Disks & Dates
I have collected records – and in recent decades CDs – from as far back as 1980. My first two LPs were the Xanadu and Fame soundtracks. Recently I have come full circle and replaced them with CDs. It was a sort of milestone for me.
So needless to say, music is my interest, and indeed my obsession! So as the numbers mount and become increasingly comprehensive, the lazier one gets to go find the particular CD one wants to listen to. I used to rotate them in the CD shuttle in the boot of my car and give them all their turn. There was always some favouritism of course!
A few years ago with the advent of modernity, mp3s have become a far more flexible, easy to access, and a far more expedient way to listen to anything with a mere click of a mouse button. It has taken many years and endless hours of work to get them all obsessively, compulsively, organised and on the computer.
At first it seems like just a quick and effortless job. Well, anyone with a sizeable collection will know otherwise. So over the years I’ve implemented and modified a fairly easy system to maintain and to continuously add to.
Part of my system requires that each album be entered under the applicable genre followed by artist or band, and then by album date and title. Easy enough once one gets into the system. It also assists me to keep a database so that I do not buy duplicates. Often I can no longer recall what I have on record and what I already have CD. Yes, I am getting old!
The date is very important in maintaining a proper indexing system. This is where my major gripe with the record companies and the graphic artists who prepare the artwork and layouts for the CD labels and box art arises.
The worst part of my routine is to come across CDs or Records that simply have no dates at all! Not on the cover or the actual CD or Record. Grrr! It is such a simple thing to include at the time of design and press. So when the date is missing, it sometimes requires quite extensive research online to track down the original release date.
The next challenge with my aging eyesight is the absolutely illegible, miniscule printing on the CD and/or the box art. Often enough a magnifying glass is enough to pour over the item to try and decipher its secrets. Often the text size is so tiny that it has simple blurred into tiny ant like blobs. Is that an 8 or is it a 3? Perhaps a 6? Nope, it’s just a mysteriously blurred ant accidentally stamped onto the plastic at time of press!
I understand that when a recording is lifted from the original vinyl format that the cover art is simply reduced to less than a quarter of the size in order fit onto a compact disk box. Not a very professional presentation but understandable nevertheless.
What there is no excuse for, is the copyright and date printing on the actual disk itself. Gosh, surely with all the piracy abound, the record companies would want to make that legal bit a little larger? Just a tad so that one intending on making industrious copies of said copyright would not need a magnifying glass to be informed? Just a thought.
With the cost of music these days, I really fume at incorrect track listing on the box when compared with the actual music tracks recorded on the disk. Let me not even go as far as to mention the spelling mistakes or incorrect title names.
Often music labels put out “special” editions of CDs which may include a mysterious second disk. Shhh… It’s a secret! We do not want you to know the contents of this extra disk you have just paid extra for. It is so elite that no one must know its mysterious bonus contents!
Since carbon has already been emitted into the environment in the manufacturing of the plastic and a tree cut down for paper pulp… please dignify the deceased tree by honouring it and us with a little insert giving us some titbits on the bonus material. After all… we did shell out extra cash for the sacred “Special Edition” version.
“DJ! Put the needle on the record!”
After Note: If you want a fantastic little program to create html indexes of your music files and folders (or anything else for that matter) you may want to have a look at http://dirhtml.home.comcast.net/ . Its free, light, and works like a charm. You can use little scripts to automate certain aspects.
