Shelf yourself!

There's this scene in the music-nut film High Fidelity where John Cusack's character has his entire record collection sprawled on his apartment floor. He's re-organizing easily hundreds of recordings when a record-store employee drops by for a visit. Like any collector of great art, he discerns a challenge in the way the LPs on the floor have been arranged. "What is this - chronological?" "No." "Not alpabetical..." "Nope. Autobiographical." Cussack's protagonist has ordered his entire collection of albums, not according to any to any attributes of the recordings themselves, but according to the way they've fit into his own life. I love the idea because it speaks so much to what music is about - it's about people. The Music Genome Project may have the corner on the technical classification of music, but there's a point at which the notes and rhythms transcend the page they're written on and become something much tougher to classify - individual experience. Music becomes music when it does something to the listener. What it does can be different for each of us. And yet it can bring people together as few things can. We saw that firsthand at The Guild again last week. But I'm not ready for the conversation to end. And so I'm wondering - when you listen, what do you listen for? What are the attributes you consider to be most important in discovering music? How do you sort your own record collection? Ordering your records autobiographically may be great therapy, but it's hardly practical. Neither, by the way, is sorting your albums according to record label - something I tried on a lark about 5 years ago. I learned a ton about the industry. But I could never find a thing. So now I'm sorting CDs by genre: classic rock on the left, modern rock on the right, and - ironically - progressive rock somewhere in the middle. Jazz gets a separate shelf. And the stuff I'm embarassed to own - that's on the bottom, at foot-level, where most folks won't notice it but I can still find it if I need a fix. What about you? How do you classify and sort the music you own? And, while we're at it - how do you classify the music you make? When it's time to put a genre label on the stuff you do, what shelf do you go on?

Comments

[Sharon Slaughter]

I love these discussions! I have a section for my Christian CD's, one for secular, one for Blues, one for Christmas,one of instrumental, and one of all the CD's I've bought from local artists. I also have a section of practice CD's of songs I'm working on with my band. (OK, so we're just a duo! But I call it a band anyway!) Sharon

[Sharon Slaughter]

Benjie,

I finally saw the movie, "Hi Fidelity" this week. Funny stuff!

Sharon