How do you handle music clutter? (CDs, digital downloads)

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How do you handle music clutter? (CDs, digital downloads)

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Started 7 months ago by themusiclivez
Latest reply from BreakingFree
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themusiclivez
Member

I am going through my iTunes right now and have stumbled upon a small issue. There are a ton of songs I no longer want but feel bad deleting for this reason: Whereas some people keep clutter to remember things by, I keep music because a single song can take me back to a very particular moment/memory. I have realized that I am a music hoarder in the sense that I keep songs/CDs so I can play them and remember a school dance, a birthday party, a fun day with a friend, etc. I have long since outgrown a lot of the music but feel like "one day I will want to listen to that song so I can remember that memory".

Maybe I am pushing myself too hard to declutter. But I do know that when I delete old music that no longer has much of an appeal I end up discovering new bands/musicians that I fall in love with. It's almost as if I make way for something better to come into my life.

Crazy, right?

Posted 7 months ago #
smallLife
Member

Perhaps you can take the songs that remind you of something and make a list, or something more decorative, allowing you to know which song inspires the memories but not have it clog up your iTunes. I think you are right, and very introspective, to realize that songs are your sentimental clutter. While they don't take up space, they do hold you back from exploring new bands and musicians - which you noted. Try making the list and removing the songs from iTunes (but saved in a folder) for x months until you feel comfortable decluttering, or to save the few that mean the most.

Posted 7 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@smallLife - Thank you, your idea is great! I can even take some of the songs and burn them to a CD and keep it as a "Sentimental Mix CD" and therefore won't need to keep the songs on my iTunes.

Thank you again! :o)

Posted 7 months ago #
Swede
Member

I wouldn't recommend a burned cd as a long term solution. I just wen't through cd's I burned in 2004 and half of them had gone blank...

But today pretty much everything is available as long as you have an internet connection. It helped me to delete a lot of songs when I realised pretty much everything is on youtube. For your enjoyment anytime. :)

Posted 7 months ago #
Emilie
Member

I agree with smallLife, that if you want to delete the songs, you may want to make a list of which songs correspond to which memories (which could be a nice record in and of itself). Sometimes for me, I don't even need to hear a song to elicit a memory, I just need to think of it. With songs you do want to hear, you can look them up on Youtube when the need arises. (Of course, presuming that they're there.)

Posted 7 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

You're right: Almost everything is on YouTube and that's a great resource should I ever want to listen to a song I delete. Yesterday I played a station on Pandora that had a TON of songs I had deleted from my iPod a month or two ago. It was nice that I could listen to them without feeling like they were taking up space (digital and mental). And it was fun waiting to hear what they would play!

Posted 7 months ago #
shebolt
Member

I am a huge music hoarder and am afraid to delete songs I don't like because I may want them for a specific use someday (like a special request from someone else), or I may change my mind. It's easy to ignore this clutter because it's not physical.

I've given up using my ipod because my library is such a mess. I've accidentally ended up with duplicates of lots of my collection somehow, and cleaning it up is a tedious and slow process. I use Pandora on my smartphone, and know that I need to make time to clean up my music library, but there's always something else that seems to be more important.

Posted 7 months ago #
Mimi
Member

i don´t completely understand the storing/filing-system of itunes and every time there is a mess in my music files i do this: i search for all music files on my computer (start/search) and pack them in a new folder. in this folder i delete audiobooks that i don´t want to listen to again and also some music files (but honestly, not very many). then i delete everything in itunes, move the content from the new folder to itunes/media and import this folder to itunes.

this is like the method that tells you to unclutter by taking everything out of a drawer and only put the items back that you love. works quite well. and i don´t care if i accidently delete a file. if i miss it, youtube has it ;) if not: somewhere in the internet will be a shop that sells it.

i would not make list. if you don´t remember the memory without a note it is not a memory. if you remember, you WILL find the song. don´t worry.

Posted 7 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

shebolt - It's funny that you mention being a "music hoarder". That's the exact term I used about myself the other day! I realized that I was a minimalist in every other aspect of my life but that I hoarded music. (To give you an idea: I had about 300 CDs at one point and was running out of space to put them. I debated piling them on my bookshelf which would have created a huge, ugly mess if I bought anymore). That's when I realized that I had to stop feeling as if I needed to own every piece of music I have ever loved. I gave myself the permission to sell some of the CDs, and I probably sold about 200 of them. Even now I am still paring down my collection because I still have items I wouldn't replace in the event they were lost, stolen, or broken.

