Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Everything Hits at Once
So I have this new iPod. And it has all this space on it, so I've kind of decided that I'm going to put everything I own on it. Well, just music. But believe me, that's plenty.
It has 80 gigs of space, so I can afford to put everything on it. But I don't necessarily like where this has put me, in terms of how I view my music collection.
There are some positives. I may have one of the city's best Neil Young collections. Neil alone must take up several gigs. Then there's all the Neil & Crazy Horse stuff, and the Neil and Pearl Jam stuff, and the Neil on collection albums where he's labeled as "Various Artists". It's a lot.
And other bands are also well-represented: Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Modest Mouse, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Black Crowes, Pixies, Spoon, Wilco, Beck, Bob Dylan, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Nada Surf, Stephen Stills, Decemberists, Steely Dan, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Jam are all well-represented, if not presented with their entire catalogs including some bootlegs.
But then the concept of "everything" kicked in, and I ended up dredging through some of my wife's music. Like her Bon Jovi box set. Some awful Sheryl Crow live CD with like 10,000 guest musicians. Her 4-CD dance music collection which is supposedly "great for working out". Her live, Loggins & Messina double-CD with these awful 10- and 20-minute songs that sound like they are in an alien language.
Then came the kid's music: some terrible, British, Bob the Builder CD. A 3-CD set of mind-numbing children's songs; each of the songs are only a minute or two long . . . but there are 45 songs per disc. Some awful Bengali chant music that never put him to sleep.
But not all this blame can be given away, I'm afraid. Yes, some of these turds are mine. For example: the Hanson CD I bought in college to use as a party closer. It's on right now. It's worse than I remembered it to be. Then there's my well-documented, hated All-American Rejects CD. There's the Justin Timberlake album that BMG sent me when I forgot to respond to their email. That one wasn't even opened because I meant to return it to them two years ago. Then there's the CD the wife and I bought for $10 on our honeymoon. It was this guy, singing Bob Dylan songs while we were at dinner one night. He was great. His CD isn't. It contains no Bob Dylan songs -- no folk of any kind. But it has plenty of '80s synth keyboards and cheesy lyrics. Here are the song titles: "Do It For You", "Brighter Day", "Don't Give Up Your Dream", "So Nice To Know Ya", "The Master's Hand", "Do It For You (Instrumental)". I remember putting it in for the first time. My wife heard it and said, "Oh. Oh. Oh, boy. Will. Turn it off."
I gotta put in some Heatmiser. This Hanson is getting into my brain. I'm can't go to sleep with this in my head or it may hardwire to my memory and kill me.
It has 80 gigs of space, so I can afford to put everything on it. But I don't necessarily like where this has put me, in terms of how I view my music collection.
There are some positives. I may have one of the city's best Neil Young collections. Neil alone must take up several gigs. Then there's all the Neil & Crazy Horse stuff, and the Neil and Pearl Jam stuff, and the Neil on collection albums where he's labeled as "Various Artists". It's a lot.
And other bands are also well-represented: Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Modest Mouse, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Black Crowes, Pixies, Spoon, Wilco, Beck, Bob Dylan, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Nada Surf, Stephen Stills, Decemberists, Steely Dan, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Jam are all well-represented, if not presented with their entire catalogs including some bootlegs.
But then the concept of "everything" kicked in, and I ended up dredging through some of my wife's music. Like her Bon Jovi box set. Some awful Sheryl Crow live CD with like 10,000 guest musicians. Her 4-CD dance music collection which is supposedly "great for working out". Her live, Loggins & Messina double-CD with these awful 10- and 20-minute songs that sound like they are in an alien language.
Then came the kid's music: some terrible, British, Bob the Builder CD. A 3-CD set of mind-numbing children's songs; each of the songs are only a minute or two long . . . but there are 45 songs per disc. Some awful Bengali chant music that never put him to sleep.
But not all this blame can be given away, I'm afraid. Yes, some of these turds are mine. For example: the Hanson CD I bought in college to use as a party closer. It's on right now. It's worse than I remembered it to be. Then there's my well-documented, hated All-American Rejects CD. There's the Justin Timberlake album that BMG sent me when I forgot to respond to their email. That one wasn't even opened because I meant to return it to them two years ago. Then there's the CD the wife and I bought for $10 on our honeymoon. It was this guy, singing Bob Dylan songs while we were at dinner one night. He was great. His CD isn't. It contains no Bob Dylan songs -- no folk of any kind. But it has plenty of '80s synth keyboards and cheesy lyrics. Here are the song titles: "Do It For You", "Brighter Day", "Don't Give Up Your Dream", "So Nice To Know Ya", "The Master's Hand", "Do It For You (Instrumental)". I remember putting it in for the first time. My wife heard it and said, "Oh. Oh. Oh, boy. Will. Turn it off."
I gotta put in some Heatmiser. This Hanson is getting into my brain. I'm can't go to sleep with this in my head or it may hardwire to my memory and kill me.
