What seems like a hundred years ago, I was visiting my in-laws, and I noticed that they had a fancy digital music storage system. They had stacks of cd's, all piled around a massive hard drive. I remember looking it up, and seeing it was pretty expensive.
Years after that, I was updating my home computer, and had an idea-why not store all of my cd's on a computer dedicated to only music. I was about to transfer my data from my old iMac to my new iMac, but the old one was still in reasonably good shape. I figured that if I took everything but iTunes off of it, and kept only iTunes and an external hard drive, it would be pretty much the same thing as my in-laws had, and with a good set of computer speakers, it would work for the living room. It wasn't set up to rattle the walls, but I don't listen to music that way much in the house-the car is a different story-so I didn't need that kind of volume.
So I set it up, and added a few features. The screen saver is set to show pictures of the family, so if the iMac isn't playing music, it's acting like a giant picture frame. Originally, I used an iMac G4 (which is still in the garage doing the same thing) and then switched to an iMac G5 from 2006 that I bought it used in 2012 for around $100. I started with just uploading selected songs from the thousand or so cd's that I had, but when I was working on my Master's degree, I realized that it easier to just load the entire cd and then sort out what I wanted later. I would take a stack of cds and upload them whenever I needed to look up from whatever project I was working on.
What I didn't realize initially was that the Mac download was set to 192kbps instead of 320kbps, a sound quality loss that is noticeable with careful listening. I adjusted that about six years ago, and now generally only download things that are at that bit rate. At the end of the pandemic I decided to start taking selected cd's that I had loaded previously and reloading them at a higher bit rate, and it was going pretty well until my external hard drive crashed. The hard drive was old and had been making funny noises-it was the kind with the spinning disk-and then one day it just went belly-up.
I took the hard drive all over town to see if someone could salvage the files. Many songs I'd picked up off the internet from websites that were only up for a while (Willard's Wormholes was a particular favorite, and I was never quite sure what surprises the WFMU blog would have), and weren't available anymore. But the hard drive truly was trashed.
I had backed up about 3/4s of what I had onto a newer hard drive, and I've been slowly hunting down other things. I think I'm still 4,000 songs short, but it's mostly obscure stuff that I hadn't really listened to, so I don't really know what's missing.
I'm also back to the project that I had originally started, upping the sound quality on the files, and taking a close listen to what I have. I can also see how often I've played something. I've decided to take another look at my favorites-which cd's I'd take with me if I was stuck on an island with an old Walkman, (Side note-I've been experimenting with upgrading a couple of old click wheel iPods-more on that later).
On the right I have a list that I made when I started this blog, and a few I'd still take with me. Girlfriend, Ragged Glory, Rain Dogs, Revolver and American Recordings all still stand the test of time. But I'm not so sure about The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines, Potatoes, and (gasp) Sinatra's Swingin' Sessions and More.
In my playing history, I'm more likely to pull out Cheap Trick's In Color, Donovan's The Classics Live, The Rolling Stones' Aftermath or Some Girls, or the Who's Sell Out. For reasons somewhat unclear to me, the Surf Punks' Locals Only had crept back into my rotation. I also have a soft spot for What's the Story, Morning Glory? and Social Distortion.
You probably noticed that nothing I've listed has been recorded in this century. I still listen to music, and things catch my ear that I enjoy. Wet Leg's Chaise Lounge and Wet Dream (I had to look up "Buffalo 66"), I find to be very sexy, but the album didn't really move me. I'll watch every video Youtube spits at me of Garfunkel and Oates, but I can't imagine just listening to them. Both Lil Nas X's Old Town Road and Cardi B's WAP are in rotation in my car, but I haven't picked up an album by either of them. The other day I was watching something and Battez Vous by the French artist Brigitte was playing and I downloaded it. I still buy new music when it's released by acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, X, The Rev. Horton Heat, Brian Setzer, Andy Prieboy and Southern Culture on the Skids, (again, all acts from the 80s and 90s) and I'm a big fan of new music compilations from Raiders of the Lost Hook and Ice Cream Man Power Pop and More! I also enjoy Little Steven's Underground Garage when I have access to Sirius XM.
I think I kept pretty up-to-date on music until my mid-thirties. Then I got married, had kids and didn't really have the time anymore. KROQ was my connection for new music, but it's hard to get here in Ventura. I'm not young anymore, but I still like a catchy, three minute song. I just don't relate to songs about girls and school and parties and such unless they remind me of a time when I did relate to girls and school and parties and such. Now it's women, work and retirement-not very rock and roll.
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to thoughtfully write about my favorite albums. So again, here they are, in alphabetical order by artist:
- The Beatles-Revolver
- Johnny Cash-American Recordings
- Cheap Trick-In Color
- Donovan-Classics Live
- Oasis-What's the Story, Morning Glory?
- The Rolling Stones-Some Girls
- Social Distortion-Social Distortion
- Surf Punks-Locals Only
- Matthew Sweet-Girlfriend
- Tom Waits-Rain Dogs
- The Who-Sell Out
- Neil Young-Ragged Glory
