You don't have a physical limit on your capacity for music though...

I work a bit like Goofle does, actually, and it suits me fine. I listen to everything once, and if I'm intrigued, I keep it for future reference. If I'm not, I pitch it. I don't feel like I'm missing out, really.

Poor analogy, but I'll throw this at you - Would you rather live day by day eating two meals from the finest restaurants in the world, or have fish and chips every day?

Depends.

I got through the bulk of David Bowie's in about 3-4 months but it was pretty much all I listened to. I usually like variation so normally it would take me ages. It's taken me a year to get through The Roots' discog. for example.

I do the same, but I always download the discog so I can get a variety of albums to listen to, just in case I like one but not the other. I generally skim through it until I hear something incredibly special and then ravage it.

I do one at a time, just because I don't like to get albums mixed up. I once downloaded both Broadcast's HaHa Sound and Tender Buttons at the same time and I still don't know which is which when I listen to them.

I'll almost always give an artist another chance if I don't care for the first album I pick up though.

Yeah that's good, you can't judge by just one album because people change their styles and alternate between different genres all within the space of another album. If that makes sense.

Nearly all of the artists behind my favourite albums only have one album apiece I feel strongly about. I would hate to miss the next favourite because of a poor first, or even second impression.

Poor analogy, yes, but Christmas Eve doesn't allow for much creativity, if you know what I mean.

Of course the answer would be the fine restaurants, but at the same time you may not like what these fine restaurants serve you at first, no? Unless I have interpreted your analogy wrong. The way I interpret it: you go from restaurant to restaurant eating their best meals, as you would go from artist artist listening to their best albums. But at the same time, why wouldn't you want to go back to certain restaurants as you would go back to other artists? Not all chefs make steak quite the same, just as every artist doesn't make music quite the same, even if it is similar, but even the most subtle of differences can still make something better and thus worth returning to, no?

But maybe I'm over thinking this. But what I say still stands, what if you really would like something the second or third time? By pitching that, you'd still be missing out, even if you could have discovered something new by the time you like it, but at the same time, you are never ever going to hear everything, and so, in the end, you are still going to miss out, so why not enjoy what you have more than once or more than a couple of times? No matter what you do, there's going to be a perpetual cycle of "missing out". I heard this, but while I heard this I could have heard that, but by listening to that I apparently missed this but now I'm dead and missed all of these things. It's just music, you know. Which sounds blasphemous considering where I'm posting it, but you're meant to enjoy it, and are you really getting all that satisfaction by increasing your library by large amounts every day? What's worth more, an album you've heard a lot and enjoyed to its fullest extent, or ten albums that you've heard once and thought were good but aren't worthy of another because you're worried about "missing out" on tons of other albums that may really not be as good as the ten you just blew off?

I hope that all makes sense, I was just writing what I thought as I thought it.

The problem with this is that I don't only listen to albums I like once or twice, I give them plenty of time. I was just making a point that I would rather listen to 1000's of great albums (to my tastes) once or twice than hundreds of okay albums 10 times.

Hence why I said "it sounds to me" in my original post. I just thought you were, like, "CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME", you know?