Those of you who know what a music geek I am will know how much it pains me to say so, but this weekend I packed up my CDs (all 1000+ of them) into boxes and shuffled them off to the basement in favour of more space in the living room for things like dump trucks, polly pockets and baby swings. While this is only temporary (the CDs will reappear in the finished basement) and I’ve got tons of music on my computer – ’tis a sad state of affairs, none-the-less.
My car has always been the proving ground of music for me. Even in the days of trying to drive less – riding the bike to work – I still end up spending alot of time in the car and it’s the only place I can really take music in. Though I listen to music on the bike to work on the iPod, it’s hard to really appreciate the tunes when your attention is focused mostly on dodging 2 ton death machines piloted by half-asleep morons. I mean, I’m one of those sometimes, but allow me to be hypocritical for one moment – it makes for more interesting reading.
I have always cycled CDs in and out of the car depending on various things. Mood, what I’ve recently purchased, what I’ve forgotten about but what reminded of via a friend or news story. That being said, some albums end up in the car for months. Some a day or two. Some get thousands of listens, some a cursory 2 or 3 before the final “Eh, I remember now why I haven’t listened to this so much.”
I don’t listen to radio much – ‘cept for the news. I have a hard time suffering the advertisers, djs and station programmers that insist on insulting my intelligence. I do tend to be an ‘album’ guy. I’ll listen to the whole thing through. Then again. And again. I don’t skip tracks. Sometimes for days on end. I figure the artist went through the trouble of arranging it such, it’s the way they meant it to be experienced.
All that said, when I boxed up the CDs this weekend, I forgot about the ones in the car. So, for no particular reason and in no particular order (well, they’re alphabetical by artist, cause I’m anal like that), here’s what wound up ‘left in the car’. Glean from this what you will about my inner psyche:
Blinker the Star – August and Everything After
Brad – Welcome to Discovery Park
Foo Fighters – One by One
Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Green Day – American Idiot
Hum – You’d Prefer an Astronaut
Matthew Sweet – 100% Fun
Orange 9mm – Driver Not Included
Sam Roberts – Love at the End of the World (I listened to this for at least a month straight after it came out, at LEAST.)
Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist
How I managed to end up without any Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers, Matthew Good, or Rush iin there is a mystery to me, but I’ve pretty much got their catalogues on instant recall in my head anyway. Giddyup.