re-buying old favourites: is it worth it?

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ok so my brother's moving out of the household in a couple of days, which means both of us are losing regular access to each others cd collections. our tastes have diverged quite a bit in the last 12 months or so, but there are still plenty of records in each other's collections that we both enjoy (and there are some in my collection that i don't care about but he loves, and vice versa). i'm guessing any cd's i own but dislike he can take with him, and for me the same. but there are also a lot of old favourites on the way out.

i'm not sure how bothered i am at replacing some of them, though. no matter how great some of the records are, i think i've already played them to death, and i'd get more listening time and value for money buying stuff i haven't heard before. all that expense replacing albums that i already know like the back of my hand - is it worth it? perhaps there is something comforting about always having your old favourites at hand, but i'm not sure it's that big a deal.

so, have you been in a situation where you lost access to your old favourites, and had to decide whether they needed replacing? are there albums you always like to go back to? or do you think that every album - no matter how good - loses its appeal after a certain amount of exposure?

well?

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:07 (twenty-two years ago)

why not just wait it out and see what you actually miss?

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:10 (twenty-two years ago)

The existentialist in me says "lose 'em".

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Good idea. then rebuy what you do miss and chuck the other shit.

― uh, Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean my brothers taking loveless with him, and i don't think i can live in a house without it! but apart from that, meh. i think i got pretty much all the listening pleasure when i heard most of those records first time out.

x-post: uh, good point mark. but i'm guessing part of me will go "you cannot live without x record, it's one of your favourites!" then i'll bring it home and not really play it. i'm guessing my question is more: is it important to you to have your old favourites available? even if you never really play them.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

(ie i'm not just asking "what should i do?" i'm also asking "what would you do?/what have you done? in similar circumstances).

do you like to keep cd's for reasons other than listening to them? and what are those reasons?

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that given enough time the true "old favorites" will reveal themselves & demand that they be brought into your collection once again. I once went through a scorching break-up that entailed me having my belongings returned to me. My Cd collection became a casualty of our war in that what was returned to me was not only quite a bit smaller than it had been but CDs that I never would have deigned to listen to were included as a final HA! I can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is to wake up humming an old favorite, happily thumb through your collection only to come the halting realization that the sought after song of the moment is no longer in your possession. I have since put myself on a strict buy-back policy. When finding myself in the CD shopping mood I allow myself 1 new recording & 1 old favorite.

― Katheryn (star), Sunday, 25 April 2004 21:57 (twenty-two years ago)

There are lots of recordings that I like (things by The Clash, for instance) that I don't feel the need to own because I'll probably hear someone else's copy. I think owning copies of records / CDs is mostly an insurance that I'll be able to hear them if I want to.

― jazz odysseus, Sunday, 25 April 2004 22:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been there, Katheryn. There were two times in my life where I had a lot of music stolen from me. It sucks because at first you don't really realize exactly what you've lost and what you haven't. Slowly you unravel the mystery, and it's painful. But you re-buy what you want to hear again, and get over it. In a way it's kindof nice to rediscover things later on. I only recently bought an LP that was originally stolen from me in '91: Liverpudlian band Dr. Phibes and the House of Wax Equations' "Whirlpool". I didn't remember any of the songs when I played it again, but found I liked it just as much as I did back then.

― bimble (bimble), Monday, 26 April 2004 22:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I've found one of my favourite CDs that I'd had a copy of stolen from me 11 years ago, and it's so good to hear it again! I hadn't seen a copy in all that time. I'd cut someone into pieces and flush them down the toilet for stealing lots of music from me.

― jazz odysseus, Monday, 26 April 2004 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd cut someone into pieces and flush them down the toilet for stealing lots of music from me.
Only on ILM is such a psychotic criminal act considered acceptable behaviour. This is why I love you all.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 26 April 2004 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, it's not acceptable at all - what I'm saying is that it'd drive me over the edge to an unhealthy degree.

― jazz odysseus, Monday, 26 April 2004 22:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Copying, as opposed to re-buying, certain old faves can be absolutely k-kool.
I'm enjoying right now some stuff I hadn't heard for nearly 30 years and, though I had way freaky apprehensions about re-listening to some of these songs ever again, well, several of them are pretty great. And as it appears, I didn't remember a few of them all that well, really :)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 27 April 2004 08:58 (twenty-two years ago)

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