Do you love your music collection?

I love my collection, but it is not what ANYONE would consider quality.

Technically, it should be impossible to love your entire music collection at all times. However, you should have go-to music for whatever mood you're in.

I listen to songs over and over, ad infinitum. Then, I get sick of the song for years.

My collection got fucked up when Apple abandoned iTunes (as an app), stopped updating the app. Meanwhile, they were working on Apple TV and Apple Music.

My sister recently invited me to her Amazon Music package and now I can listen to pretty much anything I feel like. I'm re-appreciating the rock songs from the past now.

[quote]share what you consider the best of it if you don’t mind. I really need to expand my horizons and find some quality music.

Sounds like music doesn't really turn you on.

This

I have a lot of music from my youth (80s and beyond) and I still like it but I'm tired of a lot of it. I'm trying to learn more about the music that came before. Mostly jazz, big band, swing, lounge, some 50's, 60s and the wall of sound/British invasion, and LOVE the 70s music of all genres: singer/songwriter, classic rock, glam rock, folk, pop, and disco. I also have been trying to revisit Grunge and 90s club/acid/house music. Most music after the 90s kind of sucks. There are a few good new finds but I do mean, FEW. Someone recently turned me onto to Lissie, and I really like her.

I stopped listening to music in the car years ago.

I don’t know why.

R6, try the Clash, London Calling album.

Some music sounds good in one environment and terrible in the other. Dance music sounds great in a club, but terrible on a radio in an office. Singer songwriter music sounds great when you listen to it alone in a dimly lit room, but terrible at a party.

I LOVE music and I'm 48 - which means I collected physical media back in the day. I have around 1000 CDs, three crates of vinyl, even some cassettes. There's a substantial core in there that I love; surrounded by suburbs that are okay, and then exurbs that are WTF? Lol.

I kind of wish all my stuff were on CD. I would get rid of the "jewel cases" though and put them in a binder. The CD stuff is something you own and can put wherever you like.

I haven't kept physical media for music in over a decade.

I don't do anything with my CDs and other physical media like getting rid of jewel because I bought a house with a decent sized basement that I use pretty much just for storage. So there's plenty of room to keep it. If I would move to smaller place - like back to an apartment or condo, or for some reason needed the space in my basement, I'd definitely have to decide what to do with it. I still use physical media, but obviously not anywhere near what I used to.

What’s a music collection?

God yes. I spent years building that collection tracking down rare CDs, 45s, and LPs from even other countries. I was smart and only bought music from artists I truly love instead of blind buying just any random CD for sale at Best Buy or Barnes & Noble.

I do enjoy streaming and have bought quite a few songs from iTunes/Apple Music, but I’ve noticed they’ve taken down some songs I purchased or uploaded different mixes of songs I had purchased. Also, I purchased songs due to the good quality mastering only to find out Apple changed them out for “Apple Digital Master” which is compressed into oblivion and sounds like utter shit.

So, yes, I do love my music collection because I bought only what I truly love. And I will always have access to my physical media where no one can delete it or change mixes and masterings on me.

OP, you just need to curate what you really love versus having a collection for the sole purpose of having a collection.

I do love my music collection. For whatever annoying reason(s), I’ve never been able to just put the radio or SiriusXM on in the background and do other stuff. I can’t put music on in my car and just leave it. Every song has to mean something to me or make me feel something, or I’m scrambling to change the song immediately. It’s weird. And awkward if I’m in a vehicle with someone else.

That said, I have tons of music: LPs, cds, iTunes, Amazon unlimited music. Over the years, as I listen/like new songs, or remember old songs from years ago, I’ve collected them, then I created playlists based on my mood, what I’m doing, or the anticipation of a mood.

And sometimes I just want to hear a song I like. Today it’s Mars Simula by Chevelle. Yesterday it was Change of Heart by Tom Petty. Or I can go weeks without hearing any music and instead I listen to comedy channels on SiriusXM in the car and silence at home. Then suddenly I’ll get the urge to hear something like 10,000 Days by Tool or Animals by Pink Floyd or better yet, To Venus and Back by Tori Amos, and will listen to the whole album on repeat all day.

I still have all my vinyl from when I was a teenager. I will never part with. Lots of Bowie, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Kate Bush.

This timeless classic is the crown jewel of my collection:

This afternoon, I've been listening to some French albums of Pet Clark, then veering off to Lawrence Welk Lp's.

