Music guilt

Every five years or so, I succumb to "music guilt". This phenomenon is the realisation that I own a hell of a lot of music that I never listen to.

My solution for this is to force myself to listen to all of my music.

Last time I did this, my music was all on CDs. My CDs are sorted alphabetically by artist (and soundtrack name), so I started with "About A Boy" and finished with You Am I.

This time it's all in iTunes, and there's a lot more of it (over 30 GB). To ensure I wouldn't be listening to the same artist over and over again, I sorted iTunes by album, so there was a good mix of artists and styles. I started listening in February ("1" by The Beatles), and finished today ("9" by Damien Rice).

Part-way through this experiment, iTunes changed the way it orders items alphabetically, which threw me off a bit. In February, numbered titles appeared at the beginning (before A), and now they appear at the end (after Z) - hence why I started and ended with numbered titles. Also, titles starting with The originally appeared under T, but now the The is ignored and they're sorted alphabetically by the next word.

Annoyingly, these changes were applied to iTunes, but not to the iPod software, so the album order is different between the two.

I always play music when I've got my computer on (yes, I study while listening to music - always have, always will), and otherwise I listen to my iPod - either on the way to and from uni, or in the car.

I was quite strict about listening to the albums in order, although I did allow some to jump the queue, e.g. if I bought/acquired a new album, or if I was going to see a specific band in concert (Dave Matthews Band, My Friend The Chocolate Cake) or on the big screen (Dixie Chicks), or if I just felt like it for some reason.

There are 4 albums that I haven't listened to for a good reason - I don't feel like listening to Christmas albums when Christmas is so far away!

This experiment has reminded me of how much I love my music collection! It was great to hear some of the stuff that I don't listen to very often (e.g. albums that I've acquired from friends) - none of it's bad music, but it's just not my favourite thing to listen to.

I have many, many soundtracks in my collection (71 according to iTunes). I'm a sucker for a soundtrack - they're often wonderful mixes of unusual/popular songs. I love: "About A Boy", "The Beach", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Garden State", "High Fidelity", "Kill Bill Vol. 1", "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels", "Lost In Translation", "Northern Exposure", "The Piano", "Pulp Fiction", "SeaChange", "Singles", "Twin Peaks", "The Virgin Suicides", and so on...

The bands/artists I have the most albums for are: R.E.M. (21), U2 (13), My Friend The Chocolate Cake (7), Chris Isaak (7), Dave Matthews Band (6), Crowded House (6), Counting Crows (5), INXS (5), Powderfinger (5), Stereophonics (5), Smashing Pumpkins (4), The Whitlams (4), Eva Cassidy (4), Dixie Chicks (4), k.d. lang (4), Things of Stone and Wood (4). I also have a lot of "Best of" collections (over 30), several of the Ministry of Sound collections, and various 80s collections.

So now that's done, I can get back to listening to my favourite tunes! First up is "Give Up" by The Postal Service - haven't listened to it since 18 April (according to iTunes)...