anyone wants pointers, I’d be happy to help out or provide a sample. Plus, there are a few great programs out there on the internet specifically devoted to such a thing.
(There’s even one where if you buy a corresponding scan gun and plug it in to your USB, you can scan the UPC and it’ll automatically add all the pertinent info. Great idea, but it’s expensive and also wouldn’t do jack for all the promos I’ve amassed.)

P.S. No “Footprints” in your Tribe called Quest top 10?


— heyadamo    2007-06-30 01:09    #

If your HD is still spinning, it’s contents can be recovered. There are a lot of fairly inexpensive recovery programs available.


— Bill    2007-07-02 08:30    #

“my pile of unintentional dupes grows…”

That’s me too! In the last 6 months I’ve purchased THREE copies of the Channel 3 C.D. Hell – I just turned 41 maybe that’s how it goes.

I’d like to learn more about that UPC gun actually…It sounds like it might make tracking music REALLY easy. Expensive? How expensive? In my position flipping through and entering data from a few thousand titles manually sounds really expensive too. I need more time in the day!


— Paul    2007-07-03 17:42    #

There are many software apps that will look up the CD information from Gracenote or another online CD database and then populate the corresponding entry fields.

http://www.firetongue.com/
http://www.base40.com/


— Bill    2007-07-04 08:39    #

I’ve never done the DB for my music, basically because I’ve gone all digital. However I’ve tried to keep a DB for movies and such, complete with alphabetized storage boxes. I stopped after a few months; I just couldn’t take the tedious note keeping. Now the piles have grown, again… like dunes.


— Zeb    2007-07-05 20:12    #