music to work by, redux
Earlier, I mentioned I had to get off my butt and rip all my CDs, so I had more than a handful of things to listen to while working. Over the course of the last few days, I did just that, and now have no less than 1381 tracks to choose from. As I was going through the process, I realized that the vast majority of my favorite albums (I still call them that, I don't know why) were released between 1989 and 1996. I have no idea what I've been doing for the last eight years. The new (post-1996) releases I have are carefully selected, as that's about when I started having to reconcile entertainment-related purchases with budgetary issues. In other words, they had to be
really good, and enjoyable in either the car or as background music to work by.
If I get my thoughts together, I'll comment on things in my music library. For example, I have Kronos Quartet, but I also have Metallica. I have the Chemical Brothers, and I have Indigo Girls. I typically hate musicals, but I have two that I will listen to incessantly (Jesus Christ Superstar, the Indigo Girls/Atlanta musicians version, and Evita, the Madonna version), and two movie soundtracks that I will also listen to, several times in a row (Romeo + Juliet, the Leonardo DiCaprio/Clare Danes version, and Velvet Goldmine, the Ewan McGregor movie). I can actually trace the family tree of my music collection, what purchases begat what other purchases, and which friends introduced a new strain into the library. Come to think of it, that's a little scary.
