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Liner Notes

A weekly column by Tampa Tribune pop music critic Curtis Ross

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By CURTIS ROSS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 13, 2008

Some guests go through your medicine cabinet. I go through your CDs.

That's me, sidling over toward your CD tower, easing next to the entertainment center, stealing glances at the spines of your jewel boxes.

And judging you harshly.

No, I'm not. Yes I am. No, I'm not. Yes I am.

Yes I am.

Sorry, it's a conditioned reflex. In high school, friendships were made over shared love of The Dictators or Devo. Others were diminished when The Clash didn't elicit the proper enthusiasm.

Need I mention that I remain close with people who had no opinion one way or the other on "London Calling" and have lost touch with my fellow Dead Boys fans?

I have met many a person with enviable record collections who turned out to be a jerk. And there are plenty of people with great wit, intelligence and compassion, people I am honored to call friends, whose CD collections should be taken out and burned.

There's a pivotal scene in Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" in which music snob Rob meets a couple, friends of his fiancée, Laura. They are lovely people, warm, smart, funny, the sort with whom you hope to form lifelong friendships.

Rob, by this point in the book maturing ever so lightly, studiously avoids the couple's CDs, but Laura forces his hand. It is, as he suspected, dreadful and Rob learns a Very Important Lesson.

Check a non-fanatic's CD stack and it's the sheer randomness that stands out. A classical selection remembered from school, a soundtrack to a film he or she liked, a classic rocker's best-of, a long-forgotten one-hit wonder's one hit. Something that caught their ear on the radio once, a Christmas gift from several years back, a calculated risk from the bargain rack.

My collection is anything but random. But my priorities are a little askew.

Really, I'm not judging you. I'm judging me.

Really.

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