Sunday, February 3, 2008

Between Here and There is Even Better Than Here and There

I decided to add a new section to my CD library the other day: The favorite albums section. It just seemed weird that I'd have all these old records that I love tucked away in the CD alcove, so I decided to put them all together in one tidy area, where they could compare cover art and argue about who had better lyrics.

Partially, I realized that I listen to music in a different way nowadays. Either I’m trying to keep up with all the new releases, whether it be for the Rickshaw or KALX or Three Kinds of Stupid, or I put one song from a CD on a mix and listen to it along with a lot of other single songs. So there's a 2008 mix, a 2007 mix, an '80s mix, a singer-songwriter mix, a sounds-like-Pavement mix, a hip-hop mix, a songs-from-friends-mixes mix, etc etc. What I don't do anymore is go back and listen to old records nearly as much.

But after starting my new section, I had a revelation: the cd-changer revelation. Do you remember when you got your first multiple-cd player? Man, that was a sweet day. All that deciding which 5 cds to put into it, all that breathless anticipation of "what song will come up next?!" Well, now it was back! And it was goooood.

This should put to rest that question of whether I'm a nerd or not.


Of course, this process led to other realizations. Like: Luna's Bewitched is as near to a perfect album as you can get, and I'd forgotten how much I liked Quasi's Featuring Birds. Also, that first Rogue Wave record stands up to a lot of other classics, the first Human Television EP is pretty damn timeless (in that it still sounds great, but it also sounds like it could've been made in 1985), and I don't love Slanted and Enchanted as much as I used to (the drums sound like a wet box, which didn't used to bother me). Stay tuned for more fascinating revelations...

1 comment:

ruzxs said...

that's funny, i made a new section too. i call it the "must-haves" section. see, i finally got tired of pulling and refiling all my records every time i dj. it takes a long time! so i created a section for the all those records i must have when i dj, you know like boz scaggs' "hits!"

that pavement drum sound is called "lo fi", it was a revelation in the 90's. still it's a better drum sound than metallica's "and justice for all."