Hits In The Car

I posted the following at blogcritics.org today:

10 most embarrassing albums in my CD-collection

After all I now belong to "A sinister cabal of superior bloggers", so I guess it's about time to show that I have mean side too?

As per today (14 March 2005) my CD-collection contains 971 Albums. The few albums aside that my wife brought into our marriage and the few ones I've received as gifts, all of them have been bought by me. This means that I must have (or rather should have) been through the typical pattern of purchasing behavior thus having a plausible reason for buying each and every one of them.

Why is it then that I often feel embarrassed when scrolling through the list? Why does it include so many albums that I wouldn't miss a single second if they disappeared forever? Of course I know that your taste in music changes as time goes by. I mean - I DID honestly like Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones way back then in the 80's, and I do occasionally listen to them today for nostalgic reasons. And Kenny G did serve a purpose back in the days of dating, which is why I won't bash any of his albums.

But despite this confession I know for a fact that there are several albums in my collection that I've never liked. Not even when I bought them! So God only knows why I did buy them in the first place, though I have a few qualified guesses of my own:
- My girlfriend liked it.
- One of the songs brought back nice memories of a party, holiday etc.
- I wanted my collection to look "hip".
- Whatever played on the radio or hitting the charts had to be great.
- Great reviews meant great albums.

So it's time for a nasty round of torture by going through the collection and publicly admitting what albums make me feel embarrassed:

Britney Spears: Baby One More Time
I'm probably not the only one who hopes that this CD will somehow disappear from your collection. I was in NY in the summer of 1999 and back then it felt just right as a memory from that trip. How wrong could I be?

Shania Twain: Come On Over
Just see the lame Britney Spears excuse above. Hopefully no one notices this album, when going through my CD's? That NY trip really looks like a disaster from a CD buying point of view. Doesn't it?

Ace of Base: Happy Nation
They very really huge in Denmark back then, so I thought it would look "good" in my collection. Still asking at the record store if I somehow can get my money back!

Snow: 12 Inches of Snow
How can anyone ever take me seriously with an album like this in my collection. But Informer was really popular, so I probably thought that I'd be popular too if I owned this horrible piece of garbage.

Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill
I know this album sold zillions and billions of copies. But by having this in my collection I'm just afraid that some might think that I actually like it. I will never, NEVER, understand why this album became so popular, because it was its popularity that manipulated me into buying it.

Aqua: Aquarium
I bought the album on a market in Italy. This is definitely not an original album, so at least the band didn't earn any money from this stupid purchase (I really think copying is a bad thing, but just this once I approve). To be fair; Turn Back Time is a fairly decent song, but it can't save the rest of this dreadful album. I know they came from Denmark (just like me), but it doesn't really make me proud at all!

Andrea Bocelli: Romanza
I was standing in Mallorca Airport and the record shop played "time to say goodbye" (or whatever it is called). So I spent my last pesetas (this was long before the days of the EURO) buying this sugarcoated stuff. The money would have been better spent on a bottle of vodka!

Eros Ramazzotti: Tuttie Storie
Another Italian singer. Maybe I just believed that if I bought enough CD's by Italians the women would eventually believe that I was Italian too?

Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas
Honestly - I can't recall why I bought this. But I must have been madly in love with someone extremely beautiful making me completely irresponsible or just unbelievable hung-over from the Christmas parties.

Technotronic: Pump Up the Jam
This is probably just another album I bought while remembering a fantastic party Saturday night. Hopefully I was still drunk while buying it?

I'll happily admit that I own a few other albums that I think are just as bad as those listed above. But they don't meet the embarrassment criteria, because they were made by great (or at least decent) artists. And artists of a certain caliber should be allowed the privileged of misfiring.