Compilation CDs¶
410 words on Music
I've just been making a couple of compilation CDs to give to my friends when I'll be in England in a fortnight. I really like making these CDs where each song is there for a special reason and – although probably similar – everybody gets a different CD according to what I think they like and of course depending on what I've been listening to lately. Doing this sometimes takes weeks. Not weeks working straight, of course, but from starting off with the first few tracks and slowly adding more – most likely re-arranging everything a couple of times in between.
The last step in making these CDs is making a nice cover, using magazine snippets, photos or whatever else comes to my mind and falls into my hands. Often I like the CDs I make enough to burn myself a second copy of it, regretting that magazine snippets etc. usually exist only once and of course the prettier CD should go to whomever it was intended for.
The same was true for one of the CDs I made tonight, the cover of which was praised by my flatmates. I'll probably post a photo and tracklist once I have access to a digital camera and given the CD away – otherwise there wouldn't be much of a surprise for the receiver. The photo here shows the cover of CDs I made for Dan and Mona at the end of last year. It's just glueing stuff together, I know, but it looks nice.
When making the CD cover, you'll realise that there are different kinds of jewel cases. The most pretty ones I know are for TDK recordable CDs as they are completely transparent, even the tray that the CD is on – giving the opportunity to put more pictures behind the CD itself. They're also a very shiny kind of transparent. Going through my collection of jewel cases I realised, though, that newer jewel cases seem to crack much more easily. Most of my newer jewel cases have cracks somewhere wheras most of my very old ones look just fine. They must've switched to some cheaper plastic towards the end of the 1990s.
Did I mention that alltogether preparing the CD making the cover, writing the track listing (legibly), and making another decent looking copy for myself is quite time consuming? I am always surprised how long it takes to simply copy a track listing including artists and song durations.
