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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is too much music.
It has finally broken me. I can’t do it anymore. Being a music lover with a compulsion towards completionism has engulfed my life, but I’m done. Enough.
I think most music lovers, and I’m choosing that word over “obsessives”, are collectors at heart, building their own museum of music; and most lean towards being completionists. After all, when you start collecting something, you want to get the whole set eventually ...
Also, if you really like someone, you want to hear everything from them. Completionism seems a reasonable approach.
For many years I’ve had favourite artists and have bought everything they release. That seems not unreasonable. The list has changed through the years as bands disband, people die and new artists emerge.
Fulltime job
Running off the first few names that spring to mind, it includes The Rolling Stones, The Saints, Graham Parker, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello, Yello, Drive-by Truckers, Lyle Lovett, Billy Bragg, Joni Mitchell, Beck, The Warratahs, Frank Turner, Tom Waits, John K Sampson, Christy Moore, Robyn Hitchcock, Chris Bailey, Andrew London, Arctic Monkeys, Bonnie Prince Billy, Bill Callahan, Nick Cave, and, of course, Bob Dylan. And many more.
In case that looks really old and fuddy-duddy, I should mention I also listen to a lot of newer music. It just isn’t yet on the “buy everything by these guys” list. But just keeping up with the past is a fulltime job.
Bob Dylan. Photo / Supplied
It’s Bob Dylan that finally broke me. Springsteen nearly did it with 2025’s Tracks 2: The Lost Albums boxed set. Nine LPs or seven CDs, 83 songs, at JB Hi-Fi for $550. Meanwhile, Elvis Costello’s first album, My Aim Is True, which I mentioned last week, has just been re-released as a 5-CD box set, 104 tracks, for a mere $360.
But it was Dylan’s new release, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings, that has finally it done for me. Dylan already released The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings, a 14-CD set. But that only featured 5 concerts and a slew of rarities. It’s selling for $750 on Amazon.
Give in
So the new Bob set is a (relatively) great deal. The 39-CD(!) set contains all professionally recorded shows from the 1976 second leg of the tour, 381 tracks, and can be yours for just under $300. And of course I want it. I’ve got all the other boxed sets, including the one with two dozen concerts from 1966.
But I’m wondering now if life is too short. That’s fatuous. Clearly life is too short. But is it too short for all this music? I conservatively estimate the 1976 box will take more than 30 hours to listen to. Once. Even if I can afford it, when can I find time to actually listen to it?
And while I spend 30 hours enjoying a 50-year-old tour, approximately 100,000 new songs are uploaded onto Spotify and other streamers every single day. I give in.
Hear Winston’s latest Playlist:
