Cleaning House

I went through my music collection today, cleaning out a lot of junk that I haven't and wont' ever listen to. I realized a long time ago that keeping songs on your harddrive just because you can is a pretty retarded idea, especially when you are as lazy as me and would rather shuffle through your entire music directory rather than create playlists. When I was a freshman in college and had most of a 120 gig drive to utilize, and I met people with binders full of CD's, I did stupid things like rip E.T. the soundtrack. How it took me this long to get around to removing most of it is beyond me.

Now my library is at a bit more than 11 gigs - paltry by many people's standards, but I have learned that this too is a rather foolish thing to think or do. Yes, you might actually fill that 60 gig ipod to capacity, but are you really listening to it all? Or are you just downloading/buying tracks hand over fist so you can listen to them for two times before moving on to the next thing. I think a lot of people are afraid, unwilling, or too lazy to trim their collection, and for me only the last option is understandable. So you have the full discography of Blink 182. You have since Junior High. Are you really listening to it anymore now that you're out of college. For me these answers are a hearty "no". So I get rid of it. I listen to music on an ipod shuffle, which forces me to pick the best songs and actually listen to albums as a complete work rather than a string of singles. It really has improved the listening experience.

The fact that I'm calling a library of 2,500 songs lean is horrible. But the truth is that compared to many modern music listeners it really is. We truly are in a society of media overload. We thrill at having so many songs, games, and movies at our command. Web 2.0 is sweet. Yadda Yadda Yadda. But sooner or later it piles up, and when it does you find yourself either ignoring some things or keeping up with all of it. The latter drives you nuts, and the former makes you wonder why you gobbled it up in the first place.

Keeping it simple is tough in its own ways, but it sure is nice sometimes.