Have a cup of coffee, put a cd on...

It had to happen eventually; I am sorting through my cd collection.

I'm currently listening to a Pulp bootleg cd from a Shepherds Bush concert in 1995 to decide if it stays or goes, and the riff at the beginning of Disco 2000 is *still* one of my favourites. But do I really need bootlegs of live Pulp shows? I'm listening to this one through to see if Jarvis says anything incredibly adorable, but so far he's just been dissing horoscopes ("fucking bollocks", apparently) and talking about home furnishings. Not a patch on the banter you get on his Sunday Service on BBC radio 6. I also have a lot of Pulp CD singles, the earlier ones deserve to stay in my collection, but I don't really need the single version, plus two remixes, of Party Hard. Does anyone?!

My cd collection is very late-90's focused, as this was what I was (retroactively) into in my late teens and early twenties. Think Shine compilations cds, the Slingbacks, Pulp, Placebo, My Life Story, Lush... so it's really not representative of "the sort of music I like nowadays". I remember going mad (a slight over-reaction) when a new significant other started looking through my cd collection and making assumptions about me and my tastes accordingly. Because whilst my tastes have moved on, I've not really been buying the cds to reflect it. (I will leave you to make your own assumptions about how I have been acquiring music if not by buying it on cd. Clue: I haven't just been buying it on vinyl instead. And I keep it mostly on my computer.)

A lot of my cd collection was amassed during my university years, when I worked at a secondhand record shop and volunteered at a books & music focused charity shop. Secondhand cds were therefore cheaper than cheap for me, and so I ended up with the entire Super Furry Animals collection without really noticing (a collection which has now been whittled down to "Rings Around the World" when I realised I didn't really like them that much, if at all. I also discovered last year that I owned almost all the White Stripes cds, including a bizarre release called "Electrostripes", comprising entirely of electro covers of the White Stripes. Not that remarkable until you realise I have little more than a passing fondness for either the band or the covering genre.)

There is also a small selection of cds in my collection (misleadingly filed amongst all my others) that are not cds to be listened to, but artifacts from past relationships disguised as cds to be listened to. I'm talking about mix cds that exes made me, that I didn't really like but as I liked them at the time I can't really bring myself to throw away. I'm not going to get rid of these, but they have no place in my cd collection.
Then, even more toxic, are cds that exes copied for me which contain music I would quite like to listen to but everytime I pick them up the cute messages written on them spiral me into a mood completely different to the one I was in when I first thought "you know what, I'm in a good mood. I'd like to listen to some Tilly and the Wall". I have finally hit upon the solution of ripping all these cds to my computer and filing away the cds themselves into suitcases with other relationship detritus, as mp3s via itunes or ipod pack (slightly) less of a punch than her handwriting. Hopefully as I listen to the music in this new digital no-mans-land I can make new, happier associations than the ones I currently have.

The cds I *have* been buying since my record shop assistant days tend to be small bands, either unsigned or signed to DIY labels, like Ste McCabe, Hotpants Romance, The Lovely Eggs, Das Wanderlust that I have seen live and want to support, enthusiastically. Which seems like a reasonable compromise - if they are the only cds I buy they are probably the most deserving of my money.

My cd collection is never going to be accurate way to read my personality (and whoever came up with that suggestion probably read High Fidelity too many times) but at least after today it will only contain things I actively want to keep.