Any literate person these days is sick of reading how we live in the iPod age or an iPod society or any of the other variations on the word iPod used as a sociological adjective. So forgive me for starting by stating just that. But the real truth of the matter is I'm not all that happy with some of the side-effects of how we listen to music now that everyone has an iPod. For one, there's just too much choice. And with all that music I had available on my iPod, I never really would listen to anything on repeat. I'd finish one album and then move on to the next, probably out of an obligation to hear as much of the music in my collection as I could. One of the reasons I use an old iPod shuffle when I go out is so I'm not overwhelmed by choice and can focus on a few records or songs for a week or two before moving on to something different.

Not only has this been a way to force myself to listen to all that music I download before I have a chance to forget about it, but it's brought the favorite song back into style. With no pressure to listen to every song I have in my collection, I'm more inclined to repeat songs. A couple of months ago, I was into "Who Do You Love" by Ted Leo. But the new favorite song that I'm celebrating now is "Coffee & TV" by Blur. Besides being a great pop song with an equally great video, I got into the song after Natasha dragged me onto an empty dance floor at my sister's wedding a couple of weeks ago while it was playing. Just a reminder of how context can make music an event so much more than just sound.

After I started using my iPod for a while, I started to feel nostalgic for the times when I only had two or three tapes to choose from when I wanted something to listen to. When I used to drive somewhere, the car I had only had a tape deck and AM/FM radio. So I was limited to only a few tapes that I copied from my broader music collection - at that time in CD format. Just like how in the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, Frank Black said that for a while in his car, he only had one tape that he was practically forced to listen to every time he drove somewhere. And that tape just happened to be They Might Be Giants' first record. But being constantly worried about my own authenticity, I'm now worried how artificial it is to keep using the Shuffle when I could afford and genuinely crave an iPod Touch.