The Collection

The Feature

It has been a couple months since we last posted, and I’ve been getting the writing itch again. It doesn’t hurt that I had a week off of work over the holidays, so my brain has some spare bandwidth right now. Our OneHitWonder review format was fun for a while, but it meant I spent a lot of time with music that I wouldn’t normally be listening to. This was decent for discovering new music, but it also meant that I didn’t have as much time as I would like to listen to music that I loved.

I aim to remedy that in my new feature – The Collection. Essentially, I’ll be discussing any vinyl and/or CDs (yes, I still occasionally buy CDs – they are a great format) that I add to my collection. Presumably, if I’ve added it to my collection, I either a) really enjoy it or b) hope to really enjoy it. Most will be option a) – in the world of high-quality streaming, there’s little reason to go into a purchase blindly (deafly?). The result should be me spending more time with music which brings me joy.

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Gratitude / Condemnation

I also want to take a moment to thank/curse my old friend Trav Wilson (of Headphonesty fame). We met a little over 30 years ago and have been sharing music back and forth ever since. My music consumption had moved over the years to just streaming over headphones. It was perfect for having a small child in the house, but just wasn’t the full music experience I had previously enjoyed.

Near the start of this gods-forsaken pandemic, Mr. Wilson sold me a vintage Technics turntable for a song (ha!) and gifted me an integrated amplifier in an attempt to rekindle my love of physical media (and drag me into the vinyl collection world with him). Not to put too fine a point on it, but it worked. It worked very well.

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The Bottom Line

First out of the gates – I’ve got some Joy Division, The Cardigans, The Pursuit of Happiness and maybe a little classic Madonna. If all goes well, at least one of them will be coming later this weekend. If real life gets in the way, that’s fine too – I’ll post them when I can. Let’s see if I can combine my recently rekindled love of (collecting) music on CDs and records with that of writing. I hope you’ll enjoy The Collection.

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