I voted 26-50%, probably in reality it's pushing toward the 50% mark. I go through phases so something will be really in with me for a while and then I'll just suddenly stop listening anymore - jazz was the big one for me recently and I wound up selling off most of the jazz I just knew would not fit in my life anymore. Strangely, what I sold off was the "easier" stuff (and a bunch of you will be in shock reading this list) - Monk, Dexter Gordon, early-mid period Miles, etc. but I kept the really out, noisy stuff like Tim Berne, Matthew Shipp, Dave Douglas, late period Coltrane, Zorn/Masada, etc. Weird - and, yes, I really do listen to that stuff.

I'm currently in another deep Purge, trying to be really realistic and pare down the excess. It's surprisingly hard to figure out what you're sick of, period, and what you're simply sick of right now. Music to me is a learning experience, so some of what I buy is more out of wanting to explore. I inevitably reach a point where I've explored as far as I care to, and that's when I strip it back to what really matters to me.

If anything, the Ipod has been an amazing weeding-out tool for me - it's made very obvious what is and is not a priority item for me. I've paid very close attention to my interests sine I got it in Dec. 2004 and it's been a real eye-opener. I've gotten rid of lots of dead-to-me music because of it. And yet, somehow, I still seem to be hovering around 1500 CDs, even after months of purging. Probably because I take credit far too often rather than just cashing it out and using the money somewhere that would be a better investment - with credit, I still give in to baseless curiosity. Cash? I wouldn't dare spend cash on that.

Well, I work at a record store, and while they won't cut me any deals on sell backs, I do get 30% off sticker prices, so now would be an ideal time to seel back and get stuff I'm more passionate about.

I've got less than a dozen cd's that I don't listen to regularly. I sold off nearly everything that I couldn't be bothered to hang onto anymore.

There are a few that I still have but never listen to and even I question why I still have them.

Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun is the number one suspect.

would never part with this.

Jailcliffe -- do I need to retake reading comp 101, or do you not mention how many CDs you own? Just curious...

I think I have 500, all of which pretty much suck. Which is why I keep buying more, which I will eventually hate as well.

This whole YSI/AIM thing has SEVERELY curtailed my CD purchasing, BUT has increased my knowledge of Jail Rock 10 fold.

This week, for example, the only thing I have listened to are the MidTempo Monger Mix and Bloor's Frank Black Mix.

I'm at just under 1600 CDs and just under 900 LPs. Nothing to brag about among Obnese company.

i have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1300 cd's. i'd say there's a chance i won't listen to maybe 5% of these again ever. as others have pointed out, most of these are the kind of "completist-only" type discs that i just couldn't bear to not have in my collection.

I said 11-25% but I suspect it is probably lower. I only have around 700-750 CDs so in terms of overall numbers, 10% is a lot to never listen to again. I try to 'force' myself to listen to stuff that I know I enjoy but just never actively seek out.. there are many CDs that I really enjoy but always pass over when Im reaching for a CD and I dont know why. So usually, when I pull a stack out to listen to, Ill try to at least have one of these CDs in the pile

I have way too many cd's that I think I'll never listen to them all again but it's always nice to have them, though a bit of a pain if you have to move.

Since I've started doing my Konstantiranks I've notice an almost three way split in scores - it really does work out that a third are good, a third average and a third poor.

Going by that ratio I'd have 700 or 800 hundred albums I'm never going to listen to again which is pretty stupid I suppose but I like to think you can salvage at least a track from almost any album for mix purposes.

Me too.

eBay - I routinely get close to $11 (or higher) for newer titles or $7-9 for older releases. Sure, there are shipping fees and other costs involved, but I usually make close to a $7+ profit on average.

To ensure most everything gets the occasional listen, I take the Excel spreadsheet listing my CD collection, randomize it (by adding a column of random numbers and re-sorting), and then I pull about 2/3 of my day's selection of at-work CDs from that list (the other 1/3 is hand-picked recent purchases).

This actually has two benefits--everything gets listened to, and I don't have to waste time every morning deciding what 15 CDs to stick in my CD case.


Screw the labels. Turn the sleeves around so the back cover faces forward; that puts the backcover spine right at the top for easy browsing.

(I always did really well on those spatial relations tests in 8th grade.)

