Too Much Music: A Failed Experiment In Dedicated Listening

The best thing I’ve read lately (along with Bob Dylan In America, by Sean Wilentz). In preparing for the final move of my life, I two years ago realized there were in all likelihood not enough hours left in my life to listen to every LP, CD, and tape I own even once more. For years I bought (or acquired for free as promos) more discs each week than I could listen to before the next week’s batch came in, so the backlog piled up. I listened to the most promising, keeping the ones I liked and trading in the others at Amoeba Music for other albums. Low priority albums were sitting there, unopened.

I went through them all, deciding which were no longer of interest to me (my musical taste having moved on since the acquisition of some titles). I got rid of about 1000 or so LPs, and 3000 CDs. Of the remaining 7000 or so albums (LP and CD), I am racing to hear them all as many times as possible before I leave. Some are old favorites, some are new, previously unheard, some contain music that requires multiple hearings of to fully absorb (most especially Classical). The race is on!