Moving from CD's to mp3s--Withdrawal is Painful, But...

I decided to do it about two months ago. I am unloading all my CD's by moving everything into my iTunes library. The last time I made a transition like this, it was not voluntary, and it really wasn't a transition, exactly--more like a fait accompli.

I had an average-sized record collection for someone who was a college student in 1969 into the early 70's. It was a mix that reflected my changing tastes in those days--there were the Temptations, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Rod Stewart, etc. It was "temporarily" being stored in the basement while we were between stereos and had two very young children (two and five)who would have been light sleepers--and that music was supposed to be played loud, you know.

So, my collection had been assigned to the basement. They were LP's, 33 &1/3 RPM's. I had them in a wooden record cabinet-the kind that you would set your stereo on top of. As luck would have it, we had what was termed a 30-year rain (probably more like 100), and our neighborhood had an old shared storm water/sanitary sewer line. So, when all that rain filled up our sewer lines, what backed up onto our basement (about four feet deep) was mostly raw sewage. Draining the swamp took a few days and clean-up consisted in throwing out what was there and bleaching the floors and walls. My record collection was in the usual album covers, made of cardboard, swollen with sewer water and would likely have to have been chiseled out. So, a fait accompli, no more record collection in LP's. By the time I was able to think about buying music again, it was the 90's and music came on cassettes and something new, CD's. I had a brief period where I bought a few cassettes, but even I could see that had no future, so i eventually acquired CD's, not a huge supply, but probably bigger than my LP collection. So far, I have invested about six hours uploading CD's into my library in iTunes. I have been choosing which ones to upload by my tastes, which have evolved. One consistent thing though--my wife doesn't like any of them. Withdrawal is only one of the pains involved, you know.