"The Project"

It used to be that the second quention which needed to be answered whenever I moved was "where will all my CDs go?" 

I had hundreds and hundreds of them, lovingly arranged in alphabetical order (except for blues, jazz, and soundtracks, separated by genre) and neatly displayed on wooden shelves specifically built for the purpose. 

I loved the tactile sensation as I ran my fingers of the jewel cases, looking for the disk that would fit my mood, from Grant Green to Poison.  I could immediately identify the disk by the color on it's spine and location on the shelf from across the room.  I would pour over liner notes and album art with the same enthusiasm I'd expend on the "Week in Review" or the X-Files (before the whole Cancer Man subplot got out of control, of course).  I'd buy the album, then I'd buy the remastered version of the same album, THEN I'd buy the expanded version of the remastered album.  On a pie chart of my monthly expenses, it would be the big blue slice wedged between "rent" and "food", and indistinguishable in size from either of those.

Times change, though.  The demand for apartment space grew while the cost of digital storage shrunk, and by happy coincidence I discovered the magic of portable music.  I can carry a month's worth of music with me wherever I go (and I do) and eventually the shelves of music gave way to giant folders which gathered dust under an armoire.  I embraced peer-to-peer file-sharing and enjoyed the financial windfall.

But what about all those CD's....

Enter "The Project"

Phase 1 of the project began in 2000, when I got my first little MP3 player--a portable doohickie that could hold up to 25 songs, with no skipping!  That was when I took all my favorite work-out songs and made them digital, and swapped them out whenever I wanted a change.

Phase 2 of the project began in 2002, when I got an iPod.  Not only did I have a reason to burn a LOT of my music, but I discovered a major obsessive-compulsive disorder:  the need for accurate tagging.  I spent hours looking up track numbers and correcting genres.  I broke greatest hits albums up so that I'd have the original album and release years listed.  And the album art...oh, the album art...had to be exactly right, even though I couldn't even see it on my iPod.  It was during phase 2 that Oodgie initially questioned her decision to marry me.

Phase 3 of the project began in 2004, when I got a large external hard drive.  So much space...there was no reason why I shouldn't fill it with ALL my music, right?  Even the bluegrass albums!  Who cares if it will never make it on my iPod!  Phase 3 was basically a repeat of Phase 2, just with less popular music.

Phase 4 of the project began in January, when I suddenly decided that all that music wasn't a high enough quality, and I decided to start over completely and burn them all again at a higher bit-rate. 

I bring them to work and burn them while building PowerPoints.  I tag them during commercials.  I search for the original Billy Idol album art while Cheeky smears strawberries into her hair.  I waste time looking up the year The Specials recorded "Ghost Town," because I know it wasn't 1992 (it was 1981), no matter what iTunes says.  I ignore my friends, my family, my blog, and my health.

All these phases have been contiguous: I've been doing this for 7 years now.  And I'm still not done.

It's amazing to me that I can spend so much time and effort on something this massive--and ultimately unnecessary--yet can't finish a New Yorker article or take out the recycling until the 2-liter bottles are spilling into the hallway.  I'll put an hour and a half into the Rod Stewart or Eric Clapton box sets, but I won't put 10 minutes into finding a good closing for a blog.  (as you'll soon see)

What happens when I finish?  Will I suddenly have hours and hours of spare time to devote to some new business opportunity or a novel?  Or devote the energy to enhancing family life?

My guess?  Phase 5.

Anyone else got an obsession worth talking about? **

*  the answer to the first question was always, "just give me one and put the rest in the fridge so they don't get cold."

** see, that's a lame ending...a cheap ploy for comments.  Told ya.

Comments

[Kemp]

I, like you, am obsessed with CD's. My wife and I have over 500 and I have to have them arranged in alpha order by genre.

Also, my lawn... which I get from my father who is also obsessed with his lawn.

[whit]

Is porn an obsession or an addiction?

I still buy CD's. I generally only download music by the song, not the album. I like the tangibles.

[mo-wo]

We love you CB. The cataloguer in me loves you. The music maniac in pman loves you. You could be our demon spawn if we hadn't already made two the old fashioned way.

You'll see there is a little award for you over at our house today.. I'll root around for some button code asap.

Admittedly I am mostly always thinking.. what does he mean? Closely followed by 'Man, you gotta say he's got the best href's in blogdom'

[L.A. Daddy]

Hmmm. I still have room. And my music obsession. And I refused to go digital (ain't got me no ipod yet...)

I may have to buy some music from you :)

[crazycomputerdad]

Well, I have a suggestion for a separate project for your OCD...scanning and organizing pictures. You get to scan, crop, adjust, tag, and organize thousands of pictures. I just finished the last nine years of my own. Sounds much like what you did with your songs. Fortunately the last 4 years were already digital.

[Darren a/k/a Clare's Dad]

My wife thinks I'm obsessive just for alphabetizing CDs and separating them by genre. I'll have to get her to read this.

[the weirdgirl]

Want to hear about some more geeky love? In our new house I not only have room for a (small) library for my books (OMG!), I have a whole walk-in closet we're building as the "media" library (aka CDs), AND I just scored this massive network drive/webserver combo that I'm going to set up for backups of all the mp3s on Keen's computer and all the photos on mine (OMG! OMG! OMG!). Can you tell which one I'm most excited about? Let the tagging begin!

[Phil]

I spent hours looking up track numbers and correcting genres. I broke greatest hits albums up so that I'd have the original album and release years listed.

Uhhh, you mean I'm not the only one who does this?

I've been obsessing over my 35,000 songs for about four years now. I'm actually down to 541 song that don't have the proper release year. I use Wikipedia, Amazon, and other assorted sites to look up obscure singles and artists.

After I ripped all my CDs, I sold most of them on eBay. Made for a lovely little down payment on our house. Funny thing, but I don't miss those CDs. The music is easier to access through iTunes. I have it all stored on three different computer hard drives, and half of it is on my iPod. I'd like to back it up in one more place.

[p-man]

What. About. The liner notes?

[thordora]

You and my husband should talk....EVERYTHING is backed up to disk that's digital...which means there are stacks of cd's everywhere. Along with the boxes of purchased cd's....

sigh...it really ever ends.

[Denver Dad]

Ugh. I feel the pain of your compulsions, Croutonboy. I'm going through a similar crisis of faith in that I have almost my entire collection ripped to MP3, but I know that the AAC format sounds as good as MP3 (usually at 160 kbps), but results in smaller file sizes.

And then there's the sneaking suspicion that what I really want to do is encode all of my music in a lossless format. Maybe even that ogg vorbis format, which will require that I get a new MP3 player. Maybe I should get a new iPod anyway... and, I'm not happy with my headphones. I should build another headphone amp that I can use "on the road" because... sigh. Like I said, I feel your pain.

Good luck. There has to be some kind of specialized help we can get. Maybe a hotline number or something to call.