# Neurotic Purchasing and/or Listening Habits



## Guest (Jun 21, 2013)

A couple of years ago I decided to slow down my rate of new purchases by focusing on listening to my existing collection (about 850 albums now). I reset all my play counts to zero (everything's in iTunes) and resolved to listen to every track at least once, which I managed to do in about ten months. 

Then after taking a few months off, I decided to do it again, this time giving a personal enjoyment rating (1 to 5 stars) to every track to help me clarify my likes and dislikes. I managed this in about 18 months, only just recently finishing up. Moreover, with a little more work I have now reached the stage where I have listened to everything in my collection at least once in the last 12 months (11 actually but who's counting?).

Part of me is pleased that I overcame my earlier purchasing addiction and have learned a lot more about the music I already own, but another part of me thinks I have travelled well beyond the realm of normalcy.

Rather than keep my neurosis to myself, I thought I'd share, and also invite others to confess their own bizarre behavior.

So let's hear it. Can anyone top my weird obsession? To widen the field a bit, I put both "purchasing" and "listening" in the header. Don't be shy.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Although not normal - your behaviour is commendable and I would like to do something similar.

It is no more abnormal than obsessively purchasing new music when you have loads of CDs you've not listened to yet.

My personal downfall on the purchasing front apart from the recommendations on this site, is the Amazon Wishlist. As soon as I see something on my list dropping in price, I think I have to buy it now because it will never be that cheap again.
So instead of saving me money - I am buying more music than ever before. 
My only counterweight is Spotify - which enables me to listen to loads of stuff that I'd have previously had to buy.

I think I'll be taking a few leafs out of your outlandish scheme sometime in the future myself.
It may also help with a much needed Cull as well, as I weed out the rubbish.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

I used to buy a lot of books. Brand new ones i'd read immediately, but ones from 2nd hand shops acquired cheap or for swap would pile up for years un-looked-at. Finally it occurred to me (after many apt. moves) that just maybe a little guy in my unconscious was using this wall of books as a talisman against death. After all, if I hadn't yet built a kayak and learned Mandarin, there were still some plot twists to be had before I caught the cab. 

So I divested the unlikelies, and now buy only what I'm sure I'll read within the year, knock on wood.

I don't treat cds, lps & downloads this way though. The use experience is different. One work will suggest another: hear Gesualdo & need to hear Xenakis for reasons rational or intuitive. I like hyperlink listening.

Consequently i indulge music its storage space, the way you do when you get a baby alligator.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> My personal downfall on the purchasing front apart from the recommendations on this site, is the Amazon Wishlist. As soon as I see something on my list dropping in price, I think I have to buy it now because it will never be that cheap again.


Not to give you a further rationale  -- many a fine recording does not remain in circulation nearly as long as one thinks it might or should; the works recorded need not be obscure or for a rarified and limited audience (avant garde, other esoterica.) Something being discounted could mean the item is in stock, the seller wants to clear the shelves, and further pressings may be discontinued.

If you really want it, before it is OOP and up for sale on EBay for $60 dollars or some ridiculous overpriced amount, buying it is what you should do.


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## cjvinthechair (Aug 6, 2012)

Mr BPS, I do know how you feel ! Think I'm probably able to say I've listened to each CD (maybe 650/700) at least once, but my neurosis is that they'll now sit on the shelf for the next X years without another listen.
Mmn...needs some discipline like yours; what's even worse is that I've accumulated 4000+ downloads - not all CD length, but most substantial, & the chances of listening to all of those is...nil ! So, do I stop downloading, do I delete all the make-weights; oh, decisions - send for the shrink !


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## Tero (Jun 2, 2012)

I probably do not play 50% of my CDs at all. There is over 1000 by now. There are popular music CDs I am keeping for just one song.

The symphony cycles are like my former binocular hobby. It started with birding, but there are astronomers and hunters in that forum. First you trade up to a pretty good binocular. But then you get new ones: one for travel, one for the car, one to keep at your mother-in-law's rural house. And you have to be able to run tests on resolution and compare them all.

So it is with symphonic cycles. The very best ones you need to keep two or three copies of. In case they quit making CDs. You also have to have a stockpile of 3 CD players as back up.

My CD rating system is just post it notes inside to remind me which tracks I liked


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I grew up in the vinyl era when there were not so many choices avaialble. You bought whatever the record store happened to have in stock and then lived with the album, sometimes for many days, becoming familiar with its every nuance. Those days are long gone in our digital world of access to nearly everything. We really have gained a lot in the 21st centruy, but at the cost of some depth. I think you are subconsciously aware of this and pursuing a healthy course. 

Either way, it's all good.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I can not just listen to movements outside of the entire work. If the iTunes play count is off for the piece, I feel like I've done something wrong. Either I listen to the whole symphony or I don't listen to it at all.

