a blog for someone who cannot shut up....

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Memory Lane


The process of ripping all of my CDs into MP3 has been time consuming, no doubt. However, the necessary steps to do so provide a walk down the musical streets of yesteryear. Or at least the "heavy rotation" of yesteryear in terms of what you were playing in your car, walkman, discman, whatever at any given point in your music history. I do have plenty of space on my 30GB iPod, but I am still trying to not add any shitty music, if I can help it. Some CDs get added with no editing. The fringe players? They are not so lucky.

Today's voyage included a reintroduction to two of Robert Plant's solo efforts - Now And Zen (1988) as well as Manic Nirvana (1990). After saying "hello" to Dance on my Own, Helen of Troy, and White, Clean and Neat for the first time in years, it was extremely pleasurable to say "goodbye" in the same 30 seconds. N&Z only was able to get 4 tracks by the editor. Sorry, Robert, but all the cool coyote symbol flags and bracelets don't get you anywhere when you are serving it up hot & steamy with songs like Billy's Revenge.

Manic did much better, with 7/10 tracks making the cut. Hurting Kind rocks. Tie Dye on the Highway rocks. Good recovery, then, for Mr. Plant.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you know, i've been going through this a lot lately. on the one hand, i don't want to re-write history and pretend i never listened to Genesis post Peter Gabriel (even with him, it's a dicey proposition to confess); but on the other hand, i think it's OK to just say something's crap and deserves never to be listened to again. If it were real art (as the listener hears it) it would stand the test of time. Maybe you need to go cleanse with a little Physical Graffiti. BTW, i saw Rush's 30th Anniversary Tour on one of the HD channels last week. Let's just say that i can never share with certain people what my reaction was to THAT.

Your Host said...

a giant Fly By Night boner when they played By-Tor and the Snow Dog?

Anonymous said...

I've never been much of a Robert Plant fan but I can relate to the self-editing process that you speak of. But the walk through the musical streets of yesteryear has been pretty sweet - who would have remembered that after 14 years the "Blow Out Comb" by Digable Planet is more than serviceable and is a great alternative to the countless hours of Jack Johnson and Bare Naked Ladies that my wife insists on playing on most long car trips.