The Faustian Pursuit of Music Acquisition
Earlier this week I was skimming through my library, and I just realized how little of it I listen to...not because I actively choose not to, but because I've been habitually downloading albums for years just to have them. After thinking about this for a while, I realized how absurd (and incredibly self-indulgent) a practice this is.
Yes I'm being exposed to a lot of music.
Yes I'm learning about unfamiliar genres.
Yes I'm finding more and more music that I like.
But where does it stop? Where is the utility of having 100,000 tracks instead of 10,000? If there's not a finish line to cross, what purpose is there to amassing so much music this quickly? For my own benefit, so that I can operate like a musical sieve? No, I don't feel enlightened by this. Only burdened.
This is why I still haven't (purposefully) listened to an album released this year. It's one of the reasons I try to disregard end-of-year lists, because my first impulse is to acquire those "top" albums, stick them in a folder somewhere & forget about them until moments such as these.
Does anybody else feel this way, or are you the rest of you content with your music consumption habits?
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