1. Finding a band in the bargain bin you've never heard of and buying their album because you like their name.
Or hate their name? It's so tough to tell sometimes.
2. Memorizing a list of songs under two minutes so you have something for the end of the mix tape.
3. Holding your tape recorder up to your TV to record an MTV video premiere.
4. Watching several hours of VH1 in the hopes that you'd see your favorite band's new video.
5. Discovering an entirely new genre of music after playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
You were REALLY into the Suicide Machines and Goldfinger that summer.
6. Buying an album from a band that you don't necessarily love, just because you need to fill a hole in your record collection.
I'm totally fine spending $15 on a Captain Beefheart album because I need it, but I don't actually have to listen to it, do I?
7. Opening this totally unnecessary but wonderful package.
8. Spending a lot of time decorating tapes or CDs that you burned yourself.
9. Reading the liner notes.
10. Trying to figure if your favorite band is in the alt, indie, rock, punk, or pop section.
Do you think DMB is more "adult contemporary," "soft rock," or "jam band"?
11. In-stores.
12. Obsessively pausing and rewinding a song for an hour to memorize the lyrics.
13. Making the case to your parents for why the explicit tag doesn't count in this case.
14. Building your record collection with 8 cents a month.
15. Having long discussion about which side you liked better.
16. Being afraid of this guy's judgment.
17. Unloading all your questionable purchases at the used CD store.
18. Going out on a limb and buying an entire discography for $10.
19. It was way easier to judge your friends' tastes when you could see their collection.
20. Having a system.
"It's roughly by genre, but cross-categorized by mental state at time of purchase."
21. Changing your system.
22. Listening booths.
23. Waiting outside record stores for midnight releases.
24. Buying the entire album for the single.
"I'm looking for the album with that 'paranoia, paranoia' song on it."
25. Buying the single for the B-side.
26. Getting tricked by that Aphex Twin album cover every time you went to the record store.
27. Six copies of your favorite band's worst album. Zero copies of their best album.
28. Being too ashamed to ask what's on the store play.
29. Buying the LP, which sounded better AND was cheaper, then recording it onto a cassette to listen to in the car.
Only a chump pays extra for the actual cassette.
30. The cassette was only $8, and the CD was $13.
31. Sometimes your only option was to go to the FYE in the mall.
32. Getting upset when your favorite band moved to a major label.
Ugh. I can't believe those sellouts are trying to make money doing their jobs.
33. Going to a concert without staring out over a sea of cell phones.
34. Carefully balancing your Discman, at just the right angle, so that it doesn't skip.
35. And this.
