The discussion on whether or not one should begin to sell off their CD collection is lively. I'd like to share an in depth take on it from a good friend and fellow music junkie.
"I read your post on LinkedIn about the decision to dump your CD
collection or not and I decided to chime in.
Recently I was made aware that my Shriekback CD's from the 80's are
going for over $300 a piece. My Cocteau Twins CD's from the same
period are around the same price.
I won't be getting rid of my collection any time soon which also takes
up a whole room of my basement (like that picture of yours!)...and
resale value is not the main factor. Although convenient, mp3's and
spotify are not quality replacements for a collection I spent decades
acquiring.
I do recognize that I rarely listen to a CD from start to finish
anymore. A testament to why shuffle is so great. But since I work in
environments with great monitoring systems, I will frequently enjoy
the "hidden" content of a full rez song compared to it's squashed mp3
counterpart. That usually reaffirms my belief that I should hold on to
those "master" versions. That's also why I still make a list at the
end of a year with the best recordings I've heard. I look to pick up
full resolution versions of those "best of the year" releases. The
best feature of mp3's and spotify is that it alllows me to weed
through the glut of music that comes out weekly and pick and choose
the ones that I should own in a much higher quality format.
Just like the industry standard of warehousing masters for decades, so
too are my CD's the masters from which all future copies (whatever
format they may be) will be struck. As long as I can afford to
maintain my archive, I will!
One day I may transfer all of that content in full resolution to some
form of storage medium. But I'm still suspicious enough of "big
brother" that I eventually think we'll lose our access to the cloud or
internet...or be charged an exorbitant price for that access. I will
never willingly give up my collection.
I may pare it down removing the "I'll give this a chance" titles that
didn't stand the test of time. But you'll have to pry my Van
Morrison, Talking Heads, Grateful Dead and other CD's out of my cold
dead hands."
Now he's got me anxious to look up values on some of my CDs because I have some Shriekback and Cocteau Twins as well.
