Often these are by artists with whom I was once in love but now buy only for completeness sake (Van Morrison), or because I have a vague notion that I should (Neil Young), or because I have an wholly unreasonable and unjustifiable hope that they may produce something to stand comparison with their glory days (The Rolling Stones). Sometimes I am swayed by the enthusiastic recommendations of the Massive - Stimpy, Vulpes, Patrick Crowther and Rob Fitzpatrick. Whatever the reason, I seem to often acquire the music and give it no more than a quick listen, or even just a cursory glance. I even cherry picked my way through the HJH re-masters.

I have lost the knack of listening to and appreciating music. Years ago I could lie for hours in my teenage bedroom, my student flat, or on the living room floor of my first house listening to music. Now even at the weekends with nothing else to do I find this almost impossible.

With vinyl once it was off and running it was easier to listen to the end of at least the side, than to get up, cross the room and turn it off. Even with CD’s and an ever-present remote control there was a limited scope to application of the fast forward button. You can however spend hours flicking through mp3s on a hard-drive. No need to actually spend any time trying to get to know a particular Album or even a particular track. Employ the shuffle mode and often it’s more interesting to see what track comes up next than to bother listening to it.

I have developed the attention span of a goldfish, and I blame the mp3. Anyone else similarly afflicted?

So, I gathered up all the CDs that I have acquired over the past few years which I adjudged under-appreciated (the ones still in the cellophane wrappers were the easiest to identify), and then I loaded them all on to my ipod, having first removed everything else.

I now have an ipod with around 1,500 tracks with which I have at best only a nodding acquaintance. I have set myself the task of listening to every track from start to finish – no skips, no fast forwarding, no edits – and no more new music until I reach the end. Did I mention that I am listening in alphabetical order? Well, it seemed appropriate to add a layer of nerd.

Already I feel better. Centred. More relaxed. And what have I learned so far? Well, three versions of ‘Across The Universe’ in a row is not a one too many. There are an awful lot of songs that begin with the word ‘Ain’t …’, many of them by Aretha Franklin. And the seemingly obvious commercial advertising potential of ‘After Eight’ by Neu is probably destined never to be realised.

Roll on the ‘Bs’.

Sounds like great fun.

It's similar to my own new years resolution of buying one new record a week and listening to it almost exclusively.

The story so far...

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum 8/10
Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle 9/10
Arctic Monkeys - Humgbug 5/10

is a place to confront our addiction. This blog is a good starting point in the same way alcoholics have the AA (or is it the RAC?)

My name is Beany and I am a record junkie, or whatever the correct term is. Luckily I am also addicted to Ebay so can now get rid of the great unopened and unplayed. It also helps to share with fellow addicts. You are not alone.

to get married and have your excesses reined in that way. But good luck with the task.

I recognise the symptoms. I recall a Word podcast not so long ago where it was proposed that there was no point in having your favourite albums in your collection because the music is already in your head and is likely to remain there. Although probably true, I think that "closing off that particular avenue of pleasure" is a bit extreme.

I've always loved music and have loads of it around - getting to listen to it can be a time management challenge (corporate bollocks creeping in there). A possible solution - identify 5 albums each week that you will listen to - that will form your core listening for the week (but you can listen to other stuff). You need to listen to each album right through at least once during the week, and can dip in whenever you like. You then pick another 5 albums the week after and gradually work your way through your collection.

If it becomes apparent that you have something you really don't like or may not listen to again, pass it on to a mate to see if he/she likes it. Don't hang on to it and put it down to experience (this is 'Trout Mask Replica' or '200 Motels' territory).

Another wheeze is to use the Genius playlist programme in iTunes (up to 100 tunes at a time). That can be pleasingly random but still help you identify a track or two that encourages you to listen to a whole album.

I'm seeing this backlash against having too much music recently. I don't know why it is to be honest. I'm similar to you Mr C in that there are literally thousands of songs unplayed on my iTunes. Admittedly that is helped in part by the fact my iTunes reset most of the details in May and so I've listened to about half of the 29000 songs on there. But even so, just because I have a lot doesn't mean I can't seek out more!

There seems to be the trend of getting rid of music when its unlistened to, rather than the sensible choice of actually just listening to it. Then its been played. And you may have enjoyed it. Get rid of it and you'll never know.

