Music: Why Can't I Get Rid of This Crap?

Freed from a weekly radio commitment, I now relish the opportunity to listen to music the old way, the natural way, without always auditioning everything and imagining segues and conceptual ties, calculating the booty-shake quotient and all that baggage. This, of course, necessitates an honest reappraisal of my record collection, a little soul-searching, and some cold hard looks at just why the hell I'm hanging onto three John Denver records. 

Other questions I'll have to ask: is there really any reason for anyone to actually own a Beatles record?  And do I love John Cale so much that I'd repeatedly sit through The Academy in Peril like I was guzzling raw egg yolk?  I'll address all these questions and more, and acknowledge up front that the general impulse at work is no doubt sentimental and fetishistic.  e.g., I don't like Caribbean Sunset either, but I'm untroubled by that because I don't have it.

Alright, here goes...

John Cale The Academy In Peril  I've listened to this album in its entirety once, maybe twice; I've begun to listen to it countless times, and been knocked catatonic by its total aimless boredom nearly every time. But it's Cale, with an amazing Warhol cover, and a great title, and all these weird associations I inexplicably have for it that make me get just a little excited every time I flip by it on the shelf.  But I can't stand it, go figure!  So I'll probably always have it.

The Beatles.  What's the point?  It's hardly worth having an opinion about The Beatles, let alone any of their records.  But I've got both.  Aside from Beatles for Sale, that fantastic melancholic and miserable downer, the only reason I keep any other Beatles record is because someone keeps stealing all of the WFMU library's copies.  Not a good reason.  Have I got the strength of my convictions to get rid of them?  Wish me luck.

Jump!!  There's more...

Hawkwind Hall of the Mountain Grill  Ohhhh, Hawkwind.  I don't even like looking at this record; and I'm a man who loves looking at Hawkwind records, the Barney Bubbler, the better.  Hmm... you know, I think I can do it - I think this one's getting the heave-ho.  Considering all the massive testaments to the life-force Hawkwind released before this new age dud, it's like I always used to say about Porno For Pyros: as long as Jane's Addiction records exist, why would anyone listen to this? 

Catherine Riberio + Alpes La Déboussole This record's in the same league as John Cale for me- I am so enamored of so much that Mme Ribeiro is responsible for that it kills me to even allow myself to not totally worship something she's done. But following so many years of intense howling, direct connection to her demonic muse, primal body rhythms and 25-minute slow burns, this 1980 collection of flange bass-driven dance-prog just breaks my heart.  I'll never listen to it, and I'll never part with it.  (Plus it was hella expensive!)

John Denver, christ, I don't know!  But here's my guess: the know-it-all contrarian in me declares that J.D. wrote some really great songs but, like The Carpenters, you couldn't tell until you heard someone else doing them, blah blah blah.  In John Denver's case, the someone else in question is usually the Red House Painters.  So, what?  I'm holding onto these records so that one day I can show all o'you mooks how wrong you were about this guy?  Nah, that doesn't fly (pardon the pun).  I guess I'm just a sucker for wide open sus 2 chords on an acoustic guitar.  And hawks.

Of course, the best reason to hold onto stuff is what I call the The Law of BÖC, which states that I'll see a record on my shelf and consider it shit, and so get rid of it; then six months later I'll see a copy in a bin at a record store and feel all fuzzy for that one song and be compelled to buy it again.  I've done this with Tyranny and Mutation three times, and goddammit, it's embarrassing  (and please don't tell me to download that one song - it's more complicated than that!)  So, I will never get rid of another Blue Öyster Cult album. 

Oh god, it just happened! I'm filling in for the great Billy Jam this afternoon and thought I might like to play this really nuts & noisy version of "Leaving On a Jet Plane" by the St Louis band Grandpa's Ghost, I've got like 4 or 5 CDs by them, it's on The Tumble / Love album, right? cool, lemme go g--- FUCK!  That's the one I got rid of!!

But I've still got three John Denver albums...

