I Tried To Leave You Behind

Apropos Of Nothing...

 I'm getting into my classical music collection lately. I've not really given these CDs a spin in the last few years or so, partly because I'm always looking for new stuff and they get buried behind my newer purchases. And the funny thing about one's music sitting on the shelf is that it's simply a case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. You're constantly listening to what's at the front and not at the back of shelves. Anyway, what with the pandemic going on, I've decided to re-import all my CDs into my mac as Apple Lossless files - a task that's simply been overdue for years but rivalled in tedium only by playing monopoly and sitting in casinos without gambling. Bye-bye 192kbps, and all that. Theoretically, I shouldn't even need my discs after I've imported them because I'd have them as lossless files sitting at my fingertips on my computer. I should just be able to pack the damn things away and stick them in storage. 

...And I just can't. I've been pondering why that might be the case. I think it's because I am despite my own protestations and denials, just another one of those people who are way too in love with their record spines and CD spines. You see, it's like my autobiography writ large on those spines. The where and when of purchasing some stupid album that was hard to find; The time I was in city 'x' and I happened to come across 'y'; the tortuous quest to find a copy of 'z'. Those kinds of mini-narratives tied in with a weird sense of identity tangled up with an emotional attachment makes it really hard to just say, "you know what? These can go in plastic tubs and sit-in storage now."

So that's pretty much the lot of a media hoarder. 

I don't own valuable stuff. I don't have any gems, jewellery or exotic coins or for that matter bars of gold. I don't own memorabilia and collectibles - I've just got music and movies. Even my sort-of-dress-watch isn't really all that valuable in the watch stakes. A watch repairer tried to sell me a beautiful replacement band once. I had to say no because the band was 5 times what I paid for my watch. I don't even own memorabilia discs like signed copies of CDs and LPs. I just have the regular music stuff, and that's what I can't really leave behind - but collectively I like them. It's a big chunk of my life. How'bout you?

Come Join The Fun!

View From The Couch - 20/Feb/2016

The End Of CDs

I ordered 'Dark Star' from JB Hi-Fi. Something went wrong with the order - which seems to be the waylay luck goes these days, - and the PayPal transaction never went through.I didn't realise this until month went by and my order didn't arrive. I only found out after I queried the order, and so I trekked in to a JB HiFi store to buy my copy. On the way to the counter I picked up the last Frank Zappa album on the shelf, which just so happened to be 'Guitar', an album Walk-Off HBP was hoping to encode lossless into his iTunes.

It turns out that CDs don't last forever after all. Somehow some rogue bit of moisture gets in and compromises the data storage. Walk-Off HBP had been moving his vast CD collection on to a hard disk only to find some of his older CDs had died on the shelf. I don't think any of my CDs have died just yet, but the indication is, it's very possible; I'd have to go through them all one by one to find out It's quite the drag. I don't think I could face such a task.

The oldest CDs I own are 'Aliens Ate My Buick' by Thomas Dolby and '90125' by Yes. I remember buying those thinking, this is the first day of my CD collection. They both still function so clearly it's not just age which affects these things. You can't get too wedded to formats. Videotapes were great when there was nothing else around;  DVDs were an excellent improvement until the Blu-Ray came along in HD 1080p; LPs were great when that was all there is; cassettes were fine until a better alternative came along. And while the future of CDs looks greatly diminished, the format of 16bit 44.12KHz will live on a bit longer.

Each time any technology gets updated, you have to bite the bullet and move on to the next thing. The funny thing is even if you know this to be abundantly true, it's hard to let go of the old tech. It's not as if the practical advantages of the CD has disappeared. The future is likely digital files streamed from some place and we pay subscriptions for this pleasure, and ownership of blocks of units goes into the past, proper listening will demand you control aspects the physical medium itself. It's a strange world in any case because Led Zeppelin have a LP box set out with CDs included for each of their albums. I wondered just what kind of person dropped $199.99 for that package of 'In Through The Out Door'. A lot of this tech has a long tail.

Walk Off HBO said that once he is done transferring all his discs on to a hard drive, he'll be able to pack up all his CDs into boxes. It would be the end of the CD era for him. It's such a weird thought. Yet I can recall way back in the mid-80s, Walk-Off HBP had crystallised that idea. He had created a fictional character who lives in the future who carried around a huge library of 20th century recorded music on a tiny data storage unit. Little did he know he was really talking about himself.