I've just now finished downloading the 16,823rd and final song onto my new 120GB I-Pod.  Do I need to carry all 16,823 tunes with me at all times?  Of course I do.  Who knows when the urge will hit to hear, say, the bootleg of John Lennon rehearsing "I'm the Greatest!" twelve times over? 

   Along the way, I became fascinated with the way the "Genre" feature gets used and abused.  Music by older Japanese artists nearly always gets classified as "World," even when it clearly belongs to specific genres.  Perhaps the "World" label fits enka or even kayokyoku, but The Spiders?  Kasagi Shizuko?  Inoue Yosui?  Chage & Aska?

   It's also amusing to see what lengths artists will go to in order to avoid the dreaded "Pop" label.  I mean, does Brian Wilson really think of himself as being "Alternative/Punk"?  I was pleased to see, though, that Tokyo Jihen isn't ashamed of the "Pop" category. 

   As for me, I'm just "Unclassifiable."