Consequences #7 — Gordon

Take my record collection.

Ser­i­ously, help yourself.

It’s an afflic­tion, you see. I buy CDs. Lots of them — on whims, or fan­cies, or to keep up with a par­tic­u­lar artist, or … well … because I hap­pen to wander past a record shop. Old CDs, ‘clas­sic’ albums, chart releases, obscure artists, com­pil­a­tions. You name it, I’ve prob­ably got it — or at the very least got a track or two by the artist somewhere.

This mater­i­al­istic afflic­tion has cost me thou­sands of pounds, not least for the CDs them­selves — stor­age is also an issue (never mind hav­ing to dust the damn things). But why do I feel so com­pelled to con­tinue to buy them? I know fine well that I am prone to hunt­ing down a CD based on a single rave review, usu­ally by someone I don’t know, found on a dis­tant mes­sage­board some­where. I also know that I like to ‘keep up’ with new releases from my favour­ite artists, which also includes hunt­ing down their back cata­logue lest it be thought I’m a ‘new’ fan (Ohhh White­fish Dead — been into them for years, got all their albums you know …)

An inev­it­able side effect, which I thought I’d man­aged to escape, reared its head just yes­ter­day. The offend­ing item: Pearl Jam’s Bin­aural.

I’d bought it about a year ago, and brought it into work on Monday. A col­league spot­ted it and bor­rowed it. On return­ing it she offered her views on the music. I listened, intrigued, before admit­ting that I’d never listened to it. Ever.

See, that’s the prob­lem. Too many CDs, and never the right mood for some of them. I hate that feel­ing the most. Of the 500 or so CDs I own, I can quite eas­ily browse through them look­ing for some­thing to match my mood, and just as eas­ily come away think­ing, “Nah, noth­ing there.” Five hun­dred CDs and I can’t choose one! Of course, all that does is fuel my pas­sion. Can’t find a CD to match your mood? Hit the shops and buy one. Simple!

I’ve tried many times to get to the root of the prob­lem. Is it the act of buy­ing the CDs that gives me pleas­ure? No. I don’t buy any old rub­bish, and I am fairly picky with my choices (Army of Lov­ers CD aside). Is it the pleas­ure I get from listen­ing to music? Partly, but I tend to rely on old favour­ites, so large num­bers of my CDs don’t get listened to from month to month (OK, year to year).

I just can’t fig­ure it out. Much to my bank manager’s consternation.

Help me, I’m confused.