Upon re-reading my previous post, I realized that each ‘chapter’ could have a (tongue-in-cheek) title and bit of explanation:

1. The ‘American Top 40′ years: Most of my exposure to new music was either from listening to popular radio, my older sister or a classmate or the occasional middle school dance.
2. The ‘Radical Romper Room’ years: Most of my exposure was from a late-night, local radio show which showcased ‘alternative rock’ and ‘modern music.’ I used to stay up long enough to start recording it on Sundays, then listen to the tape the whole week and note what I liked.
3. The ‘120 Minutes’ years: Same as above, but leads were garnered from videotaping the late-night show on MTV and tracking down what I liked.
4. The ‘long haired’ years: I bought (and sold) a lot of CDs at local record stores, taking a chance on whether I would like it or not.
5. The ‘underground (aka rave/chill-out room)’ years: I acquired music as inspiration for my work — music as the soundtrack to my life.
6. The ‘post-cool/hip’ years: A lot discovered on Much Music, MTV2 and the internet — music as personal identity.
7. The ‘digital/eclectic’ years: Largely discovered on Amazon, iTunes and Usenet — music as supplement rather than center.

/musings.

Every so often I find some time to dig through my digital music library. A while back, I deleted my iTunes library (alas, bloated and slow; come on Apple!) — but not the music source files — and have been sorting through (e.g. must-listen, save-for-someday, mashups, one-hit-wonders, exotic/strange/novelty, vintage), weeding out (no tags = delete!) and adding back to iTunes some favorite and forgotten files from my two 500GB hard drives.

A moment of listening to various songs can evoke vivid memories and take me back to former ‘chapters’ in my life. I’ve noticed that certain music delineates into distinct segments:

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