Rant #3,984: Gettin' Together

I am on a roll with my organization of things.

After putting all of my CDs in alphabetical order in those bins that I bought--it took about 4.5 of those bins, so there has to be more than a thousand CDs put away now--I decided to put all of my cassettes in order.

This was a much easier job, to say the least.

When we moved, I got rid of just about all of my cassettes that I, myself, recorded on, and those numbered in the hundreds, at the very least.

So we took with us the pre-recorded cassettes that my wife and I had, and that was about it.

She had hundreds of these cassettes, and I probably had about 200 of them, so without her cassettes to put in alphabetized order--like the CDs, she told me that it wasn't important enough for me to do this--I just had to put what I had in order, and I, by and large, had the receptacles to put them into--

Those cassette holders from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that were specifically made for this task.

So I rounded up a few of them that we had--ones that were not storing my wife's cassettes--and set about putting what I had in order.

Yes, I do have a player for these cassettes, and yes, this player also digitizes the music if I choose to do so, so if I want to listen to a cassette, I can, whether in the house or in my car.

It took all of the holders I had--plus one stray shoebox--to get all of these cassettes in order and put away, which took probably about two or two-and-a-half hours to do.

I saw things I hadn't seen in years, and it was both tough and fun at the same time to do this.

It really is a shame that in general, the kids today do not know--or more importantly care--about physical media, whether it is vinyl--45s and LPs--CDs, cassettes or even 8-tracks--of which I have none, but my wife still has a few--and their collectibility.

Yes, a lot of kids are getting into vinyl, and that is great, but most kids today simply download their music, so they have a file, but nothing else to show for their love of this music.

That is a true shame, because think of the "fun of the pursuit" we had when we heard a song on the radio and just had to have it.

We went to our local stores, located it--whether on 45, LP, cassette, CD or even 8-track--and purchased it and made it part of our collection.

A file-MP3 and the like--is fine, it takes up no space, and you can take it anywhere, but it is not something that is really collectible.

It comes without art or liner notes, it is just a file, and nothing more.

To me, it is boring, nothing but a sound bite.

But heck, even today's icon Taylor Swift acknowledges the value of an actual recorded entity, and she has been an ambassador for Record Store Day to demonstrate her commitment to actual recorded media.

(Of course, the sale of her music on LPs, 45s and the like lines her pockets, but ... )

So anyway, now all of my recorded media, as far as music is concerned, is in perfect order, and readily accessible to me.

That includes LPs, 45s, CDs--including CD singles--cassettes--including cassingles--and that is that--

And that is enough.

What is next?

Let me breathe a little bit ...

Between my wife and I, we must have at least 1,000 DVDs/BluRays of movies, TV shows, etc.

Like I said, let me breathe ...

And don't put a bug in my head about these things.