Your music collection and the memories it holds.

A rare non film related post. Well there's still some filmy stuff but mostly not.

I'm at home in my parent's gaff in Roscrea. The CDs stacked up in my bedroom caught my eye. They've been there untouched for 5 or 6 years. I got a sudden urge to listen to one. Which one though? My music collection contains maybe 3 albums from this decade. I've no interest in modern music. Nothing ever catches my ear anymore. After about 2 hours of looking through the shelves I decided to listen to Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's The Ballad Of The Broken Sea. 

Yes, that is a Pirates Of The Caribbean baseball

2 hours. I'd just spent 120 minutes looking through them deciding what to listen to. 120 minutes looking at the cover art and reading the inlay sleeves. 120 minutes remembering where I bought them and who I've listened to them with. 120 minutes of pure nostalgia. You don't get that with MP3's or Flac files or whatever they're called now.

Just reminded me of this scene from one of my favourite films.





I found the first CD I bought in 1995. From a music shop in the Square, Tallaght. I was so giddy. My first foray into new technology. All cassettes before that. First metal album I owned as well. And first metal band i went to see. Sunstroke 95 in the RDS Simmonscourt. We met  and got insulted by Jonathan Ross on the way and a friend of mine got knocked down by a car. Good times. He was grand BTW.

And the last CD i bought in 2012(?) in the Sound Cellar on Nassau Street. Dublin's best kept secret. A haven for people who like their guitars loud. I haven't listened to a Soundgarden album since Chris Cornell died. Can't bring myself to. I'm an awful sap.

The one I borrowed off a friend and never got to return before he died. Wasn't a big fan of it but I'm never going to part with it. It brings back a lot of memories and thankfully the good outweigh the bad. This hasn't been opened in over 10 years now. Still miss ya kid.

The one I've listened to so much i know every single note, key change and lyric off by heart. A friend of mine loved this album so much and wouldn't shut up about it that I actually wanted to hate it and got really annoyed when I loved it that much too. 

My favourite Irish album ever. Bought in the big Virgin Megastore on Aston Quay. God i loved that place. Always my first port of call when i went to the big smoke. An album I never got into until years after its release but once I did that was it. 

The album that changed my opinion on things. Up to then I was strictly a rock and metal kid. Wouldn't even consider listening to anything else. Then I heard the single 'For Real' on No Disco on RTE2 one night. LOVED IT. That song was on the album Juxtapose but this follow up album was one I became obsessed with it. And slowly realised that listening to other things did no harm. I was so militant about music as a young chap that I get embarrassed thinking about it now.

The soundtrack albums i ran out to buy when i fell in love with their films. The Singles soundtrack is still amazing. Alongside the bands of the day on it it introduced 16 yr old me to Led Zeppelin ( Battle Of Evermore gets a fantastic cover by the Lovemongers), Paul Westerberg and Jimi Hendrix. Same with the Dazed And Confused OST. I learned loads about 70's rock from that one. Morricone's soundtrack to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly though.......the king of soundtracks right there. I bought that one in Amoeba Music in San Francisco. the best music shop I've ever been in. Amazing place.

It's amazing the memories that are brought up by just looking at these albums. And there was hidden treasure in some of them too. Concert ticket stubs. Little bits of art I drew and wanted to keep. I even found a 1 punt note too. That has to be worth 1000s of euros? Right? RIGHT???? Every CD I have has some sort of memory attached to it. Some bad but the vast majority of them good. Listening to Fear Factory and Slayer with the lads. Wrecking my brothers head with my Pearl Jam 'Spin The Black Circle' single. Walking around Dublin one day with my CD Walkman and listening to music for so long and so loud that I developed tinnitus in my left ear. Stealing a CD inlay for Nirvana's In Utero from Our Price in the Crumlin shopping centre because my old one was all crumbly ( not particularly proud of this one tbh ). I feel a bit sorry for kids these days. They'll never get the buzz of legging it to the shop and spending money you saved up for weeks on music you'd been waiting on for years. It's easier and........ well... free to just download an album but there's no fun attached to it. It makes music disposable when there's no bit of effort involved. There's fuck all emotional attachment. I can't see people getting misty about the time they downloaded something off iTunes.

It's how I feel about films too. I'll keep buying the physical product until I can't anymore. 

I'm a dinosaur and I love it.