Your music collection ...

I figured with all the great music threads popping up, this would make for some interesting discussion/stories.

I'll go first ...

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: 853 CD's (yeah, I counted them all)

Best music purchase: Queen, Greatest Hits - Freddie Mercury and Co. made me appreciate music I otherwise wouldn't have given the light of day.

Worst music purchase: Ricky Martin, self-titled - What can I say, I liked "Livin' La Vida Loca" ... for like a day.

First music purchase: Stone Temple Pilots, Core - I picked up a tape at K-Mart -- the last one in stock, I think -- just to hear "Plush" over and over.

Best musical discovery: The Jam, Compact Snap - I found this at the used CD store five months ago, mistakenly stuffed between Michael Jackson albums, for $5.

 

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: Between 450 and 500 CDs. I don't have much of a life, but I'm not counting them -- tonight.

Best music purchase: Green Day's "Dookie," and it's not even close. That album impacted me more than any other.

Worst music purchase: Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise." Because.

First music purchase: Green Day - "Nimrod." My mom bought it for me the same day she got me my first CD player. "Dookie" wasn't in stock at that store. I bought it the next day, however.

Best musical discovery: I worked at a radio station in college and took a bunch of albums, including ones from Gob and Flashlight Brown -- a couple of Canadian punk bands. I also stumbled onto Brand New during a search from another user's files on Kazaa, and the same thing with Koufax; Brand New sounded like a punk band's name, and Koufax because I'm a baseball junkie.

 

Now, is that the old-school version of Greatest Hits, the one with "Flash" and the cpver photo of dudes trying to look tough?

Or the CD release with the maroon cover?

Number of CDs . . . . not too many. I have gone all-or-nothing on many artists I like, so that's a few. Plus a bunch of random greatest hits albums and a couple of things like Disney compilations, stuff like that. If we count bootlegs, I'm at about 140 or so of various bands . . .so let's say 320, total. A middling collection, to be sure. But easy enough to transport.

Best purchase: That box that has all of Zeppelin's studio recordings.

Worst music purchase (tie): The Police Live!. Disc One is a nice show from 30 years ago, depicting a young, hungry band. Disc two depicts a bloated show from their 1983 tour, with unnecessary backup singers and such.