This rule only counts for multi movement works that are not suites, operas, or ballets.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Tero said:


> So it is with symphonic cycles. The very best ones you need to keep two or three copies of. In case they quit making CDs. You also have to have a stockpile of 3 CD players as back up.


Do you mean that you have two or three copies of the same recording?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

What Kleinzeit wrote matches my experience in terms of cd's. Now I only buy what I really want to listen to straight away. I've done this for at least 6 months, and its worked. Combined with a rigorous culling regime, I have reduced dead wood in my collection quite a lot. There is still a 'to listen to' pile but slowly I am getting through it and not adding to it.

I'm also doing what BPS said in the opening post, listening to the music I've already got but haven't listened to for ages, or not that often. Many gems there and I find my insight into these pieces is growing the more I listen to them and read about them (I did it earlier in the year with Bruckner, now I'm doing it with Haydn and Bartok). So I am appreciating these things more deeply, so its a matter of quality of listening rather than quantity. But I always had the less is more approach, for one thing cd's aren't cheap (unless you get them on special or second hand, but as someone said, that can be a double edged sword - easily leads to injudicious and unnecessary impulse buys).

With this approach I won't get thru say all the Haydn symphonies by the time I meet my maker, or all "great" things or whatever, but so what? I'm pretty happy with how I have done things, in any case since joining this forum, my repertoire in classical has expanded manifold. So now I've surveyed the scene and am kind of going back, especially to things I have known for years but not had the chance to get to know them better or more in depth as I was focussing on listening to many things new to me. Now I've done that its good to look at what I got and get into it, and expand cautiously and within the realms of what I need, not what I just want. IN terms of analysing my thinking that's what's been the strongest realisation - distinguishing between needs and wants. But its not always easy!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I used to be a bit of a CD squirrel and still have a large collection. But now that we have the web, I don't buy music at all anymore.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

My habit is usually to buy something when I really really really want it, or in some cases even need it. I love listening to things I have in my own collection and prefer that over buying new things _all the time,_ but what I find most fulfilling about music is being able to compose, improvise and perform music for myself.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

After having reached some 3500 CDs I cut back drastically on my new purchases. Over the past year I have been more focused upon delving deeper into music I am already at least partially familiar with as opposed to seeking out more and more of the unknown. What relatively few purchases I have made have been alternative recordings of works I know and love and works that for whatever reason I never got around to purchasing by composers and performers I greatly enjoy... including some classic jazz, blues, and early rock (I just picked up a disc of Carl Perkins for example). A certain self-appointed champion of the perpetually new and novel informed me that my approach was all wrong... but then I listen to music for the pleasure it brings... not to impress others... as if anyone would be impressed.:lol:


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I started off a hardcore collector and trying to get as much music from the composers I liked, which included multiple performances of the same works. I also kept the door open to composers who were new to me. But, now, it seems that I've simply been filling in gaps more or less for the past few years. I'm still on the lookout for new composers, but I pretty much have established who my favorites are quite some time ago.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If I spot something 'cultural' on the TV, or a film that I remember reading a good review of, I get Taggart to record it (can't work anything mechanical myself). So we get loads of stuff piled up, and we look at it, and then we say, 'Nah - put on a Star Trek DVD.' 
Then every so often, we admit we're not going to watch the highbrow item and wipe it.

That was one good thing, when the TV broke down a few months ago & we had to get an engineer out. He had to wipe everything, build it up from scratch... Hurray - no cultural duties left, and it wasn't even our fault, guv!


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Sometimes, I know I want to listen to some music, but I can't decide what piece I want to listen to. It can take me upwards of 30 minutes to make up my mind...there's just so much great music, it's nearly impossible to pick one piece over another!


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> It is no more abnormal than obsessively purchasing new music when you have loads of CDs you've not listened to yet.


_That_ is my neurosis.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Back in the LP days, selecting something to play took effort. Reading the spines, pulling the album, cleaning the disk, playing it through... Now, with a music server I listen entirely different. I still listen to specific pieces, but a lot of the time, I let my computer put together the playlist. The music plays in every room in my house, and I can look at the title or change the selection using my iPhone. My library is about 110 days worth of music now and I never get tired of anything. I've also gained a greater appreciation for composers I just didn't play enough before. It wasn't that I didn't like their music. It was just that I didn't think of it.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

MagneticGhost said:


> Although not normal - your behaviour is commendable and I would like to do something similar.
> 
> It is no more abnormal than obsessively purchasing new music when you have loads of CDs you've not listened to yet.
> 
> ...


For better or for worse I have to recommend CamelCamelCamel, a browser app that lets you chart the historical cost of recordings on Amazon and, more importantly, allows you to set a price and e-mails you when the item hits that price on Amazon or the marketplace. It's very handy.


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