Vox Hunt: Garage Sale

nobody@vox.com(DYFL) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:33:12 -0500

Show us something you need to get rid of, but just can't bring yourself to toss out.
Submitted by Felipe Anuel.

OK, you have got to be kidding me that this is today's Vox Hunt question, because I'd been planning for a while to write this up today. The answer is: my CD collection. It's immense (I haven't counted in a while, but I wouldn't be surprised if I've hit 800). As you no doubt know if you're reading this, I adore music, and I'm one of the last people alive to be buying CDs. But I'm finally getting to the point where I'm wondering if it's worth owning them anymore.

At this point, I buy CDs because I want to support artists; I buy them, I look through the packaging once, I rip them onto my computer, and I put them on the shelf. And that's where they stay. I don't even have a dedicated CD player anymore -- all my music-listening takes place on my computer or iPhone (note that I didn't say iPod -- I should probably sell my 60GB 4th gen iPod, and in fact I might bang it up on Craigslist today and flog it off for a quick $100). I'd love to have a nice stereo set with good speakers, an amplifier, a CD player and a turntable for vinyl records (which I don't own, but am crazy enough to want to collect -- more on that later), but that's pretty far down the list of purchases I need to make for myself, supplanted by a new TV, new furniture, new clothes, new laptop, etc.

So. My CD rack -- as gorgeous as it is -- is, essentially, a piece of furniture or home decor at this point. The rack itself is also structurally compromised; when rearranging my living room a couple months back, I was stupid enough to try to move it to another wall without emptying it completely, and the stress has really done a number on it -- it won't survive another move, be it to another apartment or just another spot in this one. And speaking of moving, God help me the next time I have to pack all of these things up; enough of the cases are cracked at this point already, and as you might expect, they fill a lot of fucking heavy boxes.

I've just embarked on a mission to re-rip everything I have, standardizing on 256kbps MP3 instead of the various bitrates and formats I've used over the years; it makes files a little too big for my iPhone's paltry 8GB of memory, but it matches the Amazon MP3 store, where I'll likely be making a lot more purchases in the future. And once everything's re-ripped, I intend to sell a good number of them -- I've culled out something like 200 discs, many of them singles or EPs I bought for bonus tracks but many of them full albums I've just grown away from (all of which are currently stacked in random places around my apartment, as I don't want to lug them all down to the record store at once but would rather bring them a list and have them let me know if they're interested). I've almost never sold CDs before, so this is a big step. But as you can see in the picture above, that cull only emptied out a small part of that previously chock-full rack. So I'm wondering if, at this point, it wouldn't just make more sense to take the total plunge and sell every single one of them. They have sentimental value, but they're a pain in the ass to deal with when you live in NYC, and if I try to only keep the ones I care about I'll suddenly find myself justifying far, far too many of them.

But that leaves the question of where I'll get my music in the future. For full albums, I refuse to buy digital-only unless they're high-quality, DRM-free files, like iTunes Plus or Amazon MP3, but there aren't enough labels participating in either of those yet to completely supplant CD-buying, and I'm not principled enough to believe I can just refuse to buy records from labels who don't participate -- I'm going to want that music. I'm also not un-principled enough to just illegally download those records; true, the labels won't sell them to me in the format I prefer, but I don't want to punish artists for their labels' foolishness.

So I want advice on this. Most of you know me and my music-buying habits (and my need for a quick cash infusion) well enough to weigh in here. Should I go for it and liquidate them all? Or am I better off straddling the gap for another couple of years?

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Vox Hunt: Garage Sale