It's a good idea to shake up your listening habits from time to time. This week, gravity did the job for me.

An ever-balky shelf finally gave way on the bookcase that holds my vinyl record albums. The other morning, everything between Pseudo Echo and McCoy Tyner came down with a thud.

There were no apparent casualties, although the R's, S's and T's now are all sitting on the floor in front of the bookcase, as my favorite furniture folks try to make a new shelf. Meanwhile, since it's hard to maneuver in the stereo closet, I've been sampling the chestnuts from that portion of the record alphabet.

I started with Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" -- breathtaking from start to finish. Then I tried Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" -- great, yet perhaps not quite as great as I remembered it.

My first complete listen in many years to the Rolling Stones' "Let It Bleed" really blew me away.

You youngsters who haven't heard "Let It Bleed" owe it to yourself to check it out. You'll recognize "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Gimme Shelter," the two album rock masterpieces in the set, but the rest of the record is also remarkable. "Monkey Man" and "You Got the Silver" have gotten lost in the shuffle over the years; they are fantastic songs. Imagine what your parents must have felt when, never having heard any of these tunes, they first put this LP on the turntable and turned it up. Wow.

I'm not in a real hurry to get that new shelf now.