Exploding Plastic Inevitable

The gory details of selling your entire CD collection. By Matt Siblo

After 15 years, untold thousands spent and a constantly revised collection of lists protruding from my wallet, I came to the sobering decision to sell almost my entire CD collection. My reasons are not so much environmentally noble (although I will gladly accept pats on the back for my recently acquired plastic sensitivity) as they are pragmatic. Simply put, I could no longer chase the plastic ghost; I found myself unable to keep up. Times are tough, and since I’m as obstinate as any other collector type, I’d rather have nothing at all than a half-assed, incomplete lot. Thus began the arduous task of hocking an almost obsolete product (CDs) to a brand of specialty retailers swiftly on the verge of extinction (independent record stores). What follows is a bulleted recounting of the guilt-inducing experience of selling off my memories, one dollar at a time.

Modest Mouse’s “Bankrupt On Selling” from 1997’s The Lonesome Crowded West:

First record store: Red Onion Records And Books, a small used shop semi-specializing in punk and indie in Washington, D.C.
Number of CDs unloaded: 60
Sold: most Built To Spill albums, Daft Punk, Embrace
Number of CDs rejected: three, including Beck’s Odelay and a justified snub of Rock Plaza Central

Second record store: Smash!, a long-running D.C. punk shop that sells Doc Martens and skinhead braces
Number of CDs unloaded: 15
Sold: Prince’s Purple Rain, albums by Lemuria and Yo La Tengo
Rejected: everything by Destroyer and Luna, predictable shunning of Paul Simon’s Graceland

Third record store: Princeton Record Exchange, the destination to exchange records in New Jersey
Number of CDs unloaded: 215
Sold: Portishead, My Morning Jacket, MF Doom
Rejected: four, including a beat-up copy of the Afghan Whigs’ What Jail Is Like EP, Lucero’s Nobody’s Darlings, that same copy of Beck’s Odelay

Fourth record store: Mondo Kim’s, landmark store on St. Mark’s Place in New York City.
Number of CDs unloaded: five
Sold: Health, Brian Eno
Rejected: Air’s Moon Safari, the Microphones’ The Glow, Pt. 2, Social Distortion’s Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell

Fifth record store: Other Music, the infamously pretentious record boutique in New York that I’m delighted will no longer receive my patronage
Number of CDs unloaded: 50
Sold: Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Matthew Sweet
Rejected: everything by Sunset Rubdown and the Halo Benders; Teenage Fanclub best-of

eBay lots: Instead of the usual hodgepodge lots that include every promotional CD procured at last summer’s Warped Tour, I tried my luck at smaller, more focused (and time-consuming) lots of artists I’ve collected extensively.
Number of CDs unloaded: 60
Sold: Against Me!, Death Cab For Cutie, the Clash, Bob Dylan, Iron & Wine, Belle And Sebastian
Lowest bid: Spoon, whose four studio albums and two EPs barely broke the $12 mark
Highest bid: Dylan fans, with all of that disposable income and presumed inability to navigate iTunes, shelled out $40 for nine albums

The process, which is still limping along, has been sentimental at points but not nearly as heart-wrenching as I imagined. Most of my ongoing shame stems not from the absence of my possession of the discs but instead the disservice I feel I’m committing to the purveyors of these quasi-antiquities. At one point hocking promos seemed like an almost noble act (emphasis on the almost), providing both the consumer and store with savings while maybe earning the seller enough scratch to buy a burrito. Now, sauntering up to the register with an overstuffed bag makes me feel like a snake-oil salesman. Every time I unload, I squirm at the prospects of both taking money from the store and the shamefully low resale value my collection has garnered.

The puny remnants are either too damaged or outdated to pawn off, even for the most optimistic reseller. What didn’t make the cut? My beat-up copy of Avail’s 4 A.M. Friday. Anything released by Mojave 3 can be lumped in as well. I am saddened to report that the aforementioned copy of Odelay has been passed on more times than R.E.M.’s Monster, an album found in used bins with greater frequency than Kenneth could have ever imagined.

As I try to make sense of what CDs I couldn’t get rid of and the ones I couldn’t bring myself to part with, I’m struck by my haphazard sentimentality. Who knew that the 1993 No Alternative compilation meant that much to me? Isn’t my copy of the Replacements’ Let It Be on vinyl enough? In the end, I don’t regret buying or selling them. Mostly, I’m astonished at how empty my room looks and wish I knew what to do with all of the empty shelf space.