Two years ago, I purchased an assortment of over 600 CDs from an auction site in the middle of the night. All mini CDs. Remember those? The little 8mm (or 3 inch) CDs often used in the states for promotional material. The reason CD trays have that smaller indent slot in the middle. Think GameCube discs. Well, in Japan, they were used for CD singles. Since moving to Japan and building a media library, I’ve come to like singles. Case in point, I have every Perfume CD available, full albums or singles, totaling at least 50 discs or so.

I bought this box blind, having very little knowledge of Japanese pop music. But for ¥9,100 ($60 these days), I’d be introduced to over 1,200 new songs. You can’t beat that. Of course, I didn’t discuss the purchase with my wife. Ask for forgiveness instead of permission, right?

Since then, I’ve been off and on widdling my way through the collection. To complete the nostalgia trip, I even purchased the same portable CD player I used in high school.

The current workflow is this: Open a chu-hai. Thrown on the headphones. Grab a stack of mini CDs. Play track one. If it’s intriguing, listen through to track two. If pleasant enough, import it into iTunes for syncing to my phone or iPod. Of course, skip track three, which is the instrumental used for karaoke purposes. Through this experience, I’ve come to find a lot of enjoyable pop. Think late 90s, early Y2K vibes. But the hits are few and far between. I keep maybe 1 out of every 5 or 7 CDs I listen to. Still, much more interesting than streaming.