I've noticed something about myself in the past few years. It came from considering why I find, in the most part, musical "comedy" unfunny.

Whenever I listen to (most) "comedy" music I find it a bit... eye rolling. It almost always sounds like it is trying too hard. I simply don't find it to my taste.

I think the root of it is that I consider my enjoyment of music and enjoyment of comedy to be situated in very different contexts.

A few weeks ago, my desktop speakers finally gave up the ghost. These were important speakers; the means by which I listen when working.

My ceased-to-be speakers connected to a Mac Mini which ran Squeezeplay, connecting to a Logitech Media Server from where music is served.

This prompted a review of my playback setup in my office. Longer term I would like to purchase some good quality bookshelf speakers, but in the short term it seemed an ideal opportunity to trial some music players on my development workstation, replacing the Mac Mini and LMS. I used some basic Sennheisers to replace the speakers.

Disaster! A lovingly curated music library, comprising meaningful and affirming music, lost!

If you own an asset, you need to protect it. In other parts of our lives we attempt to minimise the likelihood of loss and its impacts. We have buildings regulations, for example, to lower the chances of a structural defect, and insurance to lower the impact if the worst does happen.

So what sort of disasters can occur to a music library, and how can we mitigate the impact?

I guess a lot of people think this, so it's no great shakes, but I consider music important to who I am.

It's important for so many reasons; the sheer enjoyment in the short term, the multiple dimensions of learning that music offers, the memories of music and how I attach them to past events in my life, and the understanding music offers of the near term; to see life through the eyes (and words) of others.

New music is the oxygen for this fire; my back catalogue is also important but my enjoyment is predicated on discovering new music.

I like to think of myself as not being the biggest fan of "Greatest Hits" (or "Best of") albums, but they seem to fill an input function in a lot of people's libraries, mine (and my family's) included.

In this article I'm considering single-artist "Greatest Hits" albums; there are also similar releases for record labels, or for particular eras or timespans for which some of these rules also generally apply, but the more common case of a popular artist releasing an album of "Greatest Hits" is the one I consider here.

Organising "Greatest Hits" albums can be broken down into a number of areas and practices. I'll number each one.