It sounds almost sacrilegious. You’ve spent money buying music, spent hours discovering tracks and carefully built your collection — so why on earth would you delete any of it?
I’ve done it for years. And increasingly, I think it’s one of the best things I can do for my DJing.
When You Have Too Much Music, You Lose The Music
There was a time when I could hear the first note of a song on the radio and immediately know the artist, title, year and sometimes even the remix. Those songs stuck because I actually listened to them.
These days, I’m surrounded by thousands of tracks. SoundCloud playlists, Instagram’s “songs you need on your USB”, festival Shazam lists, downloads and impulse purchases. It becomes addictive. I like that. I need that. That’s going to be great.
Then six months later I play it and think: Why did I buy this? It’s a bit… meh.
I’ve heard DJs proudly talk about their 10TB drives containing 100,000 tracks. Honestly, I shudder.
Know Your Music, Don’t Just Own It
I remember watching a DJ workshop where Norman Cook suggested having around 100 songs you absolutely love — and knowing them inside out.
The lyrics. The vocals. The builds. The drops. The moments where you can bring the next track in.
That really stuck with me.
A great DJ set isn’t necessarily about having every possible song available. It’s about knowing which songs work, when they work and what you can play next.
I’ve definitely experienced the opposite: staring at a screen, scrolling through hundreds of tracks and somehow being unable to choose one.
Too much choice can become an obstacle.
So I Started Deleting Tracks
Now I listen to my entire collection while I’m working my day job. I give tracks a star rating based on how much I like them and how well I think they’ll work with a crowd. I also tag them by genre, giving me another way to navigate my collection.
It’s surprisingly enjoyable. I get to listen to great music, discover what really stands out and — most importantly — get to know my own collection.
And I’ve introduced one ruthless rule:
If a track doesn’t get at least three stars out of five, I delete it.
Because if I wouldn’t want to play it, why am I keeping it? And if I like it but will never play it, it is shuffled off into the “listening” folder, rather than my DJ collection.
So go on. Delete some music; you might discover that having less music is actually giving you more to play.
