......Paul's turn. CD Box sets. I'm the exact opposite and get bored after the second disc, think of me as a bumble bee flitting from one exotic flower to the next. Coming to think of it I've got stuff from 20 years back that I still haven't listened to. C'est la vie.

Collection size Vs available space? Now there's an interesting conundrum and one I've had to address several times. There's no getting away from the fact that LP's are bulky little fellas, especially in bulk. CD's can also gobble up a fair amount of space and both present the question of how best to store them. I've never been a fan of sticking everything on a shelf with just the spines on show. Even arranged alphabetically it can take an age to rifle through all that miniscule writing looking for a title. I'm more a 'face-on, thumber'. But then you have to have storage boxes. At £50 a pop they alone have cost me over 2K. Standing like a huge impenetrable 3 story black wall stretching from one side of the room to the other and fully laden they each weigh a ton .

The later day collector probably has their entire collection housed on their phone but where's the fun in that? Album covers are ART of the highest form and should be displayed in gallerys for the world to admire, very much a case of the bigger the better. I recall that Virgin Megastore use to comission artists to make 2mx2m replicas of top selling album covers that they displayed in the store entrance....Oh how I coveted just one of those. I wonder where they ended up? I've done the best I can by way of homage by collecting the cover art for every item I own and putting them in a folder on my PC. I love to browse through them deciding which album to listen to before dismantling 'the wall' to retrieve the LP or CD.

But what if the collection is simply too large to be accomodated?. Trust me it happens and consequently compromises have to be made. For me it was audio cassettes and VHS tapes, they simply had to go. An easy choice as I never liked the format, either bulky or tiny replicas of the LP that never sat well with my OCD and what of all the stuff that has been scavenged from YT, Soulseek and the likes? The solution was to make thousands of 12.5cmx12.5cm 'mock ups' of the original covers and whack em in a PVC cover with a CDR version. If nothing else you can fit a large amount in a small space. but demanded that I found digital formats of all those cassettes. Luckilly I managed to track down 90% of them, just a case of knowing where to look, leaving just a hundred or so to convert manually. How long did all this take I hear you ask? At an average of 4 hours a day, around 3 years but worth it as my OCD rejoices with a task now fully complete. Anyone want several hundred cassettes? Didn't think so................To be continued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdc0L8B0bC0

Hello Mark,
I know what will happen to my private library when it's my turn to leave this sometimes awful planet,it'll be landfill for sure,as NOONE in my family has the remote interest in music in general,never mind obscure 60s and 70s psychedelia and other assortments,and never mind it all being on cd,which to some makes it worthless!!

Do i care?Yes at this moment,but when i'm gone....i know it'll be like vultures circling around a corpse,picking out the things that maybe worth some financial gain for some members of my family who show little interest in me now,alive and breathing,but when that breathing stops,i know for a fact,their interest in me will miracalously reappear,while i'm laying in a box.Believe me i have a wee surprise for those family members who have shown no care,no love or interest in me alive.So i'm fucked if they're going to benefit when i'm dead!!

My dear friends will be the recipients of anything worth having,even my music collection,as luckily i do have a couple of dear pals who are musically orientated,including 60s sounds.......if not,its going to be stipulated it ALL goes to a charity of my choice.NOT one of the big charities who pay their bosses obscene wages!!So at the end of the day,what i call my private library,will be broken into bits,but my soul will carry the music,to wherever i end up,if anywhere.
The cds and the cases are just packaging,just like my body.The music means more to me than a case,a disc and a booklet,it permeates something within me,but those things are important to me while i'm still here,i love the packaging of cds with booklets,it's all part of the fun of being a music enthusiast,but when i'm not breathing,they mean nothing in reality!!It's THE music that counts and lives on.

I'll jump from a rather serious take,to another less important thing,in my opinion,in 2022 the phallacy that vinyl from 50 years ago,still sounds better than most of todays music being issued on cd,i'm sorry,i've held the belief many vinyl only collectors,constantly harp on about the sound of a bit of vinyl from 50 years ago,replete with surface noise etc,beats the vast majority of cd sound...i personally believe,now they're kidding themelves on,and i do know that some would not care if cds become obsolete,which is sad,the ONLY thing i miss about 12 vinyl,is the artwork,i have NO rose coloured glasses concerning vinyl,none at all,i do not miss it at all.i did buy vinyl at one time,i disliked it at the time,but i loved music,and vinyl on 7 and 12" was the easiest way to buy it, play it and hear it.
Technology moves on,but i hope BOTH vinyl and cd live on for as long as possible.As i do know most on here have a mix of vinyl and cd in their collections,but their vinyl is much more thought of and important to many,possibly because of rarity and worth,but lets be honest,vinyl and its ever evolving artworks,ARE snapshots of time,and ARE in my eyes part of cultural history,and part of peoples growing up of a certain age,this will NEVER be heaped upon cd,as its less personal,possibly not as emotionally impacting as a 12"album,but please,i don't fall for this vinyl always sounds better narrative.....to me THAT is romanticising it's worth.

Maybe controversial in somes eyes,but for me it's not being said for arguments sake,or to upset anyone or talk down to anyone,its just my opinion,and what MY ears hear.Also to possibly make conversation.

