6,000+!!!

Today I realized I have exactly 6,001 songs currently in my iTunes library!!! 0_0 Crazy stuff...I just did some deleting recently to get rid of old things I don't and won't ever listen to again (mostly borrowed cds), and it's still ridiculously huge!  It would take 17 days, 18 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds to listen to all of it at once...
Plus, my music takes up 31.38 GBs of space on my laptop and I'm slowly running out of memory but there's not much I can do besides transfer as much unnecessary stuff to my external hard drive as possible, but I just can't bring myself to permanently transfer any of my music in case I want to listen to or use it for something. =_=lll  I admit I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to music and I'm always on the lookout for new stuff to listen to so I end up accumulating quite rapidly, but I can't help it that I really love music and have wide-ranging tastes...it's my major hobby after all. *sigh*

Anyways, on another note, I've been reading the basic writings of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu).  I figured it was about time I read it since it's a classic so I finally got myself a copy.  It's a very interesting text, although the sort of thing you have to sit there and ponder and re-read many times for it to sink in and even start to become comprehensible, but that's the way Daoist Chinese philosophy generally is, and I enjoy it, so it's a fun read.

Randomly, I saw a bit of the '100 greatest songs of the 80's' countdown on VH1 today and it got me in the mood to listen to some 80's songs.  For some reason, even though I was born at the very end of the 80's, I have an odd affection for the music from that decade...something about the spirit and composition of the music from that era is appealing to me, and I feel in some ways more innovative and creative than some of the stuff going on currently in the music industry.  Despite the crazy hair, cheesiness, questionable dancing, and fashion disasters that were no doubt part of the scene, I think a lot of 80's songs are still just as great and catchy today as they were back then...the development of a sleek synth sound and aggressive, glamorous rock with crazy solos, etc., etc. really changed music.  The fact that even now old tracks are constantly being sampled by younger artists attests to the creativity and timelessness of the songs created back then.  (This is one of those things that makes me think I'm pretty strange compared to most other people my age; it's like I belong in another time period or something...or, maybe I'm just a total dork, hahaha)

Actually, this quirk in my taste may be part of the reason why I took to Japanese rock so quickly and strongly, because rock really exploded as a genre in Japan during the 80's, during the heyday of hair metal and such, so early Japanese rock bands were influenced by that, then subsequent Japanese bands were inspired by those early legendary bands, and so on...therefore remanents of that sound and way of structuring songs still linger somewhat in the style of composition used by many Japanese rock bands today, particularly those of the visual kei "genre".  However, one point where Japanese rock expanded on the foundation borrowed from American hair metal (which has for the most part died out as a movement in the U.S., in terms of the glamour/fashion) was continuing the extravagant look and making it into something more modernly sophisticated, diverse, and elaborate.  [They also took out a lot of the machismo and replaced it with androgyny and angst :D hehe]  Also, in the case of X Japan (one of the most directly hair metal-influenced and important bands of the 80's in Japan) they took the hair metal sound and incorporated classical music into it, forming their unique neo-classical style, a technique that has influenced many Japanese bands since.  (For example, take Malice Mizer, or the use of violin by Luna Sea, and perhaps distantly related is the fusion of traditional Japanese instruments with rock.)

I'm getting carried away and starting to rant, so here's some random songs from the 80's to listen to: ; )  'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell    'Wrathchild' by Iron Maiden    'Sweet Dreams' by Eurythmics    'Rusty Nail' by X Japan