About your music collection

In searching the archives I'm not sure I've found anything pertaining to member's descriptions of their music collections and feelings about it. I'm not trying to compile lists, rather a general description of the genres you most enjoy, and perhaps the emotional attachment you have to that music. What role does music play in your life, and does that say something about the person you are today? Also, is your love of music shared by others?

I have perhaps 2,000 lp's, 6,000 cd's, and still adding. I often feel this collection is entirely overwhelming, lack of storage space is becoming a concern. I also feel this is much more music than one needs, I have many purchases I've yet to play, and others I may not have listened to in years. Yet, I can't bear to let any of it go because you never know when I'm going to get the itch to play that particular record, serendipitous finds lead to the most enjoyable listening sessions.

My collection covers most genres of music, probably easier to describe what I don't have. I don't have much contemporary music, I find most contemporary music devoid of artistic involvement. It seems to be much more about business than art today, the authentic is becoming harder to find. On the other hand, perhaps I'm mistaken, it really is authentic, I just don't care for that particular authenticity. I suppose this is just one example of how music informs me, a commentary on contemporary society and culture.

Now, I don't want to leave the impression I don't like any contemporary music. There remains much that is vibrant and meaningful, perhaps 15-20% of my collection is of various genres of contemporary music. Having said that, I don't like hip hop/rap, contemporary country, pop or R&B, disco, Christian, smooth jazz, and I have very little techno or contemporary rock. As you can see, my no like list is entirely contemporary genres.

My likes extend all the way from depression era blues to the occasional techno cut. I have a particular fondness for music from the 50's to early 70's, perhaps 70% of my collection is of various genres during this period. Pop, folk, jazz, doo woop, R&B from the 50's, pop, rock, folk, jazz and soul from the 60's, pop, rock, folk, jazz and soul from the early/mid 70's. I also enjoy classical music, mostly medieval, renaissance and baroque.

Within these favorite genres, a few stand out above all others. I would say my favorite music is a rather distinct hybrid of traditional English folk/psychedelic/rock, bands like Fairport Convention, Horslips, Amazing Blondel, Magna Carta and Strawbs. My fantasy would be to have lived in renaissance era England with these bands giving concerts every weekend, an ancient hippie/bohemian esthetic!

I would have to say my favorite music elicits a sense of freedom and innocence in me. Living in a conformist world filled with so much responsibility and consequence is stiffling at times, musical excursions allow me time away from all that. There is also no conflict in my music listening time, seems there is way more contentiousness
in today's culture than need be.

It is the rare that I meet the person who enjoys music as much as I. Music mostly seems to be background noise for people today, it seems they listen to tons of it on Ipods, but are they really listening? Listening to me is immersion into alternative worlds created by thoughtful artists. Listening is the preoccupation, I can't enter these worlds while doing other tasks. Since my listening habits differ from the masses, I infer the music I listen to is different as well. This is emiprically evident by popular contemporary music, not my kind of music.

Someone brought up the subject of musical guilty pleasures the other day. I suspect much of the music I listen to is a sort of guilty pleasure, however, the guilt is not on my part. On the other hand, I sometimes feel judged guilty by certain people who find my music choices suspect. Without exception, every person who has perused my music collection has never heard of at least 50% of the artists. They just sort of give you this blank stare, the older folks ask for the 70's classic rock, the younger set scrounge for my rare techno or contemporary rock albums. When trying to introduce something new to them, the usual result is sleepiness or restlessness.

Based on my experiences, I'm really beginning to believe one has to be an audiophile to be a music lover. It may be one's music has to be reproduced with a high level of sonic excellence in order to attain love for the music. Your simply don't get the 'message' of the music without sonic excellence. Without sonic excellence one is too easily distracted by a whole host of outside stimuli. We see the ubiquitous multi-tasking when listening to lower resolution musical reproduction. It seems only the audiophile actually sets aside the time, and clears a space in the mind to absorb the 'message' of the music.