I've already highly recommended Béla Fleck, now I must praise Chris Thile. I'm listening to Stealing Second and this is one of those "wow THIS is good!" moments. Another of my recent "discoveries" from America's heartland is Leo Kottke. These people manage to sound unassuming, warm and friendly, while awing you with their skills.

As I've argued in the past, contempt of US culture, frequent among Europeans, really displays their own insularity and lack of knowledge. America's ability to export its most crass and mediocre subculture is a testament to the taste of those on the other side of the transaction, unaware that they're spitting at the mirror when they criticize the junk food and billboard morass.

Anyway, my mp3 collection just reached about 50,000 files/4,000 albums/275GB. Most people I talk to seem to think it's a lot, while I know the huge holes it still leaves out (not to speak of the unknown unknowns, as I keep bumping into essential artists I had never heard of, and I barely touched whole cultures such most of what comes from Asia). The biggest private record collections are 10 to 20 times bigger (think Elton John before he sold it all, or compulsive DJs), which literally takes whole houses to store in vinyl and CD format, while a few dedicated PCs and a bunch of DVDs will do the trick in electronic format.

Yes, there are people out there with 2-5TB of digital music. I'll get there within a decade, and so will more people than you think (you'll have to fill that 500GB iPod Mini, if it doesn't come preloaded). Hopefully by then legit and affordable solutions will exist, both to compensate artists and those who bring value around them, and to cut the file management hassle. In the meantime I must thank the RIAA. With its scare tactics it motivated collectors to regroup into more private and better organized spaces. I have more choice at my fingertips than in even the biggest offline or online stores.

How to navigate through such a huge amount of music will be the topic of a future post. It's not without its challenges, but it's a fascinating journey. Your mileage may vary, but as far I'm concerned music has a direct, raw interface into my emotions that no other art form has. I'm excited by the decades of discovery ahead of me, as I virtually travel in time and space to fill in the gaps, not to speak of forthcoming releases. This age of globalization has to produce great art.