Comments

[Taxman's Shrink's Community College guidance counciler]

Scott, I tried to get him to change his career path but.......

[The Scott Scott didn't know Scott had]

Hey TSCCGC, that's awfully kind (and not to mention hilarious) of you, but I couldn't have asked for a greater, more entertaining (and wildly off the mark) interpretation of my motives than what Taxman's shrink had to offer. There's no hate here, sir - just a lot of us conflicted music nerds indulging in a little navel-gazing.

[JD]

Hating the Beatles is so last-century.

[boil]

Yeah the Beatles suck. Though if you actually listen to a record, they're pretty interesting. And on DVD they're great. Did you see that thing on YouTube? I love the Beatles!!!

[Scott]

Nice try Boil. I think I need to make something clear here: I don't hate the Beatles. I've already owned to being a fan of "Beatles for Sale", and on top of that own, and can't get rid of, several other records. That tiny portion of this post that has to do with them has nothing at all to do with whether they're good or bad -- i think the point i was making was they're beyond criticism. "What's the point?"; "Who cares what anybody thinks about the Beatles?" When's the last time you -didn't- hear a beatles song on the radio? When's the last time you said "FINALLY! A book about the beatles, one that tells it like it was!".

[Wild Bill]

Yeah, but if you've never owned a parody gatefold album called Music From Lil' Brown & you happen to see it searching the bins, BUY IT! Bring it home and compare it to The Band's Music From Big Pink & then write a blog entry!

I may be paranoid but that doesn't mean that they're NOT following me. OCD is like a record on a turntable (probably one with a repeating skip in the grooves).

[Progczar]

There is also the crazy concept of only collecting good albums (in their entirety). This may be somewhat subjective, of course, yet it keeps my stacks (3000+ vinyl) pared down to: "all killer - no filler" aside from a couple handfuls that have not gotten around to being traded or sold again.

[john m]

I don't understand unloading and re-buying the same record for sentimental reasons. My sentimental attachment is to the ACTUAL copy of the record I bought when I was 15 or what have you. I recently realized I have these great records I don't listen to so I got them on a more portable format. It's been a great rediscovery. But I just can't say goodbye to the original object. It goes in a box and sits in storage. It's weird...am I at all better off with that record in a box in the basement...I guess I feel I am.

[Scott]

Good news everyone! I did it! I got rid of "Hall of The Mountain Grill" this weekend!!

[Steve Barton]

The Red & The Black? Man, I love that song but it doesn't make me fuzzy...

[Neal Burgess]

I have gotten rid of a sizable amount of albums in my day, one time about 300 cd's, and I must say, the only ones I've bought again were the Velvets boxed set (I don't know why I got rid of that) and some Skinny Puppy albums (I once thought that Download's 'Furnace' was the only thing by Cevin Key worth listening to, but realized last year that everything he did and continues to do is pure gold). I do not miss all that alternative crap I bought thinking it was great and hardly listened to when it came down to it. But I just might say that about Sunn in 15 years.

[Neal Burgess]

"A little off the subject, maybe, but Alan Zweig made an interesting documentary called Vinyl about obsessive record collecting. http://www.journalism.ryerson.ca/online/replay/altlife/rsimonetta.htm"

That is actually totally on the topic. I was just about to make a reference to Zweig, when I did a search on WFMU to see if it had been brought up before, and yours was the first. My favourite moment in the movie is when he tells the story of deciding to give up some records that he really loved, in an effort to prove that he didn't need them. So he gives away his favourite record of all time, Curtis Mayfield's "There's No Place Like America Today". He ends up buying the cd, but confesses that not only does having the cd, not please him, it actually is making it worse and only reminds him that he doesn't have that record anymore. Later in the film he is with the guy who he gave it to and convinces him to give it back. I've never seen a happier man.

[Charlie Davidson]

If you lived as near to Liverpool as I do, you'd REALLY hate The Beatles... as for the Hawkwind, it's certainly no classic, but anything with Uncle Nik's "D-Rider" on it can't be all bad.