Aimless Wandering and New Deletions

Like the rest of Austin, I spent part of Sunday wandering around Town Lake.

There were moments when I was the only person on the trail, I could see and hear no one else around me, even though I was out at 1 in the afternoon on a gorgeous, cloudless April day.

In the couple of hours I walked up and down the south shore, I was able to sort through some of my collection and mark some crap for deletion. I have too much music on my iPod. Shuffling through mediocre crap keeps me from hearing great stuff. So gone are Mates of State, Jenny Owens Young, and about 40 others. Not terrible, not great. Twee-ish, precious indie pop . . . gone.

I try to rank my songs by how much I want to hear them again. A 5 star song is one I will listen to nearly every time it pops up. A 4 star song is one that I look forward to hearing again while I am listening to it. A 3 star song is one I enjoy if it pops up randomly, but I would not search out. 1 and 2 stars are basically marked for deletion. Some of those stay in for completeness -- part of an album, a cover collection, my Austin collection, or a band my friends/clients like so I give them additional opportunities to impress me.