The purge
It’s been an odd weekend. It started off badly when our lovely neighbours decided to ‘prune’ the tree in their garden – how I love the sound of chainsaws at 8am on a Sunday morning – and descended into just plain weirdness when Mr C. announced that he was going to do some pruning of his own.
‘I have too may records’ he said surveying his not insubstantial collection, ‘I don’t listen to some of them very much and well, I don’t really need to keep them all do I?’
‘No… ‘ I responded, swallowing my disbelief, ‘but are you absolutely sure about this?’
‘Yes, there are too many’ he said determinedly ‘I need to purge.’
I am sorry to say that I just snickered unsupportively at this point and went off to read the paper.
Several hours of struggling later, he had triumphantly managed to reduce the vinyl load on the shelves by around oooh… eight LPs.
Not that I have any right to be sarcastic. He did much better than I ever could. The last time I attempted a purge was just before I freighted my vinyl over here from Australia. Once it arrived after several long months on the boat I realised I’d made a terrible mistake and had to go out and buy them all again.
And as we discussed, post failed purge, it doesn’t matter if you don’t listen to all of your records all of the time. It’s just comforting to know that they’re there. Even the ones by James Last.
May 10th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Yes, I’ve been in the same boat myself. And did actually get rid of about 300 Cds and a few bits of vinyl. But only bad albums. I’m never parting with the rest of it.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
I cleared out a load of cassettes a few years back, but no vinyl or CDs so far. Although there’s a ton of albums (on CD) bought in the 90s I know I’ll never play – so should unload them really.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
I’ve got around 3′000 albums on vinyl and about the same on CD and i’ve made my mind up to start thining the vinyl out. If i’ve got it on CD i’m not goong to play the vinyl. It sounds so stupid but i worry about them going to a good home. They have been good friends to me and i don’t want them buggered up !. I also got rid of many of my CD singles, made compilations up of them and sold them , i never play a single but i will play a compilation. Funny how these things come to mean so much to us eh ?.
May 10th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I got rid of about 200 vinyl albums about three years ago, and I’ve never grieved a single one. It was right to let them go, and the charity shop sold every single one. I was finally purged of all jazz, and I felt great for it.
But it took me a good ten years to build up to that final brave purge. Your chap may get there yet…
May 10th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
You’re chap isn’t this chap is he? Could be a Rupert Holmes song if it was..
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/how-much-have-you-got
May 10th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
F-C and ISBW, I am impressed. Parting with that much and not regretting it is not something that I could imagine. I will just pretend that I didn’t read about your jazz purge ISBW. How could you?!!?!
I know exactly what you mean about them going to a good home Carl. You don’t want any old tosser scratching them! I am surprised though that you are preferring to keep the CDs over vinyl. I am the reverse. Although I have a lot of CDs, I tend to favour the records. Your LPs will probably last longer (and sound better) than the CDs you know. Thin those CDs down instead!
I have parted with cassettes I must admit, Mondo. Not mix tapes though, but albums (which I then replaced with vinyl or CD thereby defeating the purpose in some ways). And no he is not the chap on the Word site. I’d be very cross if he was as I am precisely sort of person who encourages hoarding, not the opposite!!!
Actually the problem for all these people on the Word thread is that they have too many CD shell cases. Dump the hard cases people! I probably have more music than Mr C but you can’t tell because mine are filed away in soft plastic slip cases. They are very good and once, when people cared about CDs more, a proven thief deterrent!
May 10th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Despite having way way to many LPs, CD’s and singles, I’ve yet to feel the urge. I did have a little go about 10 years ago, but it was real sh!te that I knew would never ever be played again. I’m quite happy with the collection, which is almost 40 years work now (I started buying records at 5!).
Even some that are now deemed awful I keep because of the memories attached. My music collection is a potted history of me… I know what was going on in my life, who I was going out with, where I was going… I can tell it all from pulling out an old album.
I do worry about the future though, I guess at some point they will have to go… I’d need the whole room at my place at the OAPs home just for my music! I’m sure i’ll have the whole lot on a 1 inch piece of plastic by then anyway, so i’m sure it’ll be fine!
P
May 11th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I have little mini-purges now and then, which mostly consist of charity shops getting:
* any novelty singles I’ve acquired recently for 50p, which I’ve since ripped to mp3 and can’t imagine myself ever wanting to put on the record player again.
* any CDs I bought in the last two years which haven’t proven to be that great.
* the odd item from my teenage record collection which I adored at the time, but is clearly not going to get listened to me seriously ever again. The Wonder Stuff are due a bit of a purge in this respect, I think.
I do need to have a bigger one, especially where the seven inch singles are concerned… but…
May 11th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Piley, you’ve touched a nerve with me there now. Music = memories, particularly if you associate records with not just the music, but the buying of the actual physical item. Did you happen to read a piece in the The Guardian’s Saturday magazine a few weeks back about a woman having to part with all her books and music to enter a nursing home? She had to shed her life basically. I’ve been really looking forward to retirement, but that’s put me off a bit now!!
23Daves, you’re clearly not so sentimental. I couldn’t ever part with a record that I know that I loved once – not even Neds Atomic Dustbin who are my Wonder Stuff (who I still like and play). And I am very disappointed to think that you’d even think of returning some of those charity shop favourites on the website back to where they came from. Don’t tell me you’ve got rid of the Metal Mickey and Frank Sidebottom singles!
May 12th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
I’ve tried over the years, but all I end up doing is moving the compilation cds to a different room and pretending the shelves look neat again. Not resorted to storing any in the car yet, which I know friends have done in the face of family objections.
May 12th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Not yet… but we’ll see. I think it’s nice to recycle these things. There are plenty of other loving homes they can go to, and in the great war for space in our flat, Frank Sidebottom isn’t going to beat The Kinks.
I quite like the idea of somebody going into Oxfam and stumbling across some novelty record, then walking out with a smile on their faces. If these things stay with me for any length of time, they’ll just end up gathering dust.
May 12th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
SimonB, in-car storage! I know someone who does that (he and his old metal CDs have been banished there). Actually, that could be a growth market for Ikea couldn’t it – glovebox CD storage solutions etc.
And Dave, I’ll know who the culprit is next time I see a pile a Goodies 7″s in the local Oxfam now…
May 17th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Hello. I hope this finds you doing well. I’ve been on a blogging hiatus since the beginning of the year, so it’s been quite some time since I’ve been around to visit some blogs. I’m back from my break now. I wanted to make sure to visit your blog. I enjoyed checking out the latest posts on your blog. Great job. I’m back blogging now myself. I hope you’ll take a look at what I’m doing. Thanks. Take care. Have a great week.