I Was A Physical Music Hoarder

I often joke that I invested in CDs all my life --- they just didn’t come from a bank. Mine came from music stores across America. If I took all the money I spent on music CDs and put that intobank CDs, it’s possible I could give Warren Buffet a run for his money. It’s a true statement, humor aside. I invested in the wrong type of CDs for too many years.

It started in junior high school when cassette tapes were all the rage and I happened to have a drawer under my bed that was perfect for holding them. That was also the same time I fell deeply in love with music, specifically hard rock music. It was also the time where I said goodbye to boyish things like baseball cards and embraced the teenage manhood love affair of music.

My parents hooked me on music early. I was rocking out to Bob Seger before I entered pre-school and I had a deep appreciation for Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and the Righteous Brothers by the time I was seven. Music always had a special place in my house and the joy it brought was something that resonated with me eternally. Thus, when there was a chance to add that much joy to my life in the form of an actual music collection, I had to do it.

It was my father’s music collection that set me down the path of physically hoarding music. Prior to basking in his collection, I was happy to buy cassette tapes and maybe work my way up to 100. 100 music albums all in one place? That was a lot. More than I could ever imagine, actually. Who would need more than 100 albums to listen to?

Then I spent a Christmas break with my father in Florida. And I sawhis entire record collection for the first time. There were literally thousands of records all in pristine condition. A spectacular stereo system to play them on, and of course a brush and liquid solution for the needle before any record was played. I was in awe. I must have spent half a day just staring at his collection, going through it, and asking to play certain records. I was amazed. My father’s collection caused a pang of jealousy and I knew that I wanted to have a record collection that rivaled or even outdid his.

I slowly worked my way toward adding more cassettes to my pitiful collection in as many ways as I could. When there was money in my pocket, I would buy a record I really wanted. If a friend had an album that I wanted, I would ask to borrow it and make a copy. Blank tapes were only seventy-five cents, whereas actual albums were $7.00. There’s some easy math for ya! And yet, things still grew too slow. There had to be a way to grow my collection faster, even if I didn’t have money to spend.

And that’s when I discovered record clubs. I jumped all over that 12 for a penny deal and even added in the grand bonus of buying my first album for the low, low price of $3.99 and getting 3 more albums FREE! Whoo-hoo! What a deal! For years, I would relish record clubs as a great opportunity to add music to my collection in bulk. I belonged to all of them, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, they were costing me a small fortune. It didn’t matter though. Each package delivered to the house was a small treasure trove of greatness in the form of new music. Nothing was more exciting than that.

In the late 80s, compact discs came out and slowly but surely became the new rage. They were portable, virtually indestructible, and had much better sound quality than cassettes. I got my first CD player at 16 and it was one of the greatest gifts I ever received. Soon after, CDs for the collection would follow. These could also be purchased through record clubs and purchase I did. A lot! By the time I moved out of my home and into my first apartment I probably had around 300 cassette tapes and 100 CDs. A 400-album collection. Not too bad, but nowhere near the thousands that my dad had. I would have to keep working at it. And even with record clubs and CD sales at the mall, the collection wasn’t growing fast enough. There had to be a way to grow my collection faster, even if I didn’t have a lot of money to spend.

Being introduced to record shows was a magnificent experience for me. Here was a place that had an endless limit of compact discs and vinyl records for sale at great bargain rates. There were some discs that could be had at the low, low, price of 2, 3, or even 4 for a dollar. A quarter for a CD? Sign me up! And even the known bands that had popular new releases would only cost $5 – a bargain if I ever heard one. The record show was monthly and for many years I was a regular attendee. So many albums so little time.

The collection grew and grew and grew. I had a spreadsheet to track all my music, what format it was in (tape, CD, vinyl, etc.) and of course what year the record was released. Through years, I kept adding and adding to my collection. Building and building until it nearly overtook a room in my house. By that time, I had close to 2,000 CDs and I was on my way to overtaking my father’s collection with a massive one of my own.

Storage became an issue though. Where on Earth could you keep that many CDs? Large CD racks were purchased, and one section of my house looked like a never-ending CD sale. And when it came time to move from one place to another … let me just say that CDs are not light when bundled together into moving crates. And having to reset them every time I moved became an unwanted pain. I would have to re-alphabetize them once I set the racks up in the new home, and that could take days or even weeks. Sure, it would give me an excuse to listen to some of them, but ultimately it would be a painstaking chore. And not one that I looked forward to.

Then one day, MP3s came out. There was no longer a need to have a physical piece of music, you could get what you wanted digitally and store it with ease, because it did not take up any space. I resisted the digital movement for as long as anyone, but in the end, of course, it consumed me, and I was sucked up with the rest of the music junkies. I got my first IPod and worked on the chore of converting my physical CDs to a digital library.

The biggest issue with the digital movement was the loss of holding an album in your hands. I always loved the smell of a new cassette tape, or the triumph of getting the factory sealed plastic off a new CD, followed by that annoying sticker label that was put across the top. And being somewhat OCD, I had to make sure that all the sticky tape was removed. Otherwise I would sit there with that jewel case in my hands until it was.

Collecting music was an unhealthy obsession at times. Anytime I heard a new song that I liked even a little, I had to have the entire album. If I heard the song more than a couple of times and really get into it, I would usually find a way to run out and get the album immediately. Nobody Beats The Wiz had even given me a credit card with a $750 limit. I went CD shopping there at least twice a month. Classic albums, modern albums, and even new “super audio” CDs were all whisked into my collection. Disc after disc. Album after album. Artist after artist. I had to have them all.

Nowadays, the youth doesn’t know anything about growing a music collection. Between the digital age of streaming on demand and listening to whatever song they want to hear on YouTube or some other similar path, there aren’t many music collections like there used to be and there certainly aren’t as many collectors as there used to be. Some are still out there, but they are few and far between. I myself have gone digital. I subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited and have recently thought about joining Spotify.

Occasionally, I will still buy a CD to add to the collection, but it must be one from a favorite band or a disc that I really want to listen to repeatedly. The only place I play CDs anymore is my car. I still have my stereo, my 5-disc changer, and my 300 Disc jukebox, but I never use them. It’s like we’ve gone backwards in time and regressed to a machine with headphones to play music back on. From the Walkman to the I-Phone in two generations. 

And while I still have most of my physical music collection, it is just collecting dust. I sold the vinyl. There’s been a resurgence with collector’s looking for vinyl and I was more than happy to sell mine and pocket the money. I’m eyeing up my cassette collection to sell next. There is a slow growing movement of people who want cassette tapes for some odd reason and I do still have over 400 cassette tapes – all in pristine condition. If I price them right and someone wants them, I have no problem selling those too. A large part of my life and one of the most important parts of my youth would be gone forever, but that’s all right. The collection has become nothing more than a status symbol. A, hey, I did it, moment that not many people care about anymore. A huge music collection used to be impressive, now it just means you spent too much money on something that is bulky and hard to move and most likely going to be thrown out once you’ve died. The kids can stream it, why would they want to move 2100 CDs?

I’ve yet to decide on what I will do with all my CDs. I changed the way I store them from multiple racks in a room, to several leather zipper cases that hold the CD and the booklet that came with it, but all the jewel cases have been recycled. Even if I were to try and sell the collection, I don’t think there would be many buyers for a CD collection without the original jewel cases. And thus, I am probably stuck with the massive number of CDs I’ve acquired over the years. So, yes, I was a physical music hoarder. And that’s okay, I suppose. It will serve as a constant reminder of a fond period of my life. Like looking at old pictures in a photograph album and remembering great times from days gone by.