The music dried up

Well, not really. In fact, the blog seems to be ticking along nicely lately, plus I might have just discovered a new, fun, easy outlet, but still, there's no question that over the last several months I've disengaged from music in a way I never have previously. Some of it is clearly contingent (work has been busy), some of it is the previously-mentioned slow computer, some of it is just being preoccupied with other hobbies, but some of it may be that dreaded calcification of musical influences and references and ...passion that seems to come naturally to lots of people. As an illustration, I've kept track of my new-songs-by-quarter for years now, and the first quarter of 2009 was unprecedentedly meager:

First quarter of 2004 (1Q04): 380 new songs imported into iTunes
1Q05: 824 new songs
1Q06: 857 new songs
1Q07: 684 new songs
1Q08: 1,717 new songs
1Q09: 176 new songs

That number for 2008 is a little skewed--I downloaded a ton of Beatles covers, more to have than to listen to, but the drop off is still dramatic. On the other hand, most normal people can't digest 3,600 new songs a year--that's nearly ten tunes a day--so maybe I should just spend a year or two with what I've already got!