R20, it sounds like you listen to what you love versus what you’re expected to listen to according to society’s norms.

Mostly, yes. Some of the fads I embraced - early 2000s British stuff and some chill electro - has aged poorly but 95 percent, I like or love.

The transition from iTunes to Apple Music fucked up my files, though. Always have to spend a few minutes repairing something about them - missing info, formatting, the image for the cover, etc.

[quote] Also, I purchased songs due to the good quality mastering only to find out Apple changed them out for “Apple Digital Master” which is compressed into oblivion and sounds like utter shit.

Oh? In my Apple Music Library (and Apple Music streaming subscription), nearly all of the tracks are listed as being “Lossless”. You’re saying all that music, despite being lossless, is nonetheless compressed into oblivion and sounds like shit?

I honestly can’t hear a difference in quality between the Apple Music streams and the true lossless WAV files I have of certain albums, so… ?

I do. I've been buying recorded music since buying 45s by Little Peggy March, Lesley Gore, the Ronettes, the Crystals, and the Beach Boys in 1963. I've sold collections of LPs twice. I wish I'd kept the second collection, but tinnitus makes listening to speakers placed across the room painful. The hiss takes up the entire space between the speakers and my brain.

I have around 700 CDs, including nearly everything I ever loved. Half of them are classical. I stopped listening to most pop music during the '80s. I just didn't like much of it, and I started listening to classical in 1986, right after getting my first CD player. I heard a Schubert piano sonata in a store, and had to have it.

Now, my CDs are stored in purpose-built white cardboard boxes, and I listen to music via iTunes on my laptop from an external hard drive. I have 78 days worth of music stored. As I read and typed this, I've listened to "Hey Jude," "Ooh, Ooh Baby" and two other songs by Linda Ronstadt, "Don't Worry Baby" by the Beach Boys, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," and "American Pie."

Why would I dislike my music collection? I actually listen to quality music, not trends. Everything I have in it is absolutely top notch and I stand by it. Though I do tire of some songs after listening to much to them.

To add to that, good music is going to be good music no matter the age or time. If you think it's bad now it probably always was.

I bought too many 200g Beach Boys LPs in my early 20s. I’ve tried selling them before, but USPS doesn’t make a proper box for LP shipping. Otherwise my LPs are a mixture of 60s-70s early 80s. I really would love to get some Red House Painters on vinyl.

I have inherited a large collection of pop-country 45s from my New Orleans-radio DJ uncle. He left them to rot in my grandmothers shed and my mother saved them sometime in the late 90s — a good deal of my LPs also come from that collection.

[quote]I bought too many 200g Beach Boys LPs in my early 20s.

Which ones, r27? And which manufacturers/labels?

I have Pet Sounds, Surf’s Up, Summer Days and Summer Nights, and Friends on 200g and Friends is a 180g reissue. The 200g pressings were made by Analogue Productions, got them from ‘Acoustic Sounds’. The 180g Friends is from United pressings in Nashville. R28

A big chunk of my music 1970 and later. I do have some jazz vocalists and a few 1950s era jazz records, and a fair number of 1960s artists, including Dusty (one of my faves), Miss Warwick, and so on.

There was a dearth of music available on vinyl from 1990 - which was around the time LP's started to go away - to somewhere between 2005-10, when they began to resurface. A lot of my college era favorites either didn't have LPs or the originals were several hundred dollars.

Be warned if you begin to buy vinyl records that NEW does not always equal BETTER. I don't mean the artistic content here, I am speaking of the sound quality of the pressing.

Some new pressings have been very bad, or weren't checked after pressing.

Some pressing plants have bad reputations - few of the same old plants are still in business, and all the old engineers and pressing experts died off.

And some pressings are not taken from the masters, but instead are from digital files, which will often sound tinny or muffled on a vinyl record.

Discogs (a free database) is immensely useful, in part because you can see the comments of others as to how good a pressing may be.

I could go on but nobody asked so I'll just sit down. LOL

R30, I want to second your warning about new vinyl. I bought so many craptacular re-releases, I gave up. Unlike r29, I never bought anything from Analogue Productions. I believe I had given up on vinyl before they released anything I wanted that much. R29, how is the sound quality on your Beach Boys albums?

The sound of new vinyl has improved, compared to say 10 years ago, except for maybe the smallest batch releases manufactured at lesser plants. Best to do as much investigating as you can about a new release before you buy it.

