So Here's the Plan...

Rating My CD's: An Exercise in Self-Criticism Disguised as a Shameless Attempt to Fill Space

Why? I (re-)started this with no plan, on a lark, because I felt like I had something to say. I don't know if I do or not, but as I said before, I've had the idea of expressing myself on the subject of music exclusively in blog format for some time. It doesn't fit into any of my life plans at present (I really should be balancing my checkbook right now). But I'm going to do it anyway.

But what does "doing it" mean? There's no way I can pretend that I'm going to be able to offer commentary half as authoritative, if that's the word, that all these trendhumping hipsters that run the mags can. They live for this shit, I'm just an amateur. Sure, I'd like to wander over to Record & Tape Traders and dig on Japandroids or the Thermals, or hell, lose myself in Built to Spill singles and pretend that I have some right to speak on them. But married suburban doughboys like myself have other shit to do.

So when I'm writing about music, I'm really writing about myself. All music writers do this; the honest ones cop to it. So what do I have to say about myself, through someone elses poetry and labor? How can I know, unless I look at what they've done.

Thus, one of the primary projects of this blog is going to be rating my CD's. I'm going to do them all, according to category, and (gulp) alphabetically. I'll do the stuff I love and the stuff I hang on to for no reason, and the middling medium-rotation seasonal stuff as well. I may or may not set myself up as an Amazon Associate so as I can put buttons and widgets on my CD's, depending on whether I decide it's worth the bother. Forthwith comes the breakdown:

Grades. Each CD will be given a Grade according to the following invented Scale:

C = Crap
OK = OK
L = Likes it
LL = Loves it
DI = Desert Island/Essential

Categories. These will conform to how I organize my CD's at home:

1. Rock/Pop/Country -- Honky folk music.
2. Jazz and Blues -- Non-Honky folk music.
3. Hip-Hop, Rap and Assorted Electro -- Stone Cold Rhymin' and Synchronized Beeping.
4. Punk, Metal and Assorted Alternative -- Angry Honky folk music.
5. The Rest of the Mess -- Movie Soundtracks, Classical, and other stuff I'm ashamed of.

Tags will conform to the Category of CD's. Hence, anything tagged "mycd1" will  be all the stuff from category 1, and so forth.

If I can get these done by the end of the year, I might move on to Rating My Vinyl and then, in grim desperation, to Rating my iTunes, at which point my wife will likely sneak up behind my and put an end to my misery with a ball-peen hammer. No jury on earth would convict her.

I also changed the template, as I'm sure you can see.