I bought my current computer back in August 2004. It's an eMac--the last remaining models of the old CRT-based iMacs. You know, those big, fifty-pound jobbers. It was cheap and yet still a massive upgrade over my previous Mac, which had been high-end way back in 1996.

Within a couple days of opening the box and discovering the joys of iTunes, I began the process of digitizing my music collection. This was no small undertaking. In the past 16-plus years, I've reviewed more than 7,000 CDs. I've tossed out a fair share of them, but I also buy a few on occasion. At the moment, I'd guess that I've got some 6,500 CDs, 400 vinyl LPs, 350 7"s (what the geezers might call 45s), 100 12" singles (mostly hip-hop) and more tapes than I know what to do with. Last week, I finished digitizing that collection.

Almost, anyway. I haven't digitized any tapes, because my tape deck was stolen years ago. And there are a couple one-of-a-kind tapes I would like to digitize eventually. One is a 90 minute bootleg of U2 studio jamming during the Actung Baby sessions. I don't like U2 a lot, but that stuff is great. The other tape I want to get in is the complete soundboard recording of the Big Star show in Columbia, Mo., back in 1992. There is an edited version released on CD (which I have), but the full show contains many more songs and lots of half-baked (literally) Alex Chilton observations.

By and large, though, my digitizing days are done. I'll add a few new things every month after doing my A&A reviews, but the back catalog is complete. Seventy-four thousand, three hundred and seventy songs. Two hundred days, seven hours, twenty-two minutes and twenty-five seconds of music. If I listened to the full collection every waking hour, it would start to repeat after about eleven months. I think I've got enough tunes to last me a while.

Digitizing CDs is a pretty dull enterprise. You throw the CD in, the computer reads it and then spits it out. On average, my computer can do a full CD in about 10 minutes. It used to be faster, but once the database gets to a certain size, the process slows down quite a bit.

Digitizing vinyl, however, is much more involved. You have to play the record in real time and record it onto a hard drive. Then you split the raw audio into the proper tracks, clean up whatever scratches and pops might be lurking, import those tracks into iTunes and then convert the AIFF files (which is the format CDs use as well) into AAC files (which is more compact and easier for iTunes to use). It took me about two-and-a-half years to do the 6,500 (or so) CDs. And then it took me about a year to do the 850 or so pieces of vinyl. The bonus, of course, is that I got to listen to every piece of vinyl I own.

I learned a few things about my collection. For starters, most of my 7"s are from 90s indie rock (etc.) bands. And most of them are great. Even the ones that have real execution problems contain a certain energy that is undeniably exciting. Recording the singles was a blast. I am so happy I have easy access to them now.

Then I got to my LPs. Many of these are from the 80s. And most of them are awful. For some reason, I've got the Kenny Rogers album that contains his "Islands in the Stream" duet with Dolly Parton. I never liked that song. Or Kenny Rogers, for that matter. But it's there in the stacks nonetheless. There's also a Lionel Richie album. I hate Lionel Richie. Both of those are RCA music club LPs, which means I probably forgot to send back the coupon and then didn't send back the album, either. Lame.

But a lot of the stuff I bought in stores was just as lame. One of the first LPs I ever owned was Chicago 16. Awful, terrible stuff. Lucky for me it was warped so badly I couldn't digitize it.

In fact, most of the LPs I bought while in high school are warped in one way or another. There were about 30 that were utterly unplayable--some of them were warped by more than an inch at the edge. I don't know what I did to them or how they were stored, but I messed them up one way or another. Almost everything I bought in college or later is in good shape. Further prrof that kids don't know how to take care of nice things.

There were some pleasant surprises. Hall and Oates made some pretty good music. I don't know if that's a cool opinion these days, but their greatest hits set is solid. Also, the Cars albums also hold up pretty well. The Heart album is solid mainstream po-rock, while Kiss's Asylum album (which I bought the same day as Heart) is even worse than I thought it would sound to my current ears. Don't even get me started about Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon, which just about made my lower digestive track run backward.

Most frightening to me, however, is how poorly the Asia albums held up. I remember thinking that the band went downhill fast, but I really loved that first Asia album all through junior high and high school. To my preening adolescent ears, it was the perfect mix of technical wizardry, obtuse melodic structure and supremely pretentious lyrics. Listening to it again, I found it unlistenable. The second and third Asia albums were, as hard as it might be to imagine, even worse. Damn. I liked crappy music when I was a kid.

Then again, I was also buying Prince and Frank Zappa and, um, well...let's just say my musical taste (and more important, my range of appreciation) grew by leaps and bounds in college. I'm wearing a Bon Jovi t-shirt in my college ID photo, which was taken the summer before my freshman year. By the time I left five years later, I'd been a college radio DJ for four years and had started Aiding & Abetting during my final term. And if you read those reviews, you'll notice a startling shift in my taste and appreciation since I began A&A in October 1991.

We're all works in progress. It took me three-and-a-half years to cram my music into my computer. Today, I can look back at what I wrote when I started my digitizing project and wonder what the hell I was thinking. And that's cool, because even if I don't agree with what I said back then, those "out-of-date" opinions are just as valid today as they were when they were written.

Lots of folks like to throw around vaguely Zen sayings, like "be in the moment" and "life is a journey." Never mind that they are more than a little contradictory. That's fine. Non-contradictory religious thought is merely mendacity for the masses. Truth lies in the mystery, not some pat answer. Lock-step truths belie a human supposition that life is, against all evidence, somehow quantifiable and perfectable. Which is a sentiment that both of those popularized Zen sayings rail against.

I've got 200 days of music that proves the imperfectability of life. There is no one answer to unite all the people, just as there has never been one album that turns on the pleasure centers of even a majority of people around the world. We may all have our own soundtracks, but in the end, we're united by the fact of our shared humanity. And I'm thinking that simple truth ought to wipe away most of our differences.

Except for that imperfectability thing.

Damn.

Jon Worley would like to extend his hand of friendship to Trixter fans. On second thought, maybe not.