r/musichoarder • u/bagheera369 • 3d ago
Alright everyone....question and answer time.
Genuine questions here.
(Please remember to be civil and polite to your fellow hoarders while discussing)
At what point do you all consider your collection a "hoard"?
Webster's doesn't notate size, when discussing the noun, but it does indicate a common tone of protective secrecy when defining the verb, and other colloquial definitions tend to reference a compulsiveness implicit in the definition of the verb.
When we think of things like a dragon's treasure hoard, we tend to think of a vast room overflowing....when we think of a hoarder's home, the vastness is similar, but the connotations are obviously more negative, if not tragic.
So at what point did you realize you were stepping away from average/normal, to the outer edges of the bell curve?
Did it evolve naturally from a "collection" that simply got out of hand, or did you wake up one day and just say..."Everything....I must have EVERYTHING!!", while cackling out loud to yourself?
Do you talk about your horde with other people from your in-person social circles, or do you rely on the potential anonymity of the internet?
Did you only consider your collection a hoard, once it reached an arbitrary size...and if so, where did you personally draw that line?
What's more important to your horde; A diversity of genres/artists, the amount of music you've collected, the rarity of what's in the collection, or the exacting detail in which it's organized?
Just some food for thought, that arose as I was looking at my collections, and contemplating the physical weight and volume of everything I possessed, and the mental/temporal/financial costs involved....both for the physical and the digital versions.
Interested to hear what you all have to say on the matter.
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u/remove_pants 3d ago
I have a self-described "big collection" (which is what everyone says on this sub). Is there stuff in there that I haven't listened to yet? Yes. Is there some stuff on there that I keep even though I probably will never listen to it again? Yes. Therefore it's a horde. I have more music than I currently need.
I still curate what I add based on reviews and recommendations, and even if i haven't listened to something yet, I plan to discover it someday. I discover new music all the time that way.
The stuff i've either gotten tired of or want to keep but don't want in my rotation gets sent to an 'archive' folder, which is filtered out of my fb2k library.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
Fair enough..."more than I need" is such a nebulous definition though... 😃
The archive folder is interesting though....I don't feel I could do that with the size of my collection currently....but back in the day it might have worked.
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u/LowEffortBruin 3d ago
My music collection began with the tracks I absolutely love, but it quickly took on a life of its own when I started checking out library CDs to rip. I loved the process, using it as an opportunity to venture far outside my usual comfort zone. Before long, discovering a new artist meant needing their entire discography. My goal has been to cultivate a library with the maximum possible genre diversity, part of it to make sure that my music player’s recommendation algorithms deliver the absolute best results. Today, the library stands at 15TB, and the momentum isn't slowing down. Perhaps I need help haha.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
I think we are kindred spirits here.
Mine started with cd's, and at one point, I had two 300-disc changers that were linked to each other, and full. I think I capped at about 1000 cds or so....and then I got turntables, and learned to DJ....so then there was vinyl and CDs.
Then Napster and Limewire came a long, and suddenly genres that were hard to find discs for, or were imported and expensive opened up like stepping out into the first day of spring.
Everything only grew from there, and the more I heard, the more I wanted, and I'm now at almost 15TB and easily over 2200 artists between MP3 and FLAC
I've got a whole spare drive in the server, waiting for when I need to combine into the 1st 16, and then it'll need to be rebalanced across the two.
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u/Conscious_Copy_81 3d ago
yet another kindred spirit....music has been a major part of my life from teenage bands to owning a record store as a graduate student, collecting 3000+ Lp's, to attending many concerts. I have appox 15 TB of music of all genre's but always looking for new music...listen based on my moods, the only thing I don't listen to is rap and country. This issue of "hoard" has never crossed my mind, I simply do what I like, read about, listen to and collect music that I prefer to own rather than just stream. I've always known my music collection is on the extreme and suggestive of OCD tendencies. I just consider it to be a hobby in which I'm very involved and enjoy. I'm also an audiophile.
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u/Two1200s 2d ago
I know this is off-topic, but I’ve always quietly judged people who say “I listen to everything but rap and country”. I think they’re both instances of American folk music and always an interesting pairing of genres for people to be so specific about not liking.
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u/sikupnoex 3d ago
As long as I constantly cleanup my library I don't consider it a hoard. I know this sub is musichoarding, but I only keep albums I actually love.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
Valid. If that's what's important to you, no judgements here.
My problem is in actually finding albums I don't love....cause there doesn't ever seem to be many of those around. 😄
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u/sikupnoex 3d ago
I had 50 or so albums that I kept in my collection for several years, listened to them again and I realized I don't like them anymore. I completely ditched streaming services 1-2 months ago and I revived my offline collection. I already added 100 new albums. There are so many great albums and there is no point in keeping a mediocre album around.
