A Bountiful Scarcity

     For years my budget allowed for only one record per month. If I chose poorly, I had to wait another month to choose again, so I'd intensely research each purchase, poring through periodicals and record guides, spending hours at our local record store flipping through the album bins, trying to divine the sound through shrink-wrapped sleeves, occasionally cadging a listen from the clerks.

     And after I decided and brought it home I'd listen intently and repeatedly, determined to like what I bought. I had to, for nothing new was coming my way for at least another month. I couldn't accept a tepid initial reaction. No, I'd listen and listen again until I either loved it or reluctantly realized that I never would. I rarely reached that low point.

     Then one day I was an adult and employed and making enough money to buy as many records as I wanted. Woo-hoo! I went wild, buying records like they were going out of style (which, come to think of it, they were). When in doubt, ring it up! Later I switched to CDs and bought a real stereo and then an iPod and filled it with gig after gig of all this stuff.

     But my enjoyment faded. I barely researched what I bought. I spent less time getting to know what I listened to, flitting about like a bee from CD to CD. And my tastes changed, subtly, as I lost patience with deeper works and gravitated towards my new bounty of easier-listening immediately-catchy surfacey-stuff, everything and anything just a spin and click away on the iPod.

     Eventually I stopped listening to much music at all. It no longer engaged me.

     Then a couple of years ago a friend gave me a mix-CD filled with the kind of music I listened to back when I couldn't afford to listen to much music. And, around the same time, I bought a car that wouldn't let me play my iPod at high- or even medium-fidelity, owing to its lack of an adapter or a cassette player. Forced to use the in-dash CD changer and too forgetful to remember to replace the CD, I found myself with nothing but the mix-CD morning after morning as I drove to work, so I listened to that mix-CD over and over and over until I grew to love it. Just like the old days.

     The mix-CD enticed me back into my collection. I blew off the dust and brought them into my car, one at a time, falling for my forgotten friends all over again, those relics of my peanut butter days polished and gleaming again after repeated listenings. Meanwhile, repeated listenings revealed so much of the new stuff I'd bought in quantity as the barely listenable crap it was, incapable of withstanding the rigors of attentive focused listening.

     I'm obsessive about music again, and that's a good thing, I think, for I'm diving deeper than I've been in years. I'm listening more and reading reviews and bemoaning all those wasted years apart. I'm following leads and threads, desperate to unearth more. We're engaged again, music and me, and I'm making a list, 100 items and growing, of more music I must have.

     But I'm not buying it, at least not yet, for I am on a budget again, limited to one CD each month. Not out of financial necessity, but musical necessity. So I think really hard before adding something to my list, and I think even harder before buying it. And then I listen intently and repeatedly, determined to like what I buy. I have to, for nothing new is coming my way for at least another month.

     I'm happy with this bountiful scarcity, and I'm determined to repeat it elsewhere in my life, for I've come to realize that this doesn't have much to do with music at all.

Comments

[OddEssay]

I like this. This is the sort of neurotic thing I used to do when I had more time and less money. That's why I'm quitting my job: to have less money and more time for the neurotic things I love.

In high school I used to refuse to drive any distance I could ride my bicycle, and refuse to bike any distance I could walk. It seemed getting somewhere too quickly made being there less worthwhile. And did we really have to be half the places we were?

Eventually my mother sold the car I told her I never wanted in the first place.

Also, I wrote on a manual typewriter until 1999. Like Harlan Ellison, I felt writing really shouldn't be that easy. If you've really got to say it, it's worth a little exercize.

Listening to music shouldn't be easy, either. I spent nine months learning a Chopic Scherzo. If you rip that to an ipod and play it once, you're a jerk.

[DarkoV]

"Bountiful Scarcity". A lovely and...dangerous phrase. I talk up your entries most every day to my ever-loving wife. This entry, however, will go unmentioned. She will be whispering "bountiful scarcity" into my ear, even as I sleep, in hopes that mantra will change the course of my cd buying. I have cut back in the last few years thanks to a volunteer gig I do at a local college radio station. Aside from playing a mish-mosh eclectic set of tunes, the time there allows me to sample albums that I'd thought of buying. Cuts down purchases by at least 70%. Unfortunately, the ever-loving wife is hoping for a 99% cutback.
"Bountiful Scarcity."
I shudder. I'll stay awake.

[puddleglum]

Oh Lordy do I know what you mean! I used to get an allowance of 25 cents (i'm still not thirty yet, so it's not like it was alot of money). The litle box of Red Hots that I used to walk a mile (with my brother and sisters) to get seemed so much better than any I've gotten since. And although it sounds like i'm an old dandy, shaking, with a cane, and saying through my gummed smile "when I was your age" the memories still make me smile! Thanks so much for this blog! Can't tell you how many times i've tried to explain my childhood....but there is no better way than bountiful scarcity!

[Oorgo]

What a wonderful way of putting this into words. I found the exact same thing myself, songs don't matter as much unless you work to get them.. I used to only buy a cd every blue moon because of my poorness in college, I would listen to that one cd until I had it memorized, almost over-listen. Then came the internet and the multitudes of downloaded songs.

Now I'm back to listening to cds in my car, it may not be 1 a month, but it's much less excessive than when I used to create a new minidisc every night for the next day. It's not background noise anymore.

I think it works the same way with video games, I have a friend who has stacks and stacks of games he's bought from bargain bins. Lots of them have never been played.
I on the other hand could not afford to buy anything so I played 1 game singularly for 3 years.. neverwinter nights, I just now finally kicked the habit.

[Girl Detective]

Don't forget your local public library as one of the best ways to research a cd. The three week allowance is a good amount of time to get to know a cd. Some I've returned quickly. Others I've enjoyed my three weeks with, but needed no more. And a few, very few (Nick Drake's Pink Moon and Low's Great Destroyer, for example) are now on my to-buy list for the permanent collection.

[Rafael]

So true. We got cash rich, time poor.

I recently bought a second-hand car and it only has a tape deck, which forces you to listen through all those old album filler tracks that you'd skip over impatiently if you were listening on CD. Actually most of them are rubbish, but you do unearth some gems.

[jult52]

I've gone through exactly this. Thanks for writing the entry.

[Yahmdallah]

Hey, don't know your tastes, but I've found the new Dave Matthews Band "Stand Up" is one of those that doesn't wear out.

Also, Salon.com has a "Audiofile" section where free, legal MP3s are available: http://www.salon.com/ent/audiofile/index.html
They/it/he just finished a summer mix contest, and though I haven't had a chance to snag them yet and so can't vouch for the quality, in the past about 1 out of every 4 offered there turns out to be something I can groove to.

Cheers, mang!