Here's a music-themed thought experiment as we wait for football. If you could only listen to 3 bands/artists for the rest of your life who would make the cut? Obviously, you need to love the music, but also I think about the breath of their catalogues (for different situations/moods). Limiting to 3 makes it (obviously) tough as there are so many great bands/artists that I would miss tremendously.
For me, the 3 would be: Led Zepplin, U2 and Tom Petty.