I have over 18,000 files in my iTunes collection. We used to refer to them as "songs". Although as diversified as my collection is, "songs" may not accurately describe some items.

I'm old enough to remember buying albums. Records. They're called LPs or vinyl now to distinguish the medium. They were precious and you played the hell out of them and knew every song in order, if not all the lyrics if they were included on the record sleeve.

Ever since I got an iPod and iTunes, I perpetually listen to my entire collection on shuffle play. Any one song that comes up is a 1 in over 18 friggin' thousand chance. I know, I'm not impressed by that either for some reason. It's been great not having to choose what I want to listen to. It's my collection, so why wouldn't I like whatever comes up?

Truth. But somewhere in the past six years I've acquired a LOT of music that just got dumped into my collection, and with a 1 in 18,000 chance of coming up, it's gonna take quite a while to get familiar with a lot of this collection. In the process, I'm weeding out and deleting files that just don't do it for me.

The variety of music in my collection is certifiably schizophrenic. I'm a music hoarder. It seems to me that if you're truly a music lover, it's not just subjective, selfish pleasure in what aurally pleases you. It's seeking out what's out there because music is life. And music I become a fan of, I become a fan of for life. It's not a trend. 

If music is made, there must have been some inspiration behind it. So as a music lover, I want to find what that inspiration, the humanity behind it, is. Of course, there are aesthetic limits. It's also important to recognize what one likes and doesn't like. And with 18,000+ tracks in my collection, it's hard to argue that I'm a discriminating listener.

In my memory, my music loving began in my late infancy with 45rpm singles on plastic, toy phonographs. There's one song I don't remember, but it might've been Disney, that I couldn't get enough of and played over and over again. I think it was at my uncle's house – my mother's younger brother who was the only other sibling to immigrate to the U.S.

And an Osmonds song a bit later. I'm almost 100% sure it was this song. I remember the MGM lion's head logo going around and around on our own blue and white plastic, toy phonograph.

Finding this video clip is a bit of a revelation, as I have no video memory of the song. But there are elements in the song I do clearly remember. And it's a pretty funky performance that's obviously inspired by the Jackson 5 and is not too far from the K-pop I'm inexplicably obsessed with recently.

Although back then they were clearly lip-synching as they didn't have headset mics that allow K-pop singers to get away with it more easily. It's still a lot better than a lot of Western pop coming out recently.

As for rock, my earliest concrete memories are the first albums I bought: Queen's "News of the World" and then Billy Joel's "52nd Street". After that I don't remember.

I'm most particular about the music that I enjoy the most, as I suppose anyone is, and that's Western rock, or rock in general. Perhaps my bar is set lower for other genres where my tastes are not as discerning. And there are many obscure genres that I take what I can get exposed to.

I have a respectable collection of the main Western genres, including jazz, fusion and classical. I have a keen taste for Broadway with which I think a lot of people have difficulty.

My taste for world music was acquired during college when I even toyed with becoming an ethnomusicology major until I realized I didn't have the formal musical foundation or ear-training for it. So I have quite a lot of traditional and folk musics in my collection.

My stint in the Oberlin steel drum band gave me an aesthetic taste for Trinidadian steel orchestras that I can geek on about endlessly, but I think is among the more challenging genres in my collection. It's not unlike classical music in that you can have a greater appreciation for it if someone points out what to listen for.

And aside from traditional world music, there's plenty of pop music from around the world that I've acquired. It's not a big deal to me that I don't understand the lyrics. In fact, I think my appreciation for K-pop is partly predicated on the fact that I don't understand the lyrics.

The music I listen to has become my main identity, my final identity perhaps. It also isolates me because the likelihood of being able to share this identity with anyone else is practically nil. People have commented on my listening habits and the disparate aural experience of my collection on shuffle play.

Ultimately music is what identifies me, and what isolates me. Go fig.