Freelance editor, owner of music bar 'Echo', planner, musician, DJ, and record retailer.
Jung Woo-young, who has been boldly pushing boundaries without being part of the music industry, is the person who is more suited to the title of 'fighter' than anyone else.
At the center of his multifaceted life is always a spinning vinyl record.
"Music to Listen to Before Throwing Away" is a farewell essay by Wooyoung Jeong, a full-time writer who has written articles on the "art of achieving 'myself' without using 'myself'," looking back on the time he spent as a 'record maker' and the records he still can't throw away.

For Jung Woo-young, album sales are an “accelerator” that pushes him to release more albums.
He has “never counted more than 2,000” albums and has sold “more than 3,416” albums, meaning he has bought and sold at least 5,000 albums.
Through this book, he digests the albums that have outlived their usefulness to him one more time before 'throwing them away'.
His records, played under the turntable needle, have an imperceptible noise.
It is the noise of time that was created while accidentally finding an album through digging and it became inevitable.
His pen follows this noise, choosing to convey its inevitability rather than “writing about music” that “flattens the knowledge and interpretation of music.”

Rather than saying I still have it, I haven't thrown it away yet.
I have never boasted about it, found it useful, or forgotten it.
I fought against realistic reasons that made it difficult to hold on any longer, held on to the value-driven world of music, and in the end, I always made choices that I would not abandon.

--- p.7

“Writing about music is like dancing to architecture.” This is a famous quote by Martin Mull, representing the critical perspective of ‘writing about music.’
This is a clear statement, but it must be taken into account the difficulties of verbalizing other media, and it must not lead to a denial of verbalization itself.
For example, the common noun 'appreciation' was a critical term of the 18th-century Romantic era.
If there is no attempt to verbalize other media, intellectual cognition also remains stagnant.
What I want to point out is not whether I am good at writing about music or not, but rather that the writing is trying to become music.
--- p.25

There is no other Korean album that has captured the attention of overseas fans as much as Sanulrim's first, second, and third albums.
I found out by purchasing cleaner original pressings and selling them all overseas.
Not long after I uploaded the 3rd album to Discox, a friend from Slovenia bought it.
I was excited about making a pretty good profit, when I got a call from him who had received the vinyl.
“There is nothing abnormal in appearance.
Unfortunately, the sound is distorted, so it must be a factory error.
“Check out the video.” The needle was swinging from side to side, producing a variety of high and low pitched sounds.
I had to give you a refund.
But I couldn't just 'cool' away a perfectly fine vinyl record from my turntable.
I even paid for the return shipping from Slovenia.

--- p.29

Our loving times and our selfish times were different.
I bought Setorae's first album, and it came with a vinyl copy of their second album.
I like the cover of the first album and the music of the second album, but that's not what I wanted.
--- p.37

Echo operated the 'Jamaican Sound System'.
It was a huge speaker with a dedicated unit for each frequency range, a characteristic 'scoop' design, and hand-made construction.
The overwhelming bass and sound pressure are its strengths, but the sound clarity is also excellent.
It all started with me wanting to have these speakers and listen to reggae properly.
Based on reggae, it seemed like it could be expanded to include modern dance music that historically took many ideas from the 'Jamaican sound system culture'.
In this small bar, I declared that I would pursue 'dance music-song'.
But I found out after doing business for a month.
'Dance music-song' was inaccurate.
It was ‘music we listen to together.’

--- p.49

In Monsters: Adoration and Loathing, Our Common Dilemma (translated by Noh Ji-yang, Eulyoo Publishing, 2024, p. 42), Claire Dederer tells the story of a friend who “had a small used book donation library in her neighborhood filled with books by and about Alan.”
I don't know, but Woody Allen would have been offended if R. Kelly had been compared to him.
Not being able to hear "I Believe I Can Fly" is nothing compared to not being able to see "Annie Hall."
But what if you can't hear "Ignition [Remix]"? Oh, wait a minute...

--- p.51

The 2009 Donggyo-dong 'Duriban' demolition dispute is the most important event in the history of 21st-century Korean popular music.
A large number of new musicians emerged from the occupied Duriban area, a discontinuous flow that seemed to have fallen from the sky.
I wanted to record them in GQ Korea.
Filming and interviews were conducted under the project titled ‘New Wave in Seoul.’
Toshimi Watanabe's jazz mixtape "Interplay 2" was one of the many items I brought that day, and it was my most treasured and most listened-to cassette tape.
I pulled out the magnetic tape and wrapped it around Band 404's entire body.
The magnetic tape broke during filming and had to be thrown away, but it was rewound and kept until now.
It wasn't because I felt sorry.
It was the spoils of a professional's day, when he got drenched in rain, jumped into the Han River, and continued filming until dawn.
Just like music, there was time stored there.
Music wasn't just something you could hear.

--- p.87

But it's not the 'ending' yet.
It was only after this album was ruined that I listened to the entire album carefully on YouTube.
"Doctor Kessler's Busy Weekend" had a dreamy vibe that shared skago, and "Sophie's Prelude" shared a similar vibe with 1980s Japanese synth-pop.
If I ever come across this album again, I might buy it.
There's still something I want to check.
These are the words of Franz Kafka.
“When we treat something roughly, it becomes vulgar and undignified.
But if we treat it as if it were our own invited guest, it will never lose its value and will become precious.”
--- p.89

I also give vinyl as a gift to friends who don't have turntables.
These are friends who have space that can be used mainly for decoration.
For example, for my friends who run the surf shop 'Surf Code', it was UA's 'Private Surfer' 12-inch.
Heaven is far when it's on the calendar, but it's near when it's on vinyl.
In the jacket, you can touch and infer heaven.
As if by a high tide, the typicality of heaven is sent towards the concreteness of reality.
I thought of someone who isn't here right now and would like to give 'Surf Break from Jamaica' as a gift.

--- p.101

The longest-running unsold album in the For Sale folder is The John Spencer Blues Explosion's "Acme Expanded Edition US Edition," which was listed on April 18, 2014.
Contains demos, B-sides, and remixes from "Acme".
This album has been released in various ways, including the American version, the European version, the Japanese version, the Ura-Acme version, and the Xtra-Acme version.
It seems like it didn't sell well because there were so many substitutes, and it also seems like it's because it's a compilation album that's smaller than a regular album.
To me it's a diary, but to others it's a doodle.
It's in a database that no one can see, so what's the point of graffiti? You could even rate it as worse than graffiti.
But I don't just give away worthless records.
I am a record seller.
If you promise to keep it and not resell it, I'll give you my ghostly time.

--- p.111

I know many good music lovers among those who are crazy about illegal music trading.
I don't know if I have a soul or not, I like plastic.

--- p.117