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A few years back I had a thread on this site called Record Collection Reconciliation, inspired by the number of records I’d picked up and hadn’t yet played. As most with most projects I tackle, it sputtered out before its completion. In retrospect the biggest problem wasn’t that I didn’t finish the task at hand, but that I jumped the gun on the assignment. I doubt that my collection even approached 200 LPs at the time, with roughly equivalent number of seven-inches to bolster the ranks. While I’ve more or less stopped picking up vinyl singles, my LP collection has ballooned to almost 600 in the last two years, largely thanks to gorging myself on dollar LPs. Beyond the testy concern of storage, the most pressing concern is finding the time to actually listen to this many new records, particularly for weeks when I grab more than I should.
Once I had the inclination to revive this long-dead project, I flipped through my record shelf and pulled a selection of my unheard LPs. Seventy winners were chosen, with a musical range more typical of my iPod Chicanery projects than, say, my Last.FM account, which is to say that it’s not all Colin Newman, Foals, and Wipers LPs. This selection is by no means exhaustive—as terrifying as it is to admit, I have more unheard LPs waiting in the wings—and avoids repeating artists too heavily. Sorry Elvis Costello, I will have to get to Taking Liberties and Goodbye Cruel World at a later date. Will I ever get around to a more comprehensive look at my record collection? Unlikely, but who knows how much momentum this iteration will have.
My goal is to tackle at least five LPs each week. Initially I intended to select each album at random, but given that I’ve put my most brutal version of iPod Chicanery on hold for the time being, I’ll allow myself to choose a record I probably feel like hearing at a given moment. The range of records is significant in terms of genre, quality, and familiarity (while I may not have heard a particular album from an artist, say Elvis Costello, I’m likely familiar with his other work). Expect the first entry within a few days; I’ll try to cover five records per post. I’m also considering including any records I buy between now and the end of the project, provided that it’s not a long overdue physical copy of a well-loved album.
Aside from my previous attempt at Record Collection Reconciliation, notable analogs to this project include Michael T. Fournier’s 2005 blog A–Z and two current Onion AV Club threads, Noel Murray’s Popless and the staff’s Vinyl Retentive, the latter of which currently features Engine Down’s To Bury Within the Sound LP, a record I own and have listened to. I’m sure there are others comparable sites—feel free to suggest them—but I’m by no means a voracious blog reader.
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