I suppose its the hoarder in me, but in a time when waste is at an all time high and is such a pressing concern (well, refuse is anyway), the seemingly wasteful nature of the modern listener is, to me, one of illogical basis. On average people are living into their 80s now. If you're say, 45 (and I'm not I'm 24 in April) then you have roughly 40 years to listen to anything you haven't done yet. And yes, in that time you will no doubt accrue some more, but that's ok. You can listen to that too!

for a few weeks. The FPO decided that, whilst I was away, she'd work through my entire CD collection, in order, listening to every CD, on the basis there was loads of stuff she'd never heard.

She admitted that she didn't listen to every CD from start to finish but, as a minimum, she listened to the first song on every CD.

Conclusions: I had too many King Crimson and Grateful Dead CDs but there wasn't too much that she'd want to explore any further aside from Counting Crows, Hootie And The Blowfish and Hall & Oates

I bought my first iPod last year, until then I had to physically choose CDs to listen to; and then force myself to listen to them all the way through- the horror! the horror! I had to subject myself to "Revolution 9" just so I could hear "Good Night" afterwards, and that wasn't always worth it. (skipping is for girls). I'd choose three or four CDs to listen to at school, college, on the train wherever and that'd be that. There was no carrying my entire collection around in my pocket; if I had the sudden desire to listen to "Desire" I'd have to let it subside until I got back home.

Now, I have this iPod, and I thought the shuffle aspect was great, but I found myself skipping more tracks than I wanted (see above) and that was generally because there didn't seem to be any coherent order to the songs, naturally. I realised I wasn't paying attention as much as I should, and often failed to remember the last two or three songs that had played on occasion. I'd only appreciate the songs that I was over-familiar with.

Since October then, I have purposely listened to albums in order, from A-B, start to finish, track one to track X. I've reacquainted myself with them again, and I feel all the better for it. It can be difficult finding something to listen to (I only have a paltry 9,000 songs compared to badger_king's 29,000- and we're the same age!) but if I scroll often enough, something will catch my eye eventually.

There's still about 10% of my collection that I've yet to listen to through my iPod, and I'm buying "new" music often enough, but I feel that by slowly working my way through the library, and listening to an album as a whole- rather than a slice- I'll appreciate it more. Hopefully.

How does one fit it all in? How does one find the time to listen to all this music and watch all this T.V.see all the films we would like to and still find time for a life. When I was younger Saturday was my record buying day.I would spend the whole day in Impact Records,my local independent, drinking coffee and listening to new releases and then head home clutching my new sounds in my hot little hand.These albums then became a part of my life.Unfortunately I have a lot more demands on my time now and something has got to give.Just to try and fit in film, music,television,reading and everything else is a full time job.I don't know how we manage without going nuts.

I display most of the symptoms already discussed:
1) I have the collecting gene, so tend to hoard for completeness's sake.
2) I do feel this compulsion to discover new music - are a lot of us partly like this due to growing up listening to Peel, I wonder? And the Massive are fantastic for this - Patrick's world music recommendations have all been genius and I've posted for help before (about dub and techno) and been deluged with generous, informative responses.
BUT
3) Mrs Specs_Beard is extraordinarily tolerant of my 'complaint' - perhaps because she's a bit like this herself, but with books.

It is true that maybe there'll be a few things on the shelf I risk never getting to hear all the way through. But I listen constantly. Constantly. iPod on to work, lunchtime, back from work, sometimes in the evening when reading (and wife busy going through books), going on long walks etc.

I say embrace it. Like the conversation about listening to band demos on the recent podcast - what if you miss something?!

That goes beyond music and iPods. I fear we are much too adaptable ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F

Although there have yet to be any long-term psychological or neurological studies that have yielded definitive results justifying Carr's argument, a few studies have provided glimpses into the changing cognitive habits of Internet users.[7] A UCLA study led some critics to wonder whether a greater breadth of brain activity — a pattern that was present in the functional MRI scans of users performing Internet searches — was potentially facilitating reading and cognition or, on the contrary, overburdening the mind, and whether the additional presence of brain activity in regions known to control decision-making and complex reasoning skills had any correlation to quality of thought.

Your man loading a bunch of his CDs onto the iPod while half-watching a Rohmer film ;-)