Music fan 'completes' "perfect CD collection". Is that possible for you?

One of my favourite/most eccentric customers came in today. "I've come to say goodbye, I didn't want to just disappear. I've finished. I've got my CD collection perfect"... He had a CD rack of a certain size that he could not exceed so he had to sell back in a CD every time he bought one. Every CD had to be a jewel case with a maximum of 5 bonus tracks and in "factory conditions". It's the end result of 28 years of work and trial and error. With that he was gone...

Sorry for another bogus sf scenario but now imagining this guy as some kind of "Flowers For Algernon" savant who was saying goodbye before he regressed back.

it has to fit his CD rack, brian. That's part of his OCD

But he won't buy digipaks as they're not consistent, so presumably he only takes standard-format CD cases, so 50 is a huge variation. But it's probably unclear memory on the part of the reporter, not vagueness on the part of the subject.

Misread that as "it has to fit his CD rack brain."

I get that it has to fit his rack, but it's odd to me that he never mentioned exactly how many CDs he had in his finished collection. I assumed the specific number would have been part of his regular remarks to the clerk.

Basically, I just want to hear more about his collection. If we don't find out and don't poll it, did it really happen?

Haha, exactly. But maybe there will be a blog: My OCD Older Brother's CD Collection.

if you ever hang out on the Steve Hoffman forums, you'll notice that every once in a while a regular poster will suddenly vanish from the discourse. he'll be in the middle of a heated Pono debate and he'll excuse himself for a seemingly minor interruption ("BRB, I think I hear the FedEx guy at my door"), and then just...silence, crickets, radio static. as the weeks pass and he fails to respond to your PMs and emails, you begin to get seriously worried: did this guy die or go to jail? so you start a thread about him on the Off-Topic board (Hey, does anyone know what happened to ThePruneDuke67?) and literally 30 seconds later your thread has been deleted and Steve himself has sent you a PM: 'Hush, child, he is beyond our reach: he has acquired the entire MoFi catalogue and now he is on a higher plane'. so you keep your mouth shut and act like nothing happened because how can you second guess Steve Hoffman? but eventually all of your friends have been spirited away to audiophile heaven and you realize that you are literally the only person contributing to the Toto Album By Album thread (by now you've exhausted the proper Toto albums and moved on to Steve Lukather's solo career) that's when you decide you need a new hobby.

^Best Post Ever

Maybe that was God and his CD rack is the universe, finite but unbounded and full of stars.

Guy sounds like a Jon Wurster character

Absolutely does.

yeah Andrew isnt sure how many there is or what is in it . He said he will sign up here though and will try to remember more to tell us.
I think it's a great story and hope he can get an article out of it.
As brian and others say we really need to find out what is in it and a pic would be amazing.
unregistered that is a great post!

I think I've reached a point in my life where I can nod as I'm reading these anecdotes but I can not romanticize this behavior, and the entire enterprise sounds revolting

This is basically an idea for a novel which I have been sitting on for ages, maybe I don't have to upbraid myself for not writing it anymore

make a film instead

Whatever the format, it will be a vast improvement on High Fidelity

haha I bought the book years ago but never read it and when the film came out i didnt bother with it either. Not sure if I will ever read it.

Hello, this is Andrew, the guy who made the original post on facebook... David would be overwhelmed if he had a computer!!!!!

I think I've reached a point in my life where I can nod as I'm reading these anecdotes but I can not romanticize this behavior, and the entire enterprise sounds revolting

― mh, Monday, April 20, 2015 9:46 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why?

My CD collection is "done", too, in that I'm not buying CDs any more. It has been reduced, through gut-wrenching emotional labor, from a peak around 7000 or so down to about 1400 (one rack, but it's a big rack).

But if I had to choose between never hearing anything but those 1400 CDs and never again hearing anything made before tomorrow, I'd go with the future without a hesitation or qualm.

xp This kind of thinking in myself, and in some others I know, can be part of an end-run of a weird quantified lifestyle. It's hard to explain, but imagine it's similar to the idea of video game players thinking that there's a universal, objective numerical value that can be given to aspects of a game and some are "wrong."

