Collecting Dust: mrbrown takes stock of his overgrown CD collection

A recent event caused me to take note of my CD collection again. Yes, you remember CDs? Compact Discs? Shiny round things that carry about 10 to 15 songs each? Plays on this ancient thing called a CD Player?

Yes, Modern Listener of Music from Non-Physical Media, those things still exist.

The wife gave me an ultimatum, move out of your study and give the room up for the kids, NOW. That prompted me to take stock of my life, review my career goals, and think of where I was going to move my PC gaming rig.

And of course, my CD collection.

There it was, more than 500 CDs in two shelves, covered in a few years of dust. Since I moved over to MP3s, I hardly played them, even though I had a perfectly good CD player hooked up to a lovely amp in the living room. 

Closing Down

I had digitized most of what I wanted to listen to and the last time I bought a new CD was... was... well, I guess that's why Tower Records and Sembawang Music stores in Singapore folded.

Sure the music quality is superior on those discs, compared to the lowly MP3 file but who wants to lug CDs around these days? I remember buying those CD holders, the kind that can hold 12 to 24 CDs in sleeves, and carrying them with my Discman inside my bag so that I could have my tunes with me when I rode the bus to school.

I was less fickle in those days. I could listen to one CD again and again, simply because I was too lazy to switch discs. Who needed the iPod Genius Playlist when you had the Shuffle button on your CD player? Yes, with a press of one physical button, one could experience the glorious joys of random music, all 12 tracks of it! Rock and roll, babeeeee.

These days, I look at the songs on my iPhone, numbering in the thousands, and feel... bored.

The other thing I miss about my CD collection was the reading material. There is nothing like opening up a CD and admiring the album art, and reading the liner notes. How else would you learn about important information like who was the sound engineer for track 6?

Commercial Debris

In Singapore, Chinese singers went through a phase where, in order to entice you to buy their CDs instead of downloading the pirated versions, their CDs would include freebies inside. Postcards of the singer in 19 different cute poses, little mini pink diaries, and soft toys. Nothing was too silly to include with a CD. This made their CD cases huge and odd-shaped. Which made the CDs a pain to shelve.

I stopped buying the Chinese CDs precisely because they got so unwieldy. So much for enticing me with the freebies.

I am thinking of giving my son my CD collection so that he can soak in the airwaves of my good taste. I am sure he will find my Hooked on Classics CDs very hip. I even have some Kenny G in there, before it became elevator muzak. And I have CDs of Michael Bolton when he had more hair on top.

I even listened to Rick Astley, before he became an Internet prank and meme. I was never gonna give him up, I was never gonna let him go.

Childhood Dreams

I even have some techno in there. Ace of Base was in my player on a constant loop. I even bought flowers for my then-girlfriend (now wife) from a flower shop at the wet market called "Ace of Vase".

I dug up my Phil Collins t-shirt. It was from his 1994 concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. The one I have is black and has his giant face on the front, staring at you through his piercing green eyes. Back then, it always freaked out civil servants at government offices when I wore it to do some admin there. They must have thought me a Satan-worshipping rock hippie.

As the years passed, Phil looked fatter and fatter on that t-shirt, his face made round by my middle-aged girth. I retired the t-shirt but I think maybe the son will like a little vintage rock memorabilia when he grows up.

I am going to need some boxes for these CDs. And if I have time, I am going to let the boy have a listen to the tapes his Old Man recorded when I was in a two-man band.