I have been sitting and thinking about what my next entry was going to be. I have nearly made it through April at this point and feel like I am on the cusp of a refreshing Spring. Over the past few weeks, we have had several visitors at our house. One thing that’s been consistent with many of the people that have stopped by is their ‘evaluation’ of our music selection. You can always learn a lot about people, their beliefs, and what they do on Saturday nights by peaking into their music selection.

I have read some great articles and blogs discussing interests similar to mine and became inspired to write my own entry on music. Specifically, how it fills in the cracks of our existence like sand between rocks. I am by no means an expert on anything, including music, its creation, or its distribution. But I do know what I like so that makes me an expert on me. So I have decided to write a three-part entry to talk music. (1) Our music catalog, (2) How we amassed our interests, and (3) Where to go to find more. If you hadn’t heard, music is a big deal around this house.

(1) Our Music Catalog:
I pride myself in the quantity and quality of the music in our house. We have literally TONS of CD’s and albums at our house. Our visitors are generally astonished by the shear volume of our catalog. Over the years, I have dumped many albums, tapes, and CD’s to make for new entries. I have always considered that the natural selection of music; an auditory Darwinism. I suppose that this is a great way to keep your inventory under control. Otherwise, instead of bedroom furniture, we would be sleeping on records covered with comforters. That wouldn’t be so bad if your kids didn’t pee the bed. These last few weeks, I have been thinking back and it seems that a lot of the stuff I got rid in the past was a little part of me. And while I was ridding the house of an old Montell Jordan CD, I couldn’t help but be a little saddened that I was erasing myself ever so slightly.

I got over it. I just don’t have the room to keep everything I have ever owned regardless of how emotionally insightful or bubblegum pop disposable it was. But our catalog is still large and difficult to navigate despite the thinning of the herd over the years. And while I go through it and tell myself over and over, “I need to get rid of that Nick Lachey album,” I can’t part with the guy who put up with Jessica Simpson and didn’t strangle her after she prompted that whole ‘chicken or tuna’ incident. That, my friends, is heart. I will say this; we don’t have any Jessica Simpson records. I have standards even if they are so low they can be tripped over.

Let’s talk physicality of our music catalog. In open view, we have this IKEA bookshelf handcrafted-by-the-poor-indigenous-people-of-somewhere-I’ve-never-heard-of in our great room which is literally chocked full of CD’s. The damn thing weighs a ton. I would bet it has more than its weight in music stored in its enclave. Because of its inertness, it would probably be the only thing still standing after the big one hits. It is made up of three large shelves and two large drawers and stands about four and a half feet tall, four feet wide, and a foot and a half deep. It is the physical recorded media capital of our home. The top three shelves and the lower of the two drawers are full of CD’s. The only other drawer available has DVD’s in it. But their days are numbered as the additions look for new resting spots and soon these DVD’s may be out on the street or in the unemployment line.

The three shelves are the home to multiple rows of CD’s. The CD’s are sitting on their ends, like books, so the spines can be easily read. Initially, these three rows were organized in alphabetical order from top left to bottom right. However, some cannot follow our challenging 26 letter alphabet and were confused why John Denver would be before Incubus. Here’s a quick lesson for those just learning the Latin alphabet. Artists’ names, such as John Denver, are filed by last name, ‘Denver’ in this case. Bands are filed by the first letter of their name unless it is something like The John Butler Trio. Then it is filed by the letter ‘J.’ Things are getting more complicated though. Because of the increasing volume of music in our home, we have added a second row behind each front row. Now the shelves currently are two rows deep. This makes it pretty challenging to locate exactly what you are looking for if you don’t have more than an afternoon to browse behind everything. Because we are running out of physical space and the shelves are deep, this is our best case scenario for housing our audio interests. You just have to then remember that the newer CD’s are in the front and older ones are in the back.

As I mentioned earlier, only one of the drawers is used for CD’s. The other has DVD’s in it. I keep thinking to myself that I could put these DVD’s in cold storage somewhere in the Arctic due to the frequency to which one graces our DVD player. I think the only DVD in the player right now is Twilight for some god-awful gay-vampire reason. I digress. The drawer with the CD’s is no different than the shelves. All of the CD’s are stacked in rows on end so the titles can be read on the spine. My alphabetization rules for the shelves also apply here. Briefly as I can be, Keith Sweat is filed under ‘S’ for his last name. But Tha Dogg Pound is filed under ‘D’ for ‘Dogg’ and not the word ‘Tha.’ The drawer is deep enough for a double stack. The problem is that there are two layers creating a problem with accessibility similar to the shelves. Everything on the bottom layer is appropriately but tightly filed. I think it goes from the letter ‘A’ to the letter ‘S’ on the lower layer of CD’s. The top layer continues on with ‘T’ through compilation albums but is grossly more chaotic in filing. Things are just sitting there and they get tossed around when you are searching for something below.

I have also been accused of musical segregation, if there is such a thing. How can I be considered guilty of this when record stores have been categorizing by genre for years. To dumb it down completely, ‘Rock’ is on the top three shelves and ‘Soul’ is in the drawer. It is not my fault that certain ethnicities may be disproportionally represented in one category when compared to another. The ‘Rock’ section is more than just rock music. It is some jazz, some alternative, some punk, some ska, some surf rock, some metal, some folk, and some electronica. The ‘Soul’ section is predominantly hip-hop, some rap, some soul, some R&B, and some compilation CD’s. For your ethnic score keeping, Third Bass, Beastie Boys, and Remy Shand are in the lower ‘Soul’ section while Danko Jones, Miles Davis, and John Lee Hooker are a few examples in the ‘Rock’ section. Where is the ‘Country?’ There is none. There is only room for one ‘Country’ album in our collection and that is Aces Up.

So I guess maybe I am a little pretentious when it comes to music. In all seriousness, any piece of music that scratches the creative itch is welcome in our library. The albums that have survived my auditory cleansing are those which have stood the test of time to our emotions. Every album we have, or have had, is important to us. Those that are no longer with us have served their purpose. Our catalog is large yet maintainable. For the most part, I know where every album is and the level of difficulty in pulling it out of the bottom layer of the drawer or back row of the lowest shelf. While some of the albums in our catalog I would deem less than desirable, they do have a spot in our catalog. Sure, I hate the Mamma Mia soundtrack but it makes my wife happy. I can respect that.

Next up: (2) How we amassed our musical interests