He Knew He Was Right

Jethro Tull | CD Reviews | East Bay Express What to do, what to do. I first had Aqualung on vinyl, and then it was among the first CDs I picked up. Fifteen years ago, I bought the digitally remastered, 25th Anniversary version of the album. When the urge to hear Aqualung comes, it is the latter that I pluck from the CD rack. But now this. A 40-year, 2-disc, commemorative version is out there? Crisper vocals? Sharper guitar? Oh, I guess I'll be plucking down a few dollars for it. Forget all that song downloading stuff I've been posting: I like CDs. And this is a great one. Anyway, be sure to check the comment box soon after this goes up, as Sliced Tongue probably has his retort ready before he even gets to this sentence...

So, it's two months already since I posted about my great audio cassette purge, wherein I was able to digitize a large chunk of my collection thanks to a nifty converting device I found online. I also noted that iTunes purchases came fast and furious for awhile. I've had my iPod for seven years already--almost seven years exactly--and that means I've had iTunes for that long too. I bought the iPod days before a trip to Hawaii, loading dozens of CDs onto it to help me get through the long flight. I similarly dubbed dozens of CDs a few more times over the years, ultimately ending up using about 10 GB of space for the 2500 songs that made their way onto the gadget. During the first, say, six years that I had iTunes, though, I may have downloaded a mere 20 songs. I'm a CD guy afterall, but one who is breaking the habit. In the past year, and especially during the recent cassette cleanup blitz, I downloaded over 250 more. A good chunk of these songs were ones that I had ...

When one of my friends stopped by my place a few months ago, he looked at my CD rack and said something like, "Dude, what is this, the 90s?" He didn't take notice of any of the collection, let alone the beautiful construction of the rack. No, just that a CD collection is considered outdated. That rack is a woodworking project I did with my Dad, constructed from oak, ending with a nice 10-shelf housing, with each shelf holding 100 disks. There's also room for cassettes, as a bunch survived each move I've made. I had peaked at about 250 back in the late 80s, when I made the switch to CD. The ones I had left were double stacked on the bottom shelf, out of view, and perhaps saved me the ignominy of a "Dude, what is this, the 80s" retort. I liked cassettes. You could purchase them by the album, or record your own songs on to them. They were great for the car. They didn't scratch easily like CDs, and could be changed while driving without ever taking you...