I'm with you guys, when it comes to keeping up with an ever growing library of music.
It was easy when you were a kid as they bands you were into was relatively small, and when that particular band came that opened the doors (Metallica for me) you just went all in. I exclusively listened to Metallica for at least 6 months when I got into them. I couldn't even fathom doing a week of listening to one artist now!
For me, I've learnt to keep up with everything with a really structured set of playlists. Not playlists with individual songs, but full albums.
I have posted this before but it goes next level nerdy. My main listening is still on my ipod, and I use the smart playlists to ensure I don't forget about albums that I haven't listened to in a while.
For those who don't know, you can load albums into a playlist then create a second 'smart playlist', using the initial one as the basis. You can then set it so the smart playlist will consist of say 200 songs that were least recently played. In that way it will ensure any albums I haven't listened to for a while get added to these playlists (I have multiple for certain genres, release years etc) so I can dip in.
I might end up deleting stuff of my ipod that I'm not wanting to listen to. I also have an 'on the go' playlist that is just a ever evolving one that has new albums or old favourites. I'll chuck them in. They may just get one play then taken out of the playlist, or stay in for a few months.
Then there's Spotify, which I use for new releases, DTF recommendations etc.
I'll find the post I made a few months about it, but basically without these playlists helping me automatically keep on top of it, I'd be left staring at a huge library not knowing what to listen to.
Anyone else do this?