I have picked up absolutely flawless new releases and the common denominators are the pressing plants. Good star plants include RTI (California), Pallas/Furnace (Germany), and Optimal Media (Germany).

R31 — they sound incredible. The Analogue Productions version of ‘Pet Sounds’ is known to most Beach Boys collectors as the best modern reissue of the record, the only comparable is the version that was released on Brother/Warner with ‘Carl and the Passions/So Tough’. Analogue Productions also has wonderful quality record sleeves that feel so solid in the hand. I hope someday I could afford more of their reissues. $35-60 a record definitely dents the pocket more than it used to.

I know this wasn't a vinyl thread BUT in case anyone is thinking they may want to start buying vinyl again......

There's a brand called Crosley that does cutesy record players, often the "all in one" players (looks like the old 70s players with speakers under the turntable. DO NOT buy those - they are crappity crap crap and your records will skip.

You can get a very decent new turntable for $200 and to be honest, even a set of thrift shop speakers and a turntable from there is likely to be significantly better quality.

Muriel's limited re-release of "A Very Special Datalounge Christmas" on chartreuse vinyl. A close second of course is Ginny from billing's double album, "To Step Away From My Desk is Murder," on which she played all the instruments.

I love mine. I've been a music fan since I was a little kid. Been into vinyl for a long time as well, starting with a box of old 45s I found in my attic as a kid (thanks dad!). My music journey has been long and rambling, and I will listen to anything once. I have and listen to a lot of folk rock & classic rock from the 50s 60s & 70s. Motown, Atlantic Records r&b, Gram Parsons 😍, The Mamas and the Papas, PRINCE (his early singles & b-sides are WORTH IT), Donny Hathaway, Rush, the list goes on.

Favorite weird finds at record stores: An antique store near me has a surprising collection of local & regional records from decades ago. I found one that was an album of Christian folk recorded by a group of local seminarians. They had a big picture of them on the front cover and I recognized at least two of them (even though this was recorded back in the 70s). Apparently priesthood didn't suit them, both work in the public sector now. One is a classmate's uncle.

Other regional & local 45s from other areas. I have one from a female vocal duo who recorded the songs when they were still in high school in some town in Ohio. They never "hit it big" but it's still neat to discover the songs.

Goldie Hawn's only album, "Goldie" from 1972.

Remember those paper-thin promotional records included in magazines in the 80s? I have a couple, including one from Sassy magazine. It's an acoustic version of "Dark Globe" by REM, complete with a shout out to "all the 'Sassy' girls!" 🤣

Crosley has been a known deleterious quantity for many years now, but I will say this: they make other products, like turntable/stereo system furniture, that are actually good for what they are! But yes, avoid their turntables at all costs.

You're lucky R22. On the last iTunes update over 23,000 songs and 1,500 playlists were scrubbed from my itunes.

r38, were your 23,000 songs ones you purchased from iTunes, or did you rip them from your own CDs? If they are from your own CDs, there is a way to recover them.

r34, please tell us which $200 turntable you recommend.

r33, I'm glad you were able to buy those Beach Boys albums. They sound so much better in mono. My first LP of Pet Sounds was the same Brother Records version you had, but it was released as a separate album in 1974, which is when I bought it. Like so many others, I'd given up on them just before the 1966 original was released. Now I trust my own taste rather than listening to writers and reviewers.

I used to collect CDs--mainly jazz and classical. I had over 1000 CDs that I would carry from apartment to apartment when I moved during my 20 years.

Then, it suddenly hit me that I only listen to a very small fraction of them. I decided to start giving them away to friends who had the same musical interests. People literally thought I must be suicidal because I cherished my collection so much.

And then when Apple Music came, I gave away most of the rest. I just have a few left just because I like to look at them every now and then, but I listen mainly only via Apple Music.

I've never been a big audiophile so perfect sound has never been the goal for me.

R39 This is a good cross section.

I have a Denon 300 turntable that was 200 and change when I bought it +/- 5 years ago but appears to have doubled in price, sorry.

I would actually ask around a bit, ask employees of record stores their opinion(s). Even if the store doesn't sell them (and many do), they can give you some good info.

When CDs became a thing, I ditched all my vinyl. When digital music became a thing, I ditched all my CDs. I’m not sentimental about such things and that’s why I love Apple Music. I don’t have a “collection” per se anymore, I just listen to music I want to listen to.