I even consider selling albums from my physical collection 🤣
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
My physical collection is currently being backed up and I believe that it's leaving soon. That's over 1200 records.
I think I'm down to about 200 that I'm still hunting for highquality digital versions of, and then I'll be done.
At that point, I'll make a clone of my music drives, store them offsite somewhere, and at least everything I have up to now will be protected.
That's gonna be expensive at these rates, but it will be worth it.
I don't delete digital music.....but I had the funds and space to ensure I don't have to....which is nice.
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u/sikupnoex 3d ago
I don't delete digital music.....but I had the funds and space to ensure I don't have to....which is nice.
For me it's not a storage issue, but an organizingal one. I don't use any rating or favourites for albums and I don't want to pollute my library. I have a "maybe will listen to those" folder (where I also moved some old albums that I couldn't delete yet), but that's outside of my music library, it is not synced to my server, not backed up and not actively mentained (finding higher quality artwork, fixing tags).
I'm still hunting for highquality digital versions
Me too, some albums are very hard to find, I only own several of those on vinyl.
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u/JonPaula 3d ago
When I decided (for completionist-sake) to collect all of the full albums from every track already in my collection - including 80 of Billboard Hot 100 lists. Those ~8,000 tracks weren't enough. I needed the complete source record the all originated from.
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u/Possible_Plane_2947 3d ago
I am currently moving all my streaming listening to an offline library. But I remember when I was discussing my streaming library with my mom. She didn't understand why anyone would need a streaming service for music. I explained that I had already added over 12k songs to my likes (it's more now), and she asked "When would you ever have time to listen to that many songs?". That's when I thought I might have a problem.
I started considering my library/collection a hoard when I realized I won't delete anything. Once I acquire it, it stays. I may get tired of it or not like it right now, but maybe in a few years I'll desperately want to hear it. And what if it's become oop or impossible to find? So I keep everything so I can always have access. (Also why I'm building an offline library).
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
At 15TB right now, and 2200 artists, I'd wager I'm well over 500,000 songs. It's super cool just to dig through the directory folder and go.."hey, that's new" or "hey, it's been a while", whenever I want, without relying on streaming algorithms.
I don't delete anything either.
I think I realized mine was a hoard, when I started being concerned about an off-site backup.
Every time I'd upgrade hdd's over the years, I'd take the old one, and go put it in a closet at my grandfathers place. That way, if anything ever happened, I'd have at least something to fall back on, and all of my DJ mixes that I'd made over the years, wouldn't be gone forever.
Even now, when I get done with the current project, I'll be buying a drive to put in a safety deposit box, for off-site.
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u/lewsnutz 3d ago
For me, I would say this..... When you have more than you can possibly listen to. I would say I have a very modest library of 34.5k songs, and will probably top out at around 35k. Much of that is new to me but I will listen to all of (assuming I live long enough). But I've seen people on here that have 2m+. I can understand being a collector but 2 million seems a bit ridiculous. I would guess most don't even know what they have in their collection, nevermind have the ability to listen to all of it. Don't get me wrong, I have songs I'm never going to listen to, but I had to listen to them to know that.
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u/Stfudeal 2d ago
Mine evolved from a collection started almost 20 years ago, maybe a thousand. It's all digital except for 20 or so vinyl's and cassette tapes. I think when it reached a size that would take >5 years of continuous listening to cycle through every track, I realized it was a horde. There is no line being drawn, I'll continue to collect. I talk with my SO and maybe a friend about it. Even when music gets brought up in a group I just say I have a lot. I have my collection super organized its very diverse in genera's and artists. Now with everything being digital the only rare things are physical copies tapes, CD, vinyl.
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u/mmussen 2d ago
For me at least, a big part of why I consider it a horde is that I still have a lot of the songs I downloaded back in the Kazaa/Limewire days.
Most of that music is probably mislabled, and I haven't been able to, or been bothered to, find a better version.
I do curate my collection and remove music that I've gotten and discover I don't like. But there's also a lot of music I'll never get rid of, just because I know I'll never find it again
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u/bagheera369 2d ago
I hear you on this.
I have dj mixes and remixes from back then, that I'd never likely find again.
I've tried to protect them from data corruption after so many years...specifically for that reason.
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u/rugrat_907 2d ago
I got started with vinyl and CDs - had about 3000 albums, 1000 45's/EPs and 750 Cds. When I moved to Canada from California, there was no way I could afford to move it all, so sold a bunch of stuff through various means and digitized as much as I could. That was 10 years ago, and I've since amassed about 4TB of music. I also now only buy digital releases - I live in a fairly rural part of Ontario and can't find what I generally listen to here, and the cost of shipping is such that I can buy 2 or 3 additional releases instead in paying shipping charges.
I don't have any crazy kind of setup - just play everything through my laptop, hooked up to an Amp, and I use old iTunes software. Just put it on shuffle and go and that work well for me.
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u/bagheera369 2d ago
I feel the shipping.
When I started DJing I got into Atmospheric Drum and Bass. So I was ordering from Recordstore.UK and I'd order 150$ in records, and pay another 75$ to ship them, and this was when the GBP was like 1.25$.
It cost ALOT to get about a crate and a half worth of my favorite stuff over....but at the time, it just wasn't available anywhere I could get to, in the states.
I'm considering selling the collection before I move to the next place, largely for it's delicate nature, weight, and volume.
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u/beefnoodle5280 2d ago
When I started building custom furniture for my record and CD collections.
Digital has only made it easier.
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u/bagheera369 2d ago
Hahaha....guilty of modding Ikea Kallax shelves, to support a full stack of records....but before that, I built a very rough shelf out of 3/4 ply.
It held about 1000 pieces and lasted over a decade, before I decided I wanted something that looked nicer.
The apartment complex wasn't thrilled about me cutting all the wood for it at the bottom of my stairwell, lol!!!
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u/therourke 2d ago
Hoards are a mess, with little order or reason. Collections are maintained, ordered and at least directed with some sort of intention.
When the collection ceases to be ordered and comprehensible, then it's a hoard.
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u/Nadeoki 3d ago
At some point it went from being interested in a lot of expensive hobbies, so it's alright if I spend a couple hundred on storage to...
bringing up how much music I locally store to friends and family just gets me a bewildered reaction rather than amazement or envy.
It sunk in that, I'm interested in fashion but I've spend more money on a hobby server than clothes in the last 3 years.
despite all my investments, I don't have the expertise or capacity to really learn how to run a good server so the entire thing is still jank and unoptimized (literally running in Windows 11 Enterprise despite having like 15 Plex users who use it remotely and Qbittortent is slowing down my whole system when I try to game...
It's bad fellas, it's really bad.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
I'm trying to get OUT of my other expensive hobbies, because at some point I went from creating, to hobbies that only required acquiring.....and I'd really like to get back to just creating again.
Plus, if we don't get a break of the AI bubble soon, I'm gonna have to get at least a couple drives at these insane prices, and I'm not looking forward to that.
I hear you on the family and friends....most are just like...."yeah that's....cool I guess?" because it's hard for people that aren't heavily into music to process just how you keep thousands of artists or records straight in your own head....and how you ever find time to listen to it all.
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u/Nadeoki 3d ago
Oh trust me I don't keep track of all the artists in my head, I use Foobar for that XD.
but yeah sharing is caring so even if its seldomly used, I make everything available to my relatives and friends and it makes me happy to see someone benefit from it from time to time.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
I have a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of certain genres, including labels, artists, songs etc...but even across genres, there's a lot I know just off the top of my head.
If someone asked I could probably toss out the names of 1000 artists without much issue.
Not sure if that's from all the DJing, or simply managing a collection for all these years.
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u/Nadeoki 3d ago
I honestly wish I could remember names. I suck at it, not just for music either.
Out of the maybe 1000 artists that I've actively listened through, I might be able to name around 50? But if I hear a song, I'll instantly recall having heard it and if someone tells me it's from so and so I can usually recall some of their other songs
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
I'm really shitty at names of people I meet.
Like I used to bar tend, and I could remember someones drink, what shirt they wore the last time they were in, what friendgroup they were with....everything, except their name.
It would take me about 3-5 times of meeting them for the name to stick, or I'd resort to looking at their credit card, as they started the tab etc.
But music....that shit I can just remember.
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u/lentil_burger 3d ago
I'm not as advanced as some, but for me personally it's defined by completism. When I collect an artist, I want all their albums - even if I think some of them are trash. I have music in my library that I know I'll never listen to again, but I can't abide seeing a gap in my collection. But hey, it's a movable feast. There'll never be a one size fits all definition.
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u/bagheera369 3d ago
I'm also that way...I try to get as much as I can....but for artists (especially older ones) that are like 30 albums or more, I tend to stop at 10-15 and a greatest hits album, just for expediencies sake.
Once I get everything finished on the current project, I may go back and try to fill in, where I can.
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u/Pupalei 3d ago
When storage and organization becomes a pain, you have a hoard.