Music Banter - View Single Post - Should I purge my collection?
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Old 12-06-2010, 11:15 PM   #28 (permalink)
someonecompletelyrandom
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Join Date: Nov 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by noise View Post
I think I have too much music.

My collection isn't as big as some, but it's sizable. I have 2021 albums, singles and eps that have been tagged and put into foobar, along with a few gigs still sitting my download folder.

The problem is I haven't listened to half of it. No, more than that, I haven't listened to most of it.

An example: I have the complete studio and live discography of the Grateful Dead, along with the complete ****'s Picks. I haven't touched it since I downloaded it. I like the Grateful Dead, I just haven't gotten around to listening to it.

I feel alienated from my collection. I listen to 10% of it 90% of the time. But I have a music-grabbing compulsion, and always feel there's something better out there that I have not yet heard, so I just keep getting more and more.

Just now, I put my library on random, and pushed play. A track came up from a group called Ancient Astronauts. I don't remember the name, I don't remember downloading it, but I have their entire discography. It was some really good instrumental hip hop that I could groove to. I played a bit more, and liked what I heard. But ten minutes ago, it might as well not have even existed, because I had no idea it was even there.

What to do? Should I force myself to stop download and listen to the lot? Should I trim it down to the stuff I know I like, and just assume there's nothing else out there?

Drive space is not an issue, so keeping it is totally OK. But I just don't think I'll ever get a solid grasp on what I have...

If you read this whole thing, bravo. Hope you can offer some insight
I'd say just limit yourself on downloading for the next few weeks.

Instead of feeling obligated to arbitrarily listen to albums in succession, try putting your library on shuffle and listen until something grabs you. Listen to that album it's from and bingo. Sometimes things don't grab you until you've experienced more musicially, that's always been the case with me - sometimes I just don't hear the right song to get me into a band, or maybe just haven't grown to appreciate their sound just yet. But if you "discover" music you've already downloaded by putting it all on shuffle, I'd say in time you'll feel much closer to what you have.


just my 2 cents.
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