Now I am in the process of telling myself, "Just because you loved that song in high school doesn't mean to still love it now. Delete it if you hit the "Skip" button everytime it comes onto your iPod!" I deleted a few songs yesterday that I felt "attached" to because of memories.

It's funny how when I delete old music I actively go out and listen to new music. Rather than being stuck in the past (a big issue of mine, apparently) I am able to look to the future and make new memories!

Posted 7 months ago #
geochica72
Member

I get so frustrated with this issue as well! Specifically the digital music part. My husband and I have different tastes in music, but only 1 computer that we share for music. He has an ipod, but I have an mp3-only non-ipod. we have lots of music that we love, but it's so unorganized with tags messed up and songs mislabeled from the days of Napster, it takes forever we can't find anything when we want to listen to it. I have been working out to the same playlist for years because I whenever I start to make a new one, I get so frustrated with the whole thing being so unorganized that I give up. I hate it.

Last year I bought an add-on program for iTunes called TuneUp, which is supposed to automatically identify and fix messed up tags and song labels. It is slow going however, and doesn't always get everything. It also tends to label things as being from compilation albums, which I hate.

I also hate the folder structure which everything seems to use, of artist-->album-->song. I don't really know or care what album a song is on, I just want the song with its artist. When things are labeled as compilations however, the artist is something like "Best of 1993" or whatever instead of just being "Nirvana."

Lately I've realized I shouldn't care about the actual file/folder structure in Windows so much - I should just use the iTunes library. Or something else that can handle more file formats, like MediaMonkey maybe? Does anyone use that?

I am in the same boat as you, themusiclivez, about not necessarily loving every piece of music in my collection anymore. In fact I know a lot of it is really bad and needs to be deleted. There's just..so...much...to sort through!

Posted 7 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

geochica72 - I have the same exact problem with things being listed as "compilation albums". Just last night I had to edit a whole bunch of songs so they would show up properly. Annoying!

Posted 7 months ago #
shebolt
Member

geochica, MediaMonkey was directly responsible for many of my song duplicates. I thought it was synching my computer and my ipod when it was really copying everything.

I just got a new computer, and haven't migrated my music library yet. I think I need to take this opportunity to start fresh - only move the music I love and skip the stuff I'm keeping "just in case someone asks me to make a party playlist and requests a certain song". I don't think I've ever made a party playlist.

My problem is also folder structure. Some of my music is listed artist-album-song, while some is album-artist-song. Some were downloaded from Amazon and live in a totally different directory. And then, while I was converting all of my CDs to digital format, I did some at work because it was quicker there (I spend all day at my computer so I could work while the CDs were ripping and swap them out immediately). Somehow, some stuff on my work computer never made it onto my home computer. So my library is also split between two computers!

Just thinking about cleaning this up makes my head hurt.

Posted 6 months ago #
bandicoot
Member

i bought my first mac 3.5 years ago, and an ipod came soon after.
i copied all of my cds to itunes...about a hundred, maybe less.
i bought a few things on itunes.
things were orderly and good in there.

then two years ago, a guy i barely know, sent me 150 gig of rock/pop music on a heap of dvds, with a laminated folder listing the 1400 or so albums.
i was delighted, as you can imagine!
i started to upload them all, and in the process i had to transfer itunes to an external hard drive.
the new music was mislabelled and a real mess.
i used tune up for a year and sorted out a lot of it.
the compilation structure makes me crazy too!

and now, for the last year, i've been ruthlessly deleting stuff.
nobody needs 27 ac/dc albums. nobody! i don't even need one.
it is still far from finished, but my strategy is slow and steady.
each time i open itunes, i try to find something to delete.
every now and then i'll spend five/ten minutes clearing or tidying a few things.
order is very slowly being restored.
for someone who prefers jazz/swing/world/classics/opera, i've still got a horribly huge rock collection!

Posted 6 months ago #
BreakingFree
Member

I read this post several days ago and it really stuck with me. I was thrilled when I first got an iPod- now I could download all these songs without having the clutter of CDs. I, like you, soon found that even the electronic version can become "clutter" and keep me from enjoying the songs I really like.

