I frequently joke that I’m an audiophile in recovery. But that’s not really very accurate.

I’m a terrible audiophile.

I have terabytes and terabytes of music across multiple hard drives on my home network and they’re encoded at a broad disparity of resolutions from high to low (GASP!).

Those files represent a lifetime of music acquisition. Calling it a collection is a little too generous; I acquire music the way a magpie builds its nest, buy acquiring any shiny thing that catches my eye. Or in this case, ear.

From ripping my old CD collection, to online downloads (purchased, of course *cough*), my library is large, absurd in its sheer number of genres, barely catalogued, and to be honest I often have no idea that a given album is in my collection, and has been for years. Some of it I added without ever really listening to it!

This is an illness that predates downloads, by the way. One of the hazards of working in a hybrid stereo/record shop was that I often impulse shopped on clearance CDs. At one point I found that in my CD collection I had four copies of The Tragically Hip’s classic album Up To Here, and three of them were still in the shrink wrap!

When iTunes Match rolled out I threw the switch because I liked the idea of having remote access to my music, all of my music, on the road since I travel so much.

What I didn’t foresee was that the iTunes Match playlists would take me on a voyage of discovery of my own music library.

Doing cardio in hotel fitness centers, or just listening in my hotel room I’ve been treated to albums and tracks that I had either forgotten about, or had never even listened to when I first got them.

Like I said, I’m a terrible audiophile.

But I’m getting better, and after years of admittedly barely listening to music at all I’m rediscovering my love of music.

I feel like I’m better for it, as a result.