Do you keep every album you buy?

absolutely not! Although I'm getting better at buying records after what 16 years. Better research or am I just getting wiser or just getting more money to spend on records? Haven't been to a record exchange in almost 2 years. The strangest thing is I had a knack for returning records I first listened to in the store! Some shite I've returned through the years: Boo Radleys - 'Giant Steps', 'Trout Mask Replica' (of course), 'Zuma'/'Rust Never Sleeps' - Neil Young, some late period Anthrax and of course 'Let it Be' and 'Please to Meet Me' by The Replacements. Loads more but I can't remember every shift in my record collection.

I take a lot of chances, and most of the records I buy I have never heard anything from, so about half of the stuff ends up at the used record store (or the trashcan) sooner or later. I find purging my collection of records I'm lukewarm about as exciting as buying new ones. It's a quick way to improve it - addition by substraction.

I own around 1000ish CDs and have sold back, as best as I can recall, less than 100. So yes, I keep most of them. There are quite a few that I haven't listened to in a long time, but I need that time to realize I don't like some things, because I will often take months and months before realizing that I _do_ like some things.

1000 x $10 = $10000

ouch

Frankly, I wasn't that interested in music up until a few years ago. I only had a few dozen CD's and most of them were CDs that I considered "classics," or at least very very good, so I kept them. In this day and age of newsgroups, fan websites (like freakytrigger!) mp3s and the rest, I'm able to do plenty of research into the CDs I want, and I keep almost everything I get. Not to say I don't end up with duds occasionally, and then there's the unpredictable "gift" factor!

No. Lots of turnover, always. Some records I probably haven't played in 7 or 8 years, but I still hold on to because I'll want to hear them someday. But if I have something for a good while and I feel I've given it a chance, and it still doesn't work, I sell it for 1/3 of something new. If I count promos, I'm sure I've sold 600 or more over the years.

half of the shit i buy is exactly that. which is kinda sad. i've become a bit more guarded in my purchases as of late, and have not required a trip to the used record store in quite some time. which is good, i suppose. but then, i think about how cool it would be to have a solid wall of records (which is what the things that i have sold over the last eight years would amount to right about now)...maybe that wouldn't be very cool. whatever.

Depends on my proximity to a record reseller. When I was near one every day, I would sell things I disliked all the time. I haven't sold anything in ages now though.

i sell a lot of records because i try different things i almost only buy secodn hand records, i only buy new ones if i know they are good...

I don't actually sell many. I let a lot fall into disuse, though.

i've never been able to bring myself to sell CDs except in times of dire financial need when I was a student. (OK, so I'm still a student, but I discovered that if you got a job people gave you money, so maybe I should have said when I was a poor student.) That said, every time I see a record second-hand which I used to own, I want to buy it back. For example, a Stars on Thrash compilation LP I must have had when I was 14. Why? Is my brain wired wrong at some point?

Sadly, yes. I'm in the "lets most of it gather dust" category.

I have an active and enthusiatic "killing the runts of the litter" policy which is an essential part of my record buying. Once I've decided that I hate something it has to go - its mere presence sort of contaminates all the good stuff I have.

I have rarely regretted this policy. There's nothing like an good clearout! The only rule is that all monies MUST be instantly ploughed back into buying more music. That's why I always go for exchange instead of cash.

Omar - you got rid of "Let it Be" !!!! I agree about "Trout Mask..". It lasted a couple of days in my house. Crap.

Dr.C sorry about that, but i needed the cash. And besides The Replacements suck. ;) I wonder if '69' is still rotting in some 2nd hand bin here in Amsterdam. Strange that i never regret one of these decisions.

Btw. does anyone of you use these cd-books for storage? You know, the ones were you get rid of the diamond-case and slip cd&cover into plastic pages? I'm running out of space real fast. Could use some alternatives esp. for those cd's that I don't want to get rid off but know I won't play in the near future.

I build forts out of my jewel cases.

Yes, I keep them all. I tend to figure that if I don't like an album, the fault lies with me, and not the album. So I come back every now and then. Nico's The Marble Index which I had appreciated before, just now turned into a truly brilliant album in my mind. Also, the only albums in my collection that I could imagine selling are either really trashy LPs that I got for next to nothing anyway and which wouldn't make me a red cent, or otherwise albums that there would be no demand for.

Yes, I keep every single one. I had one experiment with going to a second hand record store and selling some stuff - the money I got was so pathetic that, since then, I've not considered selling CDs to be worth the bother. I don't have many 'mistakes' in my collection - the stuff that I never listen to, however, invariably gets dragged out when friends visit. Ouch. Storage tips? Don't buy so many CDs. Yeah, right.

amazed anyone wouldn't like the Marble Index immediately... i just had to take back only built 4 cuban linx because i needed to, you know, eat, but usually i can't bear to delete an mp3. last year when i was jobless prioor to uni i'd take back old records to Virgin and exchange them. i used to put little biro marks on the sleeves so i could go back and see if they'd sold my copies yet. i got the first 3 VU albums for green day, garbage and the verve. oh, my indie teenhood.

Well, 'The Marble Index' is a bit heavy innit, i can understand someone not getting it in one listen. That shit is cold. Well, I finally got a storing solution: it's a case as big as a 12-inch with plastic pages in which you put your cd's with the covers. It can hold 200 cd's!! All my worries are over.

I sold some of my collection,gave the rest to charities for the blind and haven't regretted it (yet) though I know I'll forget many snapshot moments in my life now I lack the prop of aural stimulus.

This problem recently became relevant to me when we finally got a car to go in our garage. This of course meant evacuating years of vinyl archives from said garage, as my good lady made it abundantly clear that she did not want a garage smelling "like digestive biscuits" and "you never listen to these old things anyway. Move on!" Fair comments both. The problem starts, though, when you look for suitable candidates for evacuation. Any reasonable-minded individual would have no difficulty; simply do a periodic spring-clean and get rid of certified duds and fallen favourites. But here's a thumbnail example of how unreasonable people such as myself go about it.

OK, let's start at the bottom left hand side. Frank Zappa!! You could junk all of these, couldn't you, Carlin? When's the last time you sat willingly through all of "The Grand Wazoo"? But hang on . . . oh, I loved "Weasels" when I was 15, it opened my eyes to so much else . . . ah, I've never seen that one on CD. If I flog it now, I'll never find it again . . . some good twin bass counterpoint on that track . . . oh shit, this one's got Archie Shepp on it . . . now this one was always a bit of a bummer. But side four, track six was OK . . . oh I can't remember how this one goes - must remind myself . . . and so on, and so on. All right then, Neil Young, your turn! You see the problem. In the end I will of course invent every conceivable excuse not to sell a wall of slabs of vinyl, 98% of which I will almost certainly never listen to again. I can't explain it rationally beyond the fact that I just like to have a lot of records in the house - I could say that they were there "for reference" but then that's just a pretence towards a career in music writing which I'm never sure I really wanted.

My partner, however, is far more astute. She armed me with a suitcase full of blank TDKs and locked me in the garage for a fortnight with unambiguous instructions to sort out the crap, tape what your gut might want to listen to again, and flog the rest and help pay for this fucking car. Or else! Pal!! What else could I do? Brute force always triumphs over sweet unreason.