I did something drastic yesterday- I removed the music collection from my computer.

I didn’t just delete it- I may want to dip into it later to pull out online purchases etc.- but I did cut it and paste it to a backup disk. It had reached over 16,000 tracks and was just too cumbersome. I didn’t know what I had and couldn’t shake the feeling that some of my music still hadn’t made it onto the pc. The sheer scale of the playlist was putting me off sitting down and listening as well.

So now I’m ripping my CDs as FLAC files using Winamp. The files are significantly fatter than the MP3s they’re replacing and it takes around an hour per album, but it’s going to be a more honest reflection of my music buying habits. It’s also going to be far better sounding when I get round to buying myself a DAC. And, because the current selection is limited, it’s making me go back to that ancient tradition of listening to whole albums rather than just hitting shuffle and hoping for some interesting juxtaposition.