What makes You[me] not play those...

...albums/artists you loved one time but haven't heard in so long.

top of my mind:

Peter Gabriel - I loved everything upto/including Us and then just stopped listening. I dunno.

U2, except for Unforgettable Fire, I hardly if ever go back.

I guess I will someday. I am probably letting the over used time wear off subconciously, I guess.

You missed out. Up is an incredible piece of work, aside from the embarassing "Barry Williams Show" (buy his best-of, Hit, and replace BWS with the WAY superior "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" and you've got a near-flawless album.) You didn't really miss much of anything between Us and Up - one flaccid soundtrack and his OVO project, which was a dud.

Its pretty hard to find the time to listen to everything you like as your collection grows and grows. I think there's a natural tendency to listen to your more recent purchases more than your older ones.

If you find your listening to inferior stuff and depriving yourself of listening to great albums, you're either buying the wrong albums, buying too many or both. Cutting back is easy said than done. I've at least managed to cut way back on my new releases in general, and avoid buying new albums from old favorites that I can't find the time for. Until I can find the time to listen more to Tim, Remain in Light, or My Aim is True, I really have no business buying a new Westerberg, Byrne or Costello.

In addition, every now and then, I will pull something out of my collection that I haven't listened to in many moons. You motivated me to do that again today with:



It'd probably been 15 years since I'd listened to it. In this case, I hated Green so much that I stopped listening to REM altogether for over ten years. I'd since renewed my love for Murmur and Reckoning but not made my way back to this one. Well worth it. Chronic Town may just be the best thing they ever recorded and the bsides on this are much better than I remembered.

I'm feeling similarly lately. However, I do tend to buy new music by those bands I know I love - because there's likely to be something in their new music that I find I enjoy. Usually, I'm right. (But when I'm wrong, man, does it blow.) But I see your side of it - why not invest the time in what you know you love, and maybe invest the money in something either new or something you need? I really wish I could go that direction sometimes, but I just like hearing, say, Costello's Delivery Man because I know that, no matter how bad it could possibly be, there's still going to be a gem or two.

I've been attempting to actually trim back my collection to things that are actually really important to me, the "I would buy this instantly if I lost it" things, and maybe the next level of importance below that. It's really difficult - I've been finding that I buy a lot of things more to have everything by an artist than because I really need it. Or want it, I should say - I really am trying to not apply such a drastic word as "need" to things like music. I tread a fine line between being a music lover and being a collector, which scares the hell out of me. "Collecting," that's like a disease. I know I could easily go into the deep end of collecting easily. Forcing myself to prune my CDs is a good way to prevent collectoritis, I find.

You should seriously think about checking out Peter Gabriel's material after Us. For example, OVO was an ambitious experiment, Long Walk Home was the perfect soundtrack for the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence, and Up is probably my favorite album of the decade so far.

However, I would download OVO first before you decide to purchase it because it seems to be an acquired taste even among fans.