There's No Exception To The Rule(s)

Last year I undertook what I called the CD Project. The CD Project was a review of my CD collection. Most of my CDs were acquired during my "CD period", which began around my junior year in college (1994) and continued until I downloaded Napster and acquired a CD burner (1998).

When I started buying CDs I was the proud owner of a pretty decent cassette tape collection. So the bulk of my purchases were new releases, along with some replacements for worn-out tapes. Also I caught up on certain artists' back catologues. Keep in mind that I acquired a large portion of the CDs by gaming the Columbia House and BMG record clubs, so the collection is heavy on major label artists. (Worry not - concerned friends kept me supplied with plenty of indy goodness.)

I conducted the CD Project using the following procedures.

First, I (somewhat randomly) selected one album for each artist represented in my collection.

Second, I did my best to listen to the album closely enough to form a current opinion. To that end, I established some ground rules. I had to listen to each track on each album - no matter how awful - through at least the first chorus. I also required myself to make an effort to listen without prejudice. I tried to focus on how I reacted to the songs in the moment, and to minimize the influence of my past associations and opinions. I also tried to forget the album's reviews. I didn't altogether succeed (nostalgia's a bitch), but I didn't altogether fail either (as demonstrated by my negative reaction to the dB's Stands for Decibels which I had thought I adored).

Third, I entered the following information into an Excel spreadsheet called "CD Project": artist name, album title, grade, and comments. The grade scale I used was LOVE (meaning that I'd likely listen to the album again within a year), LIKE (meaning that I'd likely listen to the album again within the next two years), and DNL (do not like - meaning that I'd be just as happy never to listen to the album again.) Albums that I didn't purchase myself are marked with an asterisk. Most of the asterisked albums were given to me by Matt or bought by my wife Abby.

It took me over a year to listen to each of the 193 unique artists represented in my CD collection. Now that I have this forum, I plan to post the results of the CD Project in short chunks. With any luck, this may dupe my readers into thinking that I'm prolific and/or witty.