Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
If 95% of my music is junk, then I'm leaving the industry! But it's not, so I'll still keep buying music that I love!
Sturgeon's Law asserts that 95% of everything is crap
I only "love" a few CDs beginning to end. While music is a personal thing, I keep turning back to Suzanne Vega's seminal folk classic, "Solitude Standing"; k.d. lang's "dark Ingenue"; and No Doubt's "Ska Tragic Kingdom." I think marketing really plays a strong part in consumers choosing a crap CD that really should be returned to the retailer. I think MP3 is a great equalizer between the consumer, who has always been the sucker, and the recording studios, who have always had the pulse of the the poor buyer's psyche. Since MP3, I have not bought a CD that has only one or two great tracks while the rest are filler. Perhaps music companies will now lose that small proportion (like myself) who will only buy great talent and product and not [be subject to] peer/marketing pressure.
I've often been tempted to dump the dross, but I've been told that it's a reflection of a full character to keep everything and display a complete history of your musical discoveries. I'm still in search of a certain critical mass in my collection, where it's big enough for me to forget what I've got, so that I can rediscover some of it and be delighted. I think there's a long way to go there.
What a wonderful question to ponder, as I have recently been asking myself that very question. As it turns out, TRUTHFULLY, most of the music I have purchased over the past 30 odd years I can no longer listen to. Thank God for good playback systems and E-Bay!