But to keep me going and stave off those musical purchase cravings I have been doing something that has been an interesting way to experience my music in a whole new light. I have put my ipod onto shuffle for every track I have. I started this on the 8th August and yesterday reached a quarter of the way through. I have already heard so many tracks that I haven’t played in years and I love it when an old favourite pops up as well. There are other tracks or artists that I’ve heard that made me think ‘what the hell was I doing buying that’, or made me realise how my tastes have changed over the years.
It’s made me realise that, despite my vast collection, I have a core of a few hundred albums that I play frequently. There are certain artists that I play a lot and some I played once when I bought the CD and then never again. The eclectic, sometimes ‘out there’ world music I own may be interesting to experiment with, but it is not something I play on a regular basis.
Many albums that sit in this core are ones that I grew up with, either listening via my parents or in my teenage years and strangely enough another handful come from albums in the past 3 years. I may enjoy new music, but I have my old fallback options that keep popping up.
The only tracks I have skipped so far have been audio book tracks, language course tracks and the odd Opera track when it doesn’t flow without the wider composition. Apart from that I have played everything.
As songs have come on and I’ve re-experienced them with a new mindset and view, I have been making mental note to play certain albums in their entirety when I go back to playing music in a more selective way.
I guess at this rate I have at least another 8-9 months before I have played my whole ipod through and I doubt I can hold off buying new music in this time. I will play these new albums at home and continue with the shuffle at work and not update the ipod until I’ve reached the end.
So far I’ve come across some lost classics and realised my core listening may not be as varied as I’d once thought, but I guess this is probably true for all of us. We don’t mind an experiment now and then, but we like to come back to what is comforting and familiar. There’s nothing wrong with that, but just maybe playing everything I own in this way will push my core of music out that little bit further.