Since I am also hyper-organized, I had already gone through each song, rated it, and put it in one or more of my many playlists. However, since I did not delete the 1-star or 2-star songs, I found that I only listened to the playlist that pulled in just the 4- or 5-star songs. I went through all 1800+ songs, sorted by rating, and deleted all the 1-stars and 2-stars, and have been really evaluating the 3-stars. I am down to just under 1100 songs now, and 27 playlists (5 of which are workout playlists as I have them separated by BPM/MPH tempos). The number of playlists still seems excessive to me, but it's much more manageable than it used to be.

Anyway, just wanted to say thank you for your thoughts which inspired me to clear a bit of my own electronic clutter, and caused me to think in a different light about whether I wanted to keep certain songs.

Edited to add: I almost forgot! I once had a playlist called "The songs I don't like", because heaven forbid I actually delete them! *shakes head* Maybe I thought I would bump my head or something and suddenly develop different musical tastes?

Posted 6 months ago #
DivorcedMotherOf3
Member

Laughing my butt off at the "songs I don't like" playlist. Priceless.

Posted 6 months ago #
BreakingFree
Member

I know, right? That was my sister's reaction. Well, I have done some more decluttering of iTunes and am down to 901 music files and 24 playlists (19 + 5 workout). I went through a couple of playlists that had a lot of "not sure where I should put this so I will put it in the Pop playlist"; I decided if I did not like it enough to put it in a mood or activity based playlist, I do not really like it that much.

I think, and this is kind of the point of the original post I believe, that my next playlist to tackle will be "Songs from High School". I mean, really, I'm almost over "Almost Over You" and I have never really had a "Glamorous Life". I just went crazy downloading all the songs I remembered liking and then realized I don't as much now.

Is it weird if you like decluttering more than ice cream? :) Once I feel like I have decluttered as much as I am going to, I will set a reasonable limit and establish a "one in one out" rule.

Posted 6 months ago #
DivorcedMotherOf3
Member

I'm sorry, I'm sorry - wait - I'm still on the songs I don't like playlist!!! What, you could play it when you've been naughty and need to be punished? Like, force yourself to listen to Billy Squier's 'The Stroke' over and over on a loop when you didn't get all your housework done??

I'm still dying laughing over here...

... and now my girlfriend is leaning over my shoulder saying "I have a list like that! I don't know how to delete songs from my mp3 player, so I just move them into a 'don't listen to list'!!"

On FLOOR now rolling with laughter. OMG.

Posted 6 months ago #
BreakingFree
Member

So glad I could add some amusement to your day. Grrrrr ;) That playlist is long gone. And I could not even blame it on not knowing how to delete! I think it's like when you spend money on something and you have to keep it for a certain amount of time before you can get rid of it with a clear conscience. Or some of them were songs from CDs I had loaded to my PC.

I also had a list for "The duplicates"....that list (and the duplicates) is also long gone.

Posted 6 months ago #
arthelemis
Member

I currently have 2 iPods : an 80GB Classic with ALL my songs (30GB) and it's also my portable backup hard drive for pics and such + an 8GB nano 2nd generation for the gym and beach/pool use (got the wonderful H20 audio gear). Music on the Nano is all 4 and 5 stars songs, plus all the ''best of'' albums and compilations + the complete discography of my 2 most favorite artist. All tracks are 100% tagged. For music management,I have a smart playlist set with all the songs that I didn't listened to in the past years and deleted them. Now, if I could assign more than one album to each track, I could get rid of the duplicates (want to keep the ''best of'' and compilations on the nano but I want the complete discography on the Classic)...

Posted 6 months ago #
Ms. Lizzie
Member

Wow...still laughing at the "songs I don't like" lists! My cluttered Itunes list used to make me crazy but I moved almost everything to my Amazon Cloud Player (also backed up on my external hard drive). Also love it that ITunes now shows you things that you bought over the years which you can download again.

I keep about five playlists on my Iphone--don't update them a lot but mainly use them at the gym if I'm not reading or watching something. I have an oldish Ipod in the car--it plays through the sound system--and I bring it in every Sunday and update the first playlist with my seven year old daughter. (This week our driving to school music was "Give Me Everything" which replaced "Party Rock Anthem.")

I still have many, many CD's on two shelves in the basement. Maybe I should decide to deal with a shelf every month. Hmmm...

Posted 6 months ago #

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