NewMexiKen has been working at converting all of my CDs (600, more or less) to computer files. Many I’ve done during the past few years, but it’s taking forever to go back through and copy the discs and tracks I skipped. I keep stopping to listen.
The other problem with doing this, of course, if you are obsessive-compulsive about it (who, me?) is one discovers there are records I don’t have that I just “have to have,” usually just a track or two. Some are available from the iTunes store for 99¢, and I’ve bought a few, (a good new Buck Owens greatest hits CD released in August was a find), but there are a few that even iTunes doesn’t have.
Among the MIA: The infamous “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts is foremost. It’s the only track I’m missing from Rolling Stone‘s 500 top songs. A good cut of Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make It through the Night” is also unavailable. (A collector can’t be buying the remakes; we need the original sound.) Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” is another — I need it to complete some list of the top rock guitar solos.
(This is not a scanvenger hunt. I don’t want anyone to copy these songs and send them to me. The fun is in the search, as any collector knows. And none of these tracks are impossible to find if one wants to buy whole CDs.)
Another thing is I can’t quite convince myself to buy just digital files if I want a whole album (Grateful Dead’s Live/Dead comes to mind or Sasha Dobson’s Modern Romance). I still think I’ll get the CD — so I can copy it to the computer, which is where I listen. Buying the album from iTunes is a few dollars cheaper than getting the CD from Amazon, and instant gratification, but having the physical CD seems, somehow, worthwhile. Anyone else still hung up on this?
By the way, every once in awhile I run across a track, or even a whole CD, that won’t copy. That just drives this me nuts. Anyone else have this happen?