This is pretty much me.

Yep.

I'm in the 5000 range and I have a hard time letting these go over the years. Many of those older albums are way OOP and I still enjoy having them for sentimental/bragging reasons. I'd say pretty confidently that less than 10% of what I have will never be played again. Never say never.

For stuff that I buy out of curiosity that I end up not liking I'll try to at least recoup my purchase by selling it on eBay or something.

For instance I bought this CD used for $1.99 last week.

Yello - Solid Pleasure (1980)



Boy, it sucks hard but I feel better that I at least tried it out to see what it was like. That's worth the price of admission to me. I'm a musical explorer.

Being fully digital really helps me with this. When I get new discs, I rip them and analyze them in MusicMagic (now MusicIP, I guess), where I'll get a list of 'similar' albums in my collection. I just make a playlist of said albums and copy them onto my iPod.

<---- answered 5% or less

I'm at about 3K and I'll forever ignore about 5% of those. Increase both those stats if you include promos that I didn't even listen to once! increase again if you count burned cds, of which I probably have too many.

I put 11-15%. I think I have around 800 CDs but haven't counted in years so really have no idea. I just finished putting them all on iTunes and in the process cleaned out around 100 to get rid of because I won't ever listen to them again. Of the rest, there's still probably 10-15% I won't listen to again but keep around because they're too new at this point to get rid of or I think there might be an occasion down the road in which I'll want to hear a song or two.

My CD purchasing will be going down heavily while downloading will give me access to way more music than I;ve ever been exposed to before. I'm annoyed with storing CD cases and am not so slowly falling in love with eMusic which gives me 3-4 albums worth of music for the price of 1.

Once in college I listened to everything I have in alphabetical order. It took months, but it was an interesting/geeky experiment because my mood couldn't dictate what I listened to on any given day, so I heard things in a new way.

I'd like to do that now, but it would take forever. I need to weed.

Geh...I dunno what happened there. 21 months ago.

And for me, "lean" is getting rid of all the "no way in Hell I ever listen to that again" stuff.

Right now, I'm glad I have a lot of the stuff I haven't listened to in forever - because I have a job where we can listen to music. I've been listening to stuff that I haven't popped in for probably 3-5 years.

Holy crap I do something similar to this. Thanks to the good people at Denver Public Library I get bombarded with albums on a pretty regular basis. Together with the albums I buy, stuff inevitably falls through the cracks only for me to rediscover it weeks, months, eras later...

I'd say about 5%.

I'm pretty stingey. don't jump into buying records. Maybe it was partly due to financial contraints in the past. I'd say I love pretty much most of the records I own, even the ones I bought years ago.

I have some stuff I bought just for fun for DJing--e.g. Samantha Fox--that I probably won't listen to that regularly. Heh. But the rest are keepers.

I guess the other "duds" are mainly records by artists I love who have put out records I don't dig: e.g. Morrissey's second to last, sadly the new Ariel Pink, stuff like that.

There are some that I had thought of getting rid of recently but realized they might be hard-to-find & that maybe I should keep em. They are all "okay" records from small ambient bands from the 90s.

Maybe its age or a record collection size issue because I wasn't trying to get at how much of your collection is things you think are duds. Everyone buys the occasional dud but most of us trade or sell 'em when we decide we don't like 'em. I'm talking about stuff you like but will probably in all likelihood never listen to again.

Talking Heads "Remain in Light" made my listmania. I couldn't tell you the last time I played it. Certainly it was over 10 years ago. Sure I could pull it out and listen to it now but there are tons of albums that I bought in the 70's and 80's that I feel similarly about and don't know when I last played them and don't feel a strong urge to play now. I'm not going to pull them all out just because I think its odd that I've not listened to them in such a long time.

And then there's stuff like the Sex Pistols or the lesser PIL albums that I think are pretty damn good or even great (mainly think SP here) but maybe just don't fit my lifestyle as much anymore.

All these albums mean too much to me to trade in ** I think ** and I can't point to any specific album and say I'm definitely never going to listen to that one again or I would trade it in. I own so much stuff like this though that I love or really like but just feel no urge to play and can't remember the last time I played (thus its not a phase) that I think a good bunch of it will probably never get a single spin again.