There is music I can live without for the rest of my life.

I think I can survive without ever hearing a single song from Dark Side Of The Moon ever again. It will be alright. I will live. I have lived without hearing a song from The Wall of my own freewill ever since my second year in college, when a tape player chewed up my cassette. I might want to listen to Piper At The Gates Of Dawn now and then. I have the CD.

I never need to hear anything by U2 ever again. I never did in the first place, but Achtung Baby had me going for a while. Now, it's okay. I don't even feel a pang knowing I shall never wilfully listen to 'Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' again.

I am letting go of The Downward Spiral. Pearl Jam's Ten. Temple Of The Dog. I think I can go through life without hearing a note of Megadeth ever again, although I feel a pang when I think of So Far So Good, So What or Peace Sells. I never really needed to hear Oasis, and I refuse to do so again. After years of thinking of Desire, heard on a long lost tape, as an essential, I bought the CD and found that I could survive without any of it, except maybe Isis.

I am discarding the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I never listened to Coldplay anyway. I want to cling to REM, but maybe I should be brave and rip that scab off too. Certainly no Counting Crows anymore.

There's more music I could probably discard and never feel the loss. Doing this helps me clarify what it is that I can't live without ever hearing again. Although, of course, I would live even if.

But most of all I love to hear the music I've never heard before in the music I've heard so many times before . I think that's how I decide what not to discard.