Write Lists & Listen To Music

I've always been a big fan of collecting music. Back when I was a kid, my sister and I were allowed a cassingle each per week for a period of time. Every week we'd discuss our choices to make sure we both liked both songs we were getting. Our musical tastes were still all over the place, although I only distinctly remember two cassingles we purchased; Black Box's remake of Fantasy and Riff's White Men Can't Jump. It was around that time that I started becoming more and more exposed to rap music. Artists like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were big in Australia and R&B groups often featured a rhyme in their tracks. When an older friend of mine played me N.W.A.'s 100 Miles And Runnin' EP it was the start of the end for me.

If you haven't figured it out already, I'm a Hip Hop head and have been listening to it more than any other genre of music since I was about 12 (back in 1992). The first CD I ever purchased, before I even owned a personal CD player, was Dr. Dre's The Chronic. My CD collection has now jumped to somewhere between 450 and 500 pieces. It got very big very quickly when I discovered eBay a few years back and I've also recently started to build a collection which isn't centred around Hip Hop and R&B. It's gotten to the point that I can never remember whether or not I own an album anymore. A couple of times I even bought a CD I already owned.

A couple of years ago I came across a great website, Rate Your Music, which allows you to list your music collection in any way you can think of. My main list, CD Albums & EPs, is a running list of all the CDs I own (though it hasn't been updated for a number of months now). Another list I made is called My 11 favourite albums (and 1 favourite EP) of all time, in chronological order (which is sure to cause some kind of controversy). They are just two examples of what you can do with Rate Your Music. If a release you own isn't in the database, you can send the team a request and a picture of the release's cover and they will add it in for you and give you the credit for the listing. I definitely recommend the service, especially if you're a music lover and a fan of writing lists (another thing I like to do). Check it out.