Picking a CD

Ok guys, here's a question for ya all. Back in the day when I use to buy a record I would listen to it until I knew backwards.

Now these days with the net and discovering new bands and stuff. How do you all choose what to listen to? I have over 700 cd's and I know there is stuff that I haven't even put in my CD player. Does it seem some bands a brining out a new album ever year?

I found myself sliding down that road as well. I want to know my collection so beginning in Jan. 2008 I instituted a personal "30 CDs a year" purchase policy. I can only pay for 30 CDs in 2008. #31 means something else has to go.

Now, trades are different because it's not increasing my collection count.

Its hard with buying new stuff all the time.I dont know many of my newer ones the way I do my older albums.I think the only answer is to slow down on buying and get more aquainted with your collection.

I have the same problem. There are lots of great albums that I've only listened to a handful of times.

Yeah everytime I go through my collection I'll find one or two still in the wrap and one or two I'd forgotten I even bought. I've even bought a cd that I already had and didn't know it. I'd really like to trim my collection back to about a 1000 and keep it there, but I know that's almost impossible with me.

I have yet to do an unintentional double buy but I readily admit I don't know a lot of CDs in my collection as well as I should.

I started getting that way as well, but I've since slowed down on my purchasing and have been going back into my collection and breaking out some cd's that I may have only listened to once or twice. Sometimes I find myself wondering why I bought this in the first place and other times I'm happily surprised at how good a cd is and why I didn't give it more of a chance.

I'm slowly trying to trim down some of the fat from the collection, but it's tough. My music brings me such joy and finding new bands is always exciting. I've just got to be a little more selective. And I've gotten caught up in cdbaby's $5 deal too many times. For every 1 or 2 cd's I've purchased there that I end up really liking, I've got far too many that end up being clunkers.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

I found myself sliding down that road as well. I want to know my collection so beginning in Jan. 2008 I instituted a personal "30 CDs a year" purchase policy. I can only pay for 30 CDs in 2008. #31 means something else has to go.

Now, trades are different because it's not increasing my collection count.

Nonsense! I have added 449 new CDs to the collection already this year. That rules! Haha.

I listen to music so much I know my collection well. Of course, I don't have the numbers some of you have. Only about 600 as I went through some years of not keeping up at all and having no money to buy anything but food and pay bills.

Eyesore wrote:

scottmitchell74 wrote:

I found myself sliding down that road as well. I want to know my collection so beginning in Jan. 2008 I instituted a personal "30 CDs a year" purchase policy. I can only pay for 30 CDs in 2008. #31 means something else has to go.

Now, trades are different because it's not increasing my collection count.

Nonsense! I have added 449 new CDs to the collection already this year. That rules! Haha.

i thought i was bad with 219 thus far this year.

mc666 wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

scottmitchell74 wrote:

I found myself sliding down that road as well. I want to know my collection so beginning in Jan. 2008 I instituted a personal "30 CDs a year" purchase policy. I can only pay for 30 CDs in 2008. #31 means something else has to go.

Now, trades are different because it's not increasing my collection count.

Nonsense! I have added 449 new CDs to the collection already this year. That rules! Haha.

i thought i was bad with 219 thus far this year.

Both of you have me beat,only around 75 for me so far.

Quote :

Nonsense! I have added 449 new CDs to the collection already this year. That rules! Haha.

Perhaps nonsense, but let me tell you I'm so happy I made this decision. First, I'm getting to know what music I have really well and I only buy/keep what I think is really good. I have this strange peace of mind and I'm actually enjoying the process of finding those few CDs that I will buy this year.

I also now have money for other pursuits!

I do miss getting something in the mail 3-5 times a week, but I was falling behind my collection so badly. I listen to 5-12 hours of metal a day and was still falling behind.

I think it all depends on how much music you can listen to in a day. Those with kids and family and whatnot can't listen to metal 18 hours a day. I can—and do! I work 10 hours a day and have music playing the whole time. I listen to music on the way to and from work as well. When I get home around 11:30pm, I got the music going until about 4am. I wake up around 10am, and crank the tuneage when I wake up. So yeah, I buy a lot of music, but I also listen to a lot of music.

I think I really want to rip all my stuff and get a computerized system with soeakers and touchscreen displays throughout my house. That way I can have a badass playlist. Right now I've got about 40GB of MP3s on my PC. Time to buy an external terabyte drive, I think. With such a collection, you can only bring so much music with you. I have a 30GB MP3 player and it's easy to fill that up. I need 500GB, at least!

I feel it is hard to keep up with everything that I listen to. Thats why recently I started going through and see what I had and didnt like so I either traded them or sold them on ebay, but it really wasnt that many. I believe I have close to 3,000 cds. Maybe i'll do a count soon haha. Usually once a year i'll make a plan to listen to every cd starting from A all the way down to Z but when I started this year I got to around I and then I stopped because I was getting a bunch of other cds of bands that I already listened too. Now what im trying to do is fill in all the gaps of missing cds from everything I listen to then when im done i'll go back and start over again.

Only once did I buy something that I thought I didnt have and another time I bought a box set of queen cds I already had owned two of the cds but decided to buy it anyway because I didnt have the others and the price was good. Otherwise I know what I own.

Eyesore wrote:

I think it all depends on how much music you can listen to in a day. Those with kids and family and whatnot can't listen to metal 18 hours a day. I can—and do! I work 10 hours a day and have music playing the whole time. I listen to music on the way to and from work as well. When I get home around 11:30pm, I got the music going until about 4am. I wake up around 10am, and crank the tuneage when I wake up. So yeah, I buy a lot of music, but I also listen to a lot of music.

I think I really want to rip all my stuff and get a computerized system with soeakers and touchscreen displays throughout my house. That way I can have a badass playlist. Right now I've got about 40GB of MP3s on my PC. Time to buy an external terabyte drive, I think. With such a collection, you can only bring so much music with you. I have a 30GB MP3 player and it's easy to fill that up. I need 500GB, at least!

lol I think I need one of those 500GB MP3 players too. My 160 GB ipod is almost full!

Quote :

Usually once a year i'll make a plan to listen to every cd starting from A all the way down to Z but when I started this year I got to around I and then I stopped because I was getting a bunch of other cds of bands that I already listened too.

I tried to do that once too and I never even made it past the A's.

brontotex have done this for some years now, I think. not sure if he got through the alphabet this year though.

It was tough especially when I got to Maiden with all the live albums.

It's good to see I'm not the only one with this problem. But Scott I have to appluade you with only buying 30cd's a year man. I buy that many a month

This is what I have come down to doing. I have all my CD's listed in a excel file and are numbered, so I got to http://www.random.org/integers/ which is a number genorater and put in, starting from 1 to 703 and it picks the disc for me. You can have it pick you just 1 number or as many as you want.I know that might sound stupid or silly, but the other night It picked some bad ass 80's stuff to listen to

Mordor, that's awesome! And perfect for me.
What I do is go into my garage and close my eyes and then just stab my hand towards my CD stacks and pull out how ever many I need. I like the idea of the randomintegers thing.

i no longer have the time to listen to loads and loads of cds so i have reduced purchasing. i just cancelled my order for the new iron maiden album as i will get it cheaper where i work and also the new ishahn album i cancelled that. still have priest and opeth on preorder

Thanks dude, Yeah it is working for me so far. I coolest thing is that it is picking albums I would most likely not pick myself And I'm loving it

Contrary to the title of this board, there is life outside of metal!

Out of my entire collection (about 750 or so), there is about 100 or so that I am not that familiar with as they were picked up on the advice of a friend, bought very cheap as a "give it a try", or purchased as collection fillers. As I have stated before, I am going to stop at a thousand as I just don't have the time to listen to everything and give it all the attention the collection deserves. With that said, I have been making an effort to pick out stuff lately that doesn't see a whole lot of play; both to become more familiar with my collection, and to see what I want to keep, sell back, or trade away.

I keep a limit on my "new" purchases. Buying used is where most of my CD budget goes. And every time I think I might put a limit on that some amazing finds or deals come up. But overall I'm not as adventurous in purchasing as I once was. Pretty much stick to what I know will be enjoyed. The time to listen to it all is another matter.

I usually pick what to listen to based on mood. I tend to get into genre phases in my listening patterns. One week it'll be this, next week something else entirely. And of course there are always the favorites that just have to get in the rotation no matter what.