My music collection

We humans are known to hoard things just like squirrels and in the process create the constant need for larger storage space and clutter our surroundings. It is environmental-unfriendly and not a cool act to me who have all along been espousing my intrinsic love for minimalism and carrying lesser personal belongings which include amongst others my ever-growing collection of books, LPs and CDs. I shall leave the subject of books out as it is unrelated to music playback and concentrate on the latter two music formats.

I like exploring new music, filling up gaps of my collection with music missed out earlier and actually embarked upon a hunt for old albums (mint/NOS LPs and reissued CDs) to replace those cassettes I grew up with, especially during era when I was a young teenager full of ideals and dreams but foolish at heart. The end result is my collection of LPs and CDs grew so rapidly that there were actually 293 and 95 titles during a recent count. In August last year, I only had 250 and 65 titles respectively. I would still be oblivious to this revelation had my other half not commented that of late I am so engrossed in picking up music software whenever opportunity avails itself!

It is a known fact to many that the first-pressing albums are usually the best sounding of the lot and reissued ones are only a compromise, the consolation being their music contents are only available in such reissued formats and we have no other choice unless we search the used market. At the rate I am going, it is inevitable that I do end up with some albums which do not tickle me at all. These are not bad music or their recording lacking per se but just do not seem to strike a single chord with me. There are also others which I have subsequently picked up their different variants with better sonics. How do I deal with these music software? I sell them off at a discount of roughly 25% from their original purchase prices but usually in excellent mint condition and on top of that a significant portion are the first pressings. This time around, I have identified 53 CDs and 14 LPs. Anyone who is keen, kindly contact me via e-mail to which I shall revert with the titles of CDs and LPs concerned. I would definitely need to trim down my existing collection and go slow in further acquisitions.

I picked up 2 more CDs during the last weekend (and thus getting the comment from my wife); the first being a jazz album in Carol Kidd's A Place In My Heart CD and the second a mandarin pop album in Tanya Chua 蔡健雅's 若你碰到他. Carol Kidd's album was first released in year 2001 subsequent to her much acclaimed "When I Dream" and is backed by Robert Farnon Orchestra. Further details here: http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-a-place-in-my-heart-hdcd.aspx. I paid RM44.00 (US$12.22) for it and have been enjoying it a lot from day one itself. As for Tanya's album, I actually picked up her first batch imported CD with a complimentary coupon from Starbucks Coffee Taiwan at RM41.50 and am still discovering and getting myself accustomed to her style of music.
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