Having a very honed personal aesthetic is one thing, but referring to a single tome as canonical and then refining around the edges to create the perfect collection is not "perfectionism" but perfectionism as it exists -- a highly critically and emotionally-charged response based on exclusion that is an attempt toward the creation of objectivity.

The customer in question here is listening intently to the music and coming up with his own conclusions, I would hope, but I'm also reminded of the people who "collected" downloaded music in the early days of mp3 trading. This was really evident on my college campus where people would have folders upon folders, meticulously organized in whatever way was deemed "correct," of all these albums deemed important.

I know I questioned more than a few people I knew about why they were cataloging all this stuff they obviously weren't even listening to regularly and was met with complete blank stares, because the collection and its purity was the purpose, even if they didn't understand it. They'd admit that they only listened to one or two songs off of half the albums, but the idea of deleting the non-singles they didn't listen to was crazy.

best of luck to this guy, though! this is my baggage, and nonsensical to me, now, and not a judgment on his lifestyle

A college roommate of a friend of mine would only buy and listen to albums that got five stars in the David Marsh Rolling Stone Record Guide.

Welcome, Andrew! Any more anecdotes about the guy? Any idea of what is in his collection? is it mostly lots of albums by certain artists or bits of everything? I can imagine it being limited to say 20 artists

it's all Sun Ra

As he "completed" Dylan I wonder how many albums that was and which.

I wonder if he liked punk, even.

He definitely did not like punk rock! Steely Dan and Lynyrd Skynyrd were a few he was working through recently. He HATED the new Lynyrd Skynyrd album and made the mistake of buying it recently... He would walk with a silent shuffle and could appear at any point in the shop in silence.

What about the prog rock or heavy rock end? Sabbath, zep,purple, genesis, king crimson, yes etc?

did he ever buy any music mags? or did he purely rely on his book?

What about the prog rock or heavy rock end? Sabbath, zep,purple, genesis, king crimson, yes etc?
Based on the guidebook he seems to be using, I would say no.

what is in the guidebook you think he uses?

beatles, stones, who, dylan,the band, steely dan, fleetwood mac etc?

Yup.

Other stuff too. The original RS Record Guide (Red) had photos of the Five Star Albums scattered throughout. such as the flag that was original cover of There's A Riot Goin' On.

well i can get behind the sly 5 stars

I think I have 10% of the records I would need to have to complete a vague personal canon (plus I have lots of stuff that would not fit within this anyway). I have been buying records for about 25 years. So the remaining 90% - assuming I don't slow down for boring adult reasons - would only take me up to the year 2240. Given advances in cybergenetics, that sounds doable. However, by the time I'm midway through my third century, it will be about five times as long as it is now since the birth of rock and roll. Assuming a steady rate of 5-star releases, I may be on a hiding to nothing.

doesnt sound possible

Easy.

http://www.cca.org/d/complete-music-collection.jpg

B-b-but what record guide is that based on?

The Complete Betelgeuse Record Guide, 7th Edition. They have a *very* short Earth section, but I couldn't find copies of anything else they listed.

"it's all Sun Ra"

perfect.

Think Andrew should reveal album titles one by one and see who can guess the guide.

he doesn't know though unfortunately! He said he might have the guys phone #. Should he phone him and ask? or even get an interview?

The original RS Record Guide (Red) had photos of the Five Star Albums scattered throughout. such as the flag that was original cover of There's A Riot Goin' On.

that book was my bible for a long time, and every one of those photos was a holy grail.

Mine, too. Studied it just as much as any other text freshman year.

Should he phone him and ask? or even get an interview?
Sure, but please be gentle. Send in Ned, maybe.

Oddly, I didn't care much about the Rolling Stone guide growing up. This, though, I wore out:

http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6620858-M.jpg

maybe it's this lol
https://musiclistenersjournal.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/blackmusic2.jpg

shakey i want that now!

I was totally unaware of it until just now. never heard of this "encyclopedia" series before

needs more updates

my ex stepdad used to have a collection of cassette tapes lining his walls in his apartment

it was p fucking cool