That's it from me,again a bit blowhardy,a bit longwinded,and some may think full of crap...but that's how discussions begin or continue!!!

Some points....

i. I have both vinyl and cds. Still have many of the records I got when I was young, but did make the mistake of trading some that are now worth $$$ as in those days it was the only way i could keep buying new things. Have since bought some of those back.

ii. Have been sucked in to the bonus cd track albums, which sometimes end up with about four versions of the same track which it's hard to tell much difference.

iii. I'm not a completist. Just get what I like. eg. Big Genesis fan, but after Peter Gabriel left, I had no interest.

iv. I am a pruner, but if it was a garden, it would be quite overgrown. Do like to find something in better condition than mine if I come across it.

v. My personal collection is mine, not an investment. If I come across something that I know is collectible, but it doesn't interest me, I'll sell it and put that money towards something I do want.

Talking of things you regret selling. I had a nice copy of Roger Bunn's Piece Of Mind LP. I only bought it for the cover and didn't rate it much, apart from a couple of tracks. I sold it through Record Collector mag for £16 about 20 years ago. I see that it now sells for £100 - £150. Guess I should have held onto it a tad longer. C'est la vie.

Another thing I regret is lending people albums. I know for a fact that I had a mint copy of the bootlegged Dupree's Paradise by Frank Zappa which was a double LP. It wasn't until I started cataloguing my collection many years later and couldn't find it, that it occured to me that I'd lent it along with several other albums to some guy. Unfortuntely I'd lost contact with him and so these were lost forever. Double c'est la vie.

PPP

Hello Greg,
I must be honest,i never understand those who complain about bonus tracks on a cd,it must be the only time,people complain about getting extra!!
Particularly with a cd,where it's easy to NOT play the bonus tracks,one can programme the cd to just play the actual album,so i don't get the complaints about that at all,but with vinyl,you can't programme anything,you have to get up after 25 minutes or so to play the other side,and with cd,you press a button to miss a tack,while laying on the couch,vinyl you have to get up,pick up the stylus arm,to miss a track.....i personally love extra tracks,and if there are 3 near identical versions,it's easy to NOT play them,or play just the one version,it's your choice.

THAT is the beauty of compact disc,its the lazy music lovers medium,nowt worse than laying chilling out,with a wee puff,and that is interrupted by having to turn a record over to continue playing the music....a cd can go for mainly 80 minutes of continuous music.I personally think it's a marvellous medium,and i will be well pissed off if the music industry decides to withdraw it,as i do feel they have over the last few years slowly denigrated the compact disc,but now with prices of vinyl going silly,and more expensive to produce,the compact disc may just be making a resurgence,possibly not for the younger generations,but for folks like myself.

I've got nothing against bonus tracks on a cd, in fact that's why I would get something I already had. I just don't see the point in having the same track sometimes up to four times. eg original version, demo version, 45 slightly shortened version, U.S. version, etc.
I agree about the price of vinyl nowadays being exorbitant, but I can't see cds making a vinyl like comeback in our life time. It's rare now to find too many decent second hand records in an op shop, but cds and dvds are a dime a dozen, and hold very little value.

I remember the good ol' days when I could spend all day at a record fair and end up spending £££'s, walking out with a cache of goodies I couldn't wait to get home and play.

In a recent outing to a 'big' VIP fair (Manchester) I did my usual skip round the dealers to see what sort of stuff they had to offer. From what I recall there were virtually no CD's on sale. The vinyl on offer was the same old dirge rock I've seen hundreds of times before. No shortage of punters though pawing over standard copies of albums by VDGG, Bowie and the likes and walking out with bag loads. In a way I felt sorry for the modern day collector who only has the option of picking over the scraps of yesteryear and thinking they've grabbed a bargain. The 'good stuff' displayed on the wall or stands behind the dealers consisted mainly of beat up copies of second rate albums and I had to laugh at the ludicrous prices they were asking. I left before the hour was up buying absolutely nothing. C'est la vie.

PPP

I hear you Greg but there are plenty of rare CDs and instances of a CD reissue being more expensive and harder to find than the original LP it is of which can often be cheap and plentiful. Also Japanese mini LP CDs, especially in box sets along with other (by no means all of course) CD box sets, have a high financial value. Not that that is why most people buy music in physical format. Whilst it is certainly true that bog standard CDs have little financial value, there is a turn towards collecting CD singles for instance from the later 1980s and 1990s (their heyday of course) which is increasing (all those CD1 and CD2 versions of singles with extra and now sometimes rare remixes or bonus tracks etc.). So I do think if we are just talking financial value there is a lot more to CDs than the abundance of supermarket bought top ten titles of yesteryear now littering car boots.

PM:slightly_smiling_face:

Yep, I used to go to the Brighton Centre mega fairs in the 1980s and spend £££s on various Siouxsie & The Banshees international variants of sleeve art / design, labels etc. I always intended to come out with a variety of stuff but there were so many S&TB things I'd never seen that's where all the money went! (all vinyl)

PM:slightly_smiling_face:

Regarding Stuart's comments about which is superior vinyl or CD? Here is an informative video entitled "The Truth About Vinyl - Vinyl Vs Digital" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzRvSWPZQYk

Enjoy
PPP