It might have been my version of Spring Cleaning to tidy up some CD's but it was prompted by the pressing need for more shelf space.
Oh, I see, if I move those over there, put the mini-system and a speaker on top of them, that rack can come out of the bottom of the bookcase, the DVD's that I rarely touch can be piled up down there and that frees up half a shelf that Elizabeth Bishop and books in current use can stay on until the classical CD's annexe that territory, too, with their ongoing expansionist policies. But it does rather mean it's not before time that the pop music CD's are put into some sort of order as opposed to the prevailing filing system of trying to remember where one saw them last.
So, the wire rack comes into a more prominent position. It has two columns. It is not apartheid to make these Soul and Rock respectively because Dusty Springfield is soul. So the left side has Al Green, Candi Staton, Aretha, Beverley Knight, Motown, etc. and the right side has The Velvet Underground, Lou, Joni Mitchell, the Ramones, Dylan, and, yes, this rack is predominantly American.
In the other three wooden racks, the substantial blocks of The Magnetic Fields, T. Rex, Gregory Isaacs and R.E.M. can stay almost as they were. Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Chaucer stay resolutely in place at the bottom, not often called upon, it has to be said.
So what remains is a game a bit like Pairs, remembering there is another Cliff album to go with that one, and he can go with Buddy Holly, Billy Fury and Roy Orbison. But I know, or thought there was a fourth Matchbox Twenty album and another Garbage album somewhere but they don't show up.
Family, Medicine Head and Stone the Crows are put with the Sutherland Brothers in the black plastic filing system under the DVD player which is no disgrace because the Northern Soul compilations are in there. Neil Young gets retrieved from there to be put with Joni, Carole King and Dylan.
There are no Beatles CD's, no Stones, not even any Bowie. Having been through vinyl and cassettes, it is a rare honour for anything to be acquired in new formats, although it has happened.I couldn't be judged only on CD's. There is only one Jesus & Mary Chain, only a free-with-the-Observer Libertines that it took six months to play, when I was persuaded to give it a go. The best of them is either The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, in its fallen apart casing, or Early Music by Bob Marley & the Wailers ft. Peter Tosh but the most played track is almost certainly Saving a Life by Cliff and Freda Payne from the Soulicious album.
Having imposed some sort of order on the chaos, with not only the Tears next to Suede but McAlmont & Butler next to both of them, how long do you think it will last. Not long. And will I now be able to find anything. Probably not as well as I could before.