On selling your record collection ...
blacknapkins
Posts: 2,176
Thursday, January 19, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
Sell your old CDs at your own risk. It won't be long before you get a yen to
sing along with them again
Peter Hartlaub
Used albums are the scorned lovers of the retail universe.
At one point, that copy of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" was the most
important thing in your life -- until you spent less and less time
together, and one day it was heartlessly replaced with something in the
thinking-man's-metal genre. (This is similar to the plot of "Toy Story,"
except with a lot less Randy Newman and a lot more System of a Down.)
But make no mistake, someday you're going to take Billy back. Because as
much as we fight it, certain music will always be part of our lives.
Used-record stores are merely an expensive vacation spot for our Neil
Diamond, Supertramp and Scorpions records before they all end up in our
collections again.
Have you ever checked out the headliners at John Ascuaga's Nugget in
Nevada? Glen Campbell? Debbie Reynolds? Mickey Gilley? Would any of these
people be able to charge $28 or more for a ticket in a world where musical
taste wasn't completely controlled by nostalgia? Have you ever asked
yourself why there are at least 25 used copies of R.E.M.'s "New Adventures
in Hi-Fi" at every record store, and finding a copy of "Toto IV" or Ratt's
"Out of the Cellar" is next to impossible?
Next time you're shopping for music, and marvel at your luck after finding
a bargain, take a moment to think about where it's been. As excited as you
are to find a copy of the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack for $6.95, there was
someone equally excited to sell it. But at some previous point -- assuming
it wasn't an unwanted gift or stolen from Molly Ringwald -- that person
was as thrilled as you were to own the album.
If you could trace the previous owners of every album you own, it would be
something like looking at your past lives. Take the time to interview the
previous owners of every used record in your collection, and you will find
hundreds of mirror images of yourself.
The last five records you've bought and sold reveal more information about
you than any consumer database or Patriot Act spying tools can gather. If
somebody ever figures out how to combine the ownership history of a used
record and a matchmaking service, they will retire in a Getty-like state
of luxury.
I discovered this recently after buying back a half dozen Bon Jovi and
Guns N' Roses albums at Amoeba Records in San Francisco. These are all
records I sold in 1991 or 1992, mistakenly thinking that Kurt Cobain and
Nirvana had made all the 1980s hair bands pointless.
(At the time, I remember praying that no one I knew would walk in and
catch me with a Bon Jovi record. More than a decade later, it's clear that
"Slippery When Wet" blows away anything in Nirvana's catalog. Consider
this a formal request to put the lyric "I've seen a million faces and I've
rocked them all!" on my tombstone.)
It wasn't until I got home that I realized there was something different
about my copy of "Use Your Illusion II." After reading the "This CD is
Guaranteed to Play Perfectly ..." note on the front of the album, I saw a
name written in silver pen on the disc.
MAX KLEE.
An uncommon name, which immediately materialized during a Google search.
After a few seconds of sleuthing, I was typing questions to Max Klee,
onetime Guns N' Roses fan and senior technical officer at a Silicon Valley
aviation consulting firm. Here's a revealing excerpt from my exclusive
e-mail interview:
Q: Do you remember the specific date when you sold "Use Your Illusion II"?
A: I sold it a few months ago ... second half of last year. (late July,
perhaps?)
Q: Did you go for the cash option or trade-in?
A: Some cash and some trade-in. I sold a bunch of albums that day, and
then I bought a bunch of other albums. Queens of the Stone Age's "Songs
for the Deaf," Jane's Addiction's "Strays," Nina Simone "In Concert/I Put
a Spell on You," CSNY's "So Far," among others.
Q: Why do you write your name on your CDs? Don't you know it lowers the
trade-in value and makes you susceptible to bizarre unsolicited e-mails
from columnists with nothing to write on a slow news day?
A: I have a pretty large music collection, and when I went to college, I
didn't want to get burned by loaning discs out and then never getting them
back. ... Now that I think about it, it'd actually be kind of cool to see
the names of the people who possessed something before it came my way. I'd
be curious to see what albums they bought in place of the ones they
indirectly sold to me, and how many ears the album has touched before I
listened to it. I guess you could see the disc as a form of currency, and
the artist as "in whom we trust," and the record company as the mint ...
Q: What's so civil about war, anyway?
A: Indeed. What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Believe me, I have more than enough friends, but it's almost eerie how
cool this Max Klee guy is. Not only did he respond almost immediately to
what must have been the strangest e-mail he's ever received, but he also
answered every question exactly the way I would have. He even got the
obscure "What's so civil about war, anyway" nod to a song on "Use Your
Illusion II," and came back with an even more obscure lyric from the same
track.
But then again, I shouldn't be surprised. Whether he was selling it back
or I was buying it, we share the important quality of having owned "Use
Your Illusion II." We might as well be brothers.
Musical taste is established in your formative years, and any attempt to
struggle with that fact is futile. It's no easier to expel your feelings
for Fleetwood Mac than forget your first kiss, which may or may not have
occurred in the middle of "Never Going Back Again."
So throw away your Air Supply collection at your own peril. You're only
going to buy it back in a few years.
E-mail Peter Hartlaub at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
Sell your old CDs at your own risk. It won't be long before you get a yen to
sing along with them again
Peter Hartlaub
Used albums are the scorned lovers of the retail universe.
At one point, that copy of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" was the most
important thing in your life -- until you spent less and less time
together, and one day it was heartlessly replaced with something in the
thinking-man's-metal genre. (This is similar to the plot of "Toy Story,"
except with a lot less Randy Newman and a lot more System of a Down.)
But make no mistake, someday you're going to take Billy back. Because as
much as we fight it, certain music will always be part of our lives.
Used-record stores are merely an expensive vacation spot for our Neil
Diamond, Supertramp and Scorpions records before they all end up in our
collections again.
Have you ever checked out the headliners at John Ascuaga's Nugget in
Nevada? Glen Campbell? Debbie Reynolds? Mickey Gilley? Would any of these
people be able to charge $28 or more for a ticket in a world where musical
taste wasn't completely controlled by nostalgia? Have you ever asked
yourself why there are at least 25 used copies of R.E.M.'s "New Adventures
in Hi-Fi" at every record store, and finding a copy of "Toto IV" or Ratt's
"Out of the Cellar" is next to impossible?
Next time you're shopping for music, and marvel at your luck after finding
a bargain, take a moment to think about where it's been. As excited as you
are to find a copy of the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack for $6.95, there was
someone equally excited to sell it. But at some previous point -- assuming
it wasn't an unwanted gift or stolen from Molly Ringwald -- that person
was as thrilled as you were to own the album.
If you could trace the previous owners of every album you own, it would be
something like looking at your past lives. Take the time to interview the
previous owners of every used record in your collection, and you will find
hundreds of mirror images of yourself.
The last five records you've bought and sold reveal more information about
you than any consumer database or Patriot Act spying tools can gather. If
somebody ever figures out how to combine the ownership history of a used
record and a matchmaking service, they will retire in a Getty-like state
of luxury.
I discovered this recently after buying back a half dozen Bon Jovi and
Guns N' Roses albums at Amoeba Records in San Francisco. These are all
records I sold in 1991 or 1992, mistakenly thinking that Kurt Cobain and
Nirvana had made all the 1980s hair bands pointless.
(At the time, I remember praying that no one I knew would walk in and
catch me with a Bon Jovi record. More than a decade later, it's clear that
"Slippery When Wet" blows away anything in Nirvana's catalog. Consider
this a formal request to put the lyric "I've seen a million faces and I've
rocked them all!" on my tombstone.)
It wasn't until I got home that I realized there was something different
about my copy of "Use Your Illusion II." After reading the "This CD is
Guaranteed to Play Perfectly ..." note on the front of the album, I saw a
name written in silver pen on the disc.
MAX KLEE.
An uncommon name, which immediately materialized during a Google search.
After a few seconds of sleuthing, I was typing questions to Max Klee,
onetime Guns N' Roses fan and senior technical officer at a Silicon Valley
aviation consulting firm. Here's a revealing excerpt from my exclusive
e-mail interview:
Q: Do you remember the specific date when you sold "Use Your Illusion II"?
A: I sold it a few months ago ... second half of last year. (late July,
perhaps?)
Q: Did you go for the cash option or trade-in?
A: Some cash and some trade-in. I sold a bunch of albums that day, and
then I bought a bunch of other albums. Queens of the Stone Age's "Songs
for the Deaf," Jane's Addiction's "Strays," Nina Simone "In Concert/I Put
a Spell on You," CSNY's "So Far," among others.
Q: Why do you write your name on your CDs? Don't you know it lowers the
trade-in value and makes you susceptible to bizarre unsolicited e-mails
from columnists with nothing to write on a slow news day?
A: I have a pretty large music collection, and when I went to college, I
didn't want to get burned by loaning discs out and then never getting them
back. ... Now that I think about it, it'd actually be kind of cool to see
the names of the people who possessed something before it came my way. I'd
be curious to see what albums they bought in place of the ones they
indirectly sold to me, and how many ears the album has touched before I
listened to it. I guess you could see the disc as a form of currency, and
the artist as "in whom we trust," and the record company as the mint ...
Q: What's so civil about war, anyway?
A: Indeed. What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Believe me, I have more than enough friends, but it's almost eerie how
cool this Max Klee guy is. Not only did he respond almost immediately to
what must have been the strangest e-mail he's ever received, but he also
answered every question exactly the way I would have. He even got the
obscure "What's so civil about war, anyway" nod to a song on "Use Your
Illusion II," and came back with an even more obscure lyric from the same
track.
But then again, I shouldn't be surprised. Whether he was selling it back
or I was buying it, we share the important quality of having owned "Use
Your Illusion II." We might as well be brothers.
Musical taste is established in your formative years, and any attempt to
struggle with that fact is futile. It's no easier to expel your feelings
for Fleetwood Mac than forget your first kiss, which may or may not have
occurred in the middle of "Never Going Back Again."
So throw away your Air Supply collection at your own peril. You're only
going to buy it back in a few years.
E-mail Peter Hartlaub at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
"Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Not really anything embarassing, more like I have too much stuff, and I'd go through every year or so to see what I hadn't listened to in a while. If it hadn't been listened to in over 6 months, it went.
Then, of course, a year later I'd want to hear some song, then realize I'd sold the disc. Which would prompt me to buy it again.
I stopped doing that about 2 years ago. Now, if I haven't listened to something in a while, I put the disc in a Case Logic- type holder, get rid of the jewel case, and keep the inserts in a shoebox. That way space isn't an issue, and I don't have sellback remorse.
"You damn well can't lick the system,but you can sure give it a good fondeling."-sleazy estate man(Hugh Laurie on A bit of Fry and Laurie)
"Judas Priest on a two stroke moped!"(Stephen Fry)
What's sad about that comment is that they are probably around my age. I remember the 80's as the decade when I was mourning the death of rock and holding my breath for something to save it. Bon Jovi was cute, but Nirvana brought the house down. Their music was then and still is the real deal.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
word up to your mom.
and mine too.
http://www.myspace.com/brain_of_c
Ehhhhh.......did I just actually say that?????
♪ Juli ♪