You are what you listen to.

Before music streaming became the norm, I bought all music I listened to. I listen to a lot of music. My music collection is huge and a reflection of who I am.

Way back when I was a little kid, I had a record collection.  It was a mix of singles and long players. It wasn't a big collection then, but they all saw many spins on the turntable.

As I got older, it was cassette tapes.  Not only did I buy a lot of cassettes, but I also made many, many mixtapes. That was a labor of love as much as it was labor.

Then it was CDs. When I moved from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale to Sydney, Australia, I took my CD collection with me. When I left for Australia (Feb 2005) it was about 600 CDs strong. Right before I left, iTunes launched. I was buying more and more music from iTunes. I wasn't a heavy Napster user. I loved the idea - but didn't want to cheat the artists I loved. By the time I left Australia, my music collection was close to 1,000 albums. 

My wife understands my passion/addiction to music. That said, she was a bit tired of having my CD collection be the centerpiece of our living room set-up. Before moving from Sydney to London (Sep 2009), I digitized all of my CDs onto a hard drive (and created two back-ups - paranoid!). I gave all the CDs away to a local record shop to resell as used CDs. I went digital.

That is until my wife bought me a new turntable for my 35th birthday. She kind of regrets that day. Since then, I have become a record collector again. Full circle. Hardcore. I have dug through record bins all over the world where I have lived and traveled. I always make time to find a shop and flip bins.  I have rare soul albums from Tokyo, hard to find blues albums from Brussells and fave rave spinners from east to west and points in between.

Yes, I am real proud of my record collection.

When I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s, my parents used to take me to their friend's homes for dinner parties, visits, and other social gatherings. My first move after walking in the door was to find the record collection and thumb through it.  I wanted to know what our hosts listened to and who they were. I still love the idea of that. (now I have to look at their Spotify profile to see their collection - and that is usually a poorly manicured collection of random albums and likes). 

In 2005 I cataloged my music collection in a google spreadsheet.  I was diligent in keeping it up to date. Every time I bought a new CD or music from Apple, I added it to the doc. When I bought new records, I added them to the doc.

Then... streaming happened.

I don't buy any digital music anymore. CDs are a long-ago afterthought. I don't update one of the tabs in the spreadsheet much anymore - but, that tab is still important. It is a record (pun intended) of all of the digital music I still own and have saved to hard drives or uploaded to the Apple Music iTunes match service. I do still update the Vinyl tab. I still buy records. My record collection is now over 640 albums. I love it. I love all my records. I love looking at them, playing them, reading the album jackets and talking about them with other music freaks.

So, let's pretend that you are here visiting my house. Do you want to see my music collection? Sure you do.

Check out Judd's Juke Joint. This is the spreadsheet I have maintained for 16 years.

Check out my record collection on Discogs.  This is where I catalog only the 33 1/3rds I own.   

What do you want to hear?