What your Music Collection Says About You

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/10/1057783259813.html
I was thinking today (you can see I have a musical theme going and can't seem to get off it today) about what your music collection says about you. I was driving to work, listening to Russel Watson (opera and stuff), very loud, and wishing I knew what the words meant when all of these thoughts hit me. My daughter had voiced it earlier this year: The songs that sort of described your life is one way of looking at it, or just what does your CD collection look like and what that means. So, for now, I will wait to talk about the songs that describe my life, and think about my music collection.

My music collection back in the day when it was all vinyl was all about folk music and the Beatles for the most part, James Taylor, Livingston Taylor, Melanie, I can't even remember--and whenever we moved, my albums were always sold to make money, and my ex-husband's albums were always sacred-(another reason he is an ex) His collection back then was lots of jazz albums (which I have and are probably worth some money, so maybe that's a good thing). He had improvisational, Archie Shepp, Yusef Latif, all of these albums. Then, one summer, he was off in school in Flagstaff, and recorded a Chieftains album for me off the radio. I felt like I had found my home. It spoke to me in a way modern music never had. (being that I'm part Irish, but that's another story) I quickly amassed as many of the Chieftains albums as I could get from the used record store (these I do still have). That started me on the road to collecting world music--still stuck in that one I'm afraid. Then, when we lived on the Reservation, he found a source for American Indian artists, so both of us amassed a small collection of pow wow, Plains, Yaqui, Navajo, and other albums.(still have those too). Then, for a long time, I gave up on collecting because I got tired of them disappearing.

Of course during that time I was also collecting tapes--(which are in a box somewhere). It wasn't until I remarried that I even had a CD-player. For our wedding present, we bought each other a Stereo system for the house, with a CD-player, but of course, we had no CD's. Thanks to BMG and other such overpriced systems for acquiring new music, we soon had the shelves full. So, what's on the shelves--
Well, 2 shelves are world music, including Andrea Boccelli, Sarah Brightman, Russell Watson,Utapi, Chieftains, Clannad, Enya, Bossa Brazil, and a multitude of others.
Two shelves are the old classics--Eric Clapton, Michael McDonald, James Taylor, Dr. John, Queen, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Starship, etc etc etc
Two shelves are women artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Emy Lou Harris, Tracy Chapman, Heart, Cowboy Junkies, etc.
A Reggae shelf--Bob and Ziggy, Rusted Root, etc.
A bluegrass shelf,
And a mishmash shelf of things like Bill and Bonnie Hearne, O Brother Where Art Thou, Zydego music, and a general compilation of everything except for country--never really got into country.

What does it mean to me? To me it says, I never know what mood will strike me and where I want to take myself--away, through the music, to some other world. Guess I'm just a music traveler--instead of globe trecker, I'm music trecker.

So hopefully, for now I've gotten a little more of this out of my system.

2 in 1 day--

Nancy