If this site stands for anything it’s surely absurd over-analysis of our musical choices. So, in that spirit here’s a thread about Oxfaming, ebaying, or to give it a fancy dan title: deaccessiioning:
The process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum’s collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.
For work of art in this case read ‘Yes’, a mid-period Pet Shop Boys CD, for museum in this case read my shelves. Now there may be some of you who with a devil may care attitude can just toss a CD in the bin with no more thought than a trucker tossing a hopelessly tangled Carpenters greatest hits cassette from his rig into the hedgerow. This thread is not for you. It’s for those who have a more extended dialogue with themselves about exactly what and when has to leave.
Firstly, let us say it is only with the greatest of reluctance that this subject is approached at all. Thoughts such as ‘Don’t I have enough music’ ‘Why did I buy this’ and even darker thoughts such as ‘Do I really think my kids will be grateful for the chance to play all this in forty years time’ and ‘Wil there even be CD players in forty years time’ take their time to come to the fore.
When they do it is usually because I have come to a question: do I really need Semisonic’s bubblegrunge 1998 opus Feeling Strangely Fine in my collection anymore? This question is usually arrived at around two-thirds of the way through an album on the commute home.
There then, and this what I’ like to know from you, the working out of a complex equation in which many factors need to be defined and weighed.
Firstly, how much did I pay for this album? Bluntly it’s easier to put a £1 Oxfam purchase into, to use a film industry phrase ‘turnaround’ than one you can remember purchasing a ‘Two for £22’ from HMV all those years ago.
Secondly, is it by a band I love? The parting of the ways over Pet Shop Boys underwhelming 2009 effort Yes than the previously mentioned Semisonic just cuts deeper. Oh way a falling off was there from Very, Bilingual or even previous effort Fundamental.
Thirdly, if I decide in a decade that I cannot live without ‘Closing Time’ in immediately accessible physical form, then how easier will it be to repurchase? I would think to both Yes and Feeling Strangely Fine the answer would probably be pretty easily. For another album that I feel is moving away from me, Yasmin Williams’ Driftwood which I bought in a rush of enthusiasm for one particular track, maybe not.
Fourthly, is it a compilation? Non-mixed compilations such as the Pulp Fiction soundtrack are pretty easy to say goodbye to. But that slightly scratched Sasha/Digweed double mix CD Communicate. Not on Spotify or any streaming service, and probably never will be. If I say goodbye what will happen? Will I even remember it ever existed?
A decade ago unless an egregious error was made, the bar was pretty high. Now, as with the two I’ve mentioned, plus others on the block such as the Ministry of Sound’s Karma Collection, and even Prince’s 3121, the bar is getting lower.
moseleymoles says
Am I the only one who has to have this debate – to a greater or lesser extent – over trying to downsize? Fascinated to hear your thought processes or even your adherence to the devil may care ‘trucker cassette window’ approach.
Full disclosure: of course they are ripped to the hard drive, backed up in the cloud. But does that make it any easier? Not really.
Jaygee says
Just about to have a long overdue CD cull myself.
Odd that I would never do that with LPs – I suspect most
Of us here would either
The other big conundrum is how to get rid of them.
Can’t face losing and packing them off to new homes,
So I suppose leaves the chazza
Gatz says
As I approach a house move (see posts passim) I have deconstructed my CD shelves and placed the discs and sleeves, or at least the front cover of the sleeves, in large folders. I’ll provide a link below. I’m quite confident that the large majority will never be looked at let alone played ever again. I already stream most of the stuff sitting on shelves mere metres away for the sake of convenience, but it was a middle way between keeping everything and binning the lot.
Jaygee says
Kindle don’t seem very impressed, G.
dai says
There aren’t CD players now! Well hardly any.
Most of my CDs (apart from box sets) are in folders, the cases having been discarded. This isn’t the case for the many box sets I have. WAY TOO MANY!
As for vinyl it takes up a ridiculous amount of room. Potentially I might move back to Toronto when I stop working which would mean likely moving from a 2 bedroom house to a 1 bed flat as property prices are insane there. So I am thinking at least 3/4 of the vinyl has to go along with, say, 1/2 of the CD box sets. All will be ripped or already has been
pencilsqueezer says
I bought a new CD transport only last week. I got an excellent deal on it as the Teac transport I had decided upon is out of stock in Europe and the UK due to high demand. Happily the component I ended up purchasing is built around a Teac transport mechanism. It sounds utterly lovely.
retropath2 says
I am (sort of) doing that, as I digitise (again) my cds, discarding those that, in truth, I never much took to. And it is a fraction, maybe 2-3%, often from the days I bought in bulk. Not stuff that Discogs would deem roadworthy, I have been ziffiting and music magpieing them, often for as little as 10p a pop, but hey, it frees up space for incomers.
When does it end, sweet Jesus, when?
moseleymoles says
If only we could all come up with a snappy title like Swedish Death Cleaning eh @kaisfatdad and sell it as Nordic lifestyle concept.
Kaisfatdad says
Yes indeed, @moseleymoles. That name really was a stroke of genius.
Death Cleaning as a programme would never have got off the ground. Add “Swedish” and suddenly the whole thing became, brighter, more vibrant, life-enhancing, Abbaesque, IKEAn.
I’ve not see the programme but the lady who presents it was on a chatshow and was rather convincing.
Swedish Death Cleaning is probably now far better known that Swedish Death Metal.
But Greta could change all that!
Sewer Robot says
I suppose it’s technically off topic for this thread but Yes is, by a distance, my favourite post-imperial period PSB album..
dai says
At the time I really loved Very. After Bilingual they tend to merge for me and I am missing a few recent ones
moseleymoles says
I put Yes as the point, comes to them all, when they stop making good albums and make albums with good tracks. Here banger-ish Did You See Me Coming and Being Boring-style melancholiafest The Way It Used To Be. Elsewhere beats, but not so much in the way of compelling tunes.
Junior Wells says
I recently began a cull for a few reasons. I reckon it is the peak of the market for vinyl so selling off stuff I never listen to seemed obvious. The realisation that the kids aren’t going to want all this stuff and of course space.
I am reluctant to break an artist, if I like them I am inclined to keep the lot. I broke that vow with Elvis C and now regret, particularly because I now do a radio show and a mediocre record often has one or two really good songs that I might want to play. Dilemma.
I never got rid of CD cases, just got a bigger house. The floor is a concrete slab and I tell you dropping a jewel case on the concrete always ends in tears. If I was really anal I would use the intact cases of reject CDs for CDs I like with snapped hinges or that thingy in the middle that always has bits break off. As for offloading the record store guy said there was a bloke who would take them for a dollar each. Dunno how particular he is, probably very.
I am more drawn towards CDs at the mo. For starters it makes it a lot easier cueing when on air and cost. I was at a Rose City Band gig the merch desk had Cds at $30 and vinlys at $80. FFS.
yorkio says
I’m approaching that point now as I contemplate a move from a house that’s too big for me to a house that will inevitably be too small for all my current belongings.
Vinlywise, I’m tempted to clear the whole lot rather than try to thin things out. But how exactly? Do I invite a dealer to back a transit van up to the back door and get rid of the whole lot in one go? Or should I set up a Discogs shop and flog them myself one at a time, which would be much more lucrative. There are several thousand of the buggers so that would pretty much amount to a part time job, which would be no bad thing right now.
dai says
I have pondered this myself. Get a local guy to come and he will give you 50% of their value (at best) or sell them one by one on Discogs which for me could take months or years, plus all the packaging, export info (of necessary) and going to the Post Office etc. A full time job.
Jaygee says
@Dai
Snap
fentonsteve says
The good news is you can avoid the Post Office queue by buying a “stamp” on the Royal Mail website. Your Postie will come to your house and collect it for free, and even bring a pre-printed sticky address label if you don’t have a printer.
You still have to weigh the buggers, though.
pencilsqueezer says
CD is my goto. I have an ever increasing number of them. In fact I have a Sonny Rollins release arriving today. I would advise against just ditching your discs without first ascertaining the value of them. Some are worth a few bob. As an example I have quite a few of Michael Chapman’s albums on CD and I idled away an hour only yesterday checking on the current asking prices for Wrecked Again, Millstone Grit and Fully Qualified Survivor amongst others and was surprised at the prices being asked. Everything has a value don’t just ditch them.
BryanD says
Yet another person here thinking what to do with them as we contemplate a move. It should be straightforward as I intend keeping the LPs and i already have about 500 CDs that I ripped to a hard drive and then stored in a large wicker basket in the attic room because I never listened to them. The hard drive is plugged into the hifi but I still never listen to them, unsurprisingly. Very few of them were mainstream big sellers so it might be worth trying to sell them rather than just dump them on a charity shop.
Leffe Gin says
Over time I ripped all of my CDs to accessible storage… and NEVER access them. I do still play that music, but from streaming. I suppose this is just a backup in case streaming somehow stops. And to be honest, if someone told me I could only listen to music I never heard before starting today, I’d be ok with that.
The CDs mostly went to charity, some were sold through Discogs where there was any value, the rest sold in bulk to Music Magpie, for peanuts (except that due to some admin error, I got paid three times over…!)
I had some REALLY valuable stuff, I sold a couple of King Crimson items for £300-400 and one for even more. I mean, I love them and everything, but the money is nice as well, and I had already extracted the entertainment from them (ha, some might have difficulty with that.)
It’s all just stuff, you can’t take it with you, and the attachment might do more harm than good.
Gatz says
I have given my vinyl to chazzas, along with a bunch of CDs and hundreds of books. The rest of the CDs are mainly in folders now. Several larger items of furniture also went to charity shops, lots of smaller items have been given away on Freecycle. Bags and bags of clothes and shoes went to charity collecting bins. And somehow my modest two bed flat is still absolutely stuffed full of stuff. Where did I put it all?
Jaygee says
@Gatz
With you on the chazza front and understand what you mean about space.
Spent last Sat sorting out DVDs – the waifs and strays will all go to the chazza.
While am sure some of them are worth something, checking prices and listing all my unloved and unplayed CDs on Discogs sounds like a lot of hard work – especially if I have to start packing and taking them to the post office for shipping one by one.
While not all the money from sales in charity stores goes to the needy, a lot more of it goes to them than would be the case if I dumped everything in the bin.
There’s a record fair in Roscommon on Sunday so will nip in to check out the lay of the land when its time for my executors to sell my vinyl collection after I’ve carked it
Twang says
I have a fairly big shelving unit and I wish my CDs fitted on it but they don’t, by about 100. The obvious answer is get rid of 100 but I have tried and just can’t. I am thinking of putting 100 of the best candidates in a box and stick it in the roof and if I haven’t missed any of them in 6 months the whole box goes to the chazza.
moseleymoles says
Two criteria I omitted from the complex equation that has to be run each time:
IMPORTANCE
Ok, I might not currently warm to say Cut by The Slits but it’s a really important record that no doubt will occur in books/reviews etc in future and I may wish that I had it then. Conversely, Semisonic or a late mid period PSBs are just less important.
SLOG
An indefinable criteria. Does listening to this album, even though you love the artist (viz @junior-wells and his Elvis Costello shelf) feel like a slog. Ultimately I couldn’t summon the vibe for Yes and it felt like a slog this time round. At 40 maybe I could believe that it didn’t matter and that next time around the magic would return. But (existential thought alert) how many more times around will there be?
fentonsteve says
Oh yes, the slog. How long have I had, say, Lost Sirens? How many times I have played its parent album since release? How many times have I played Lost Sirens? Well, the shrinkwrap gives that away. But what if, one day, I do want to hear it?
And I don’t even have the memory-triggering connections to CDs that I have with my 80s/90s vinyl.
Leffe Gin says
Lost Sirens: even Barney probably thinks “hmmm, yeah I think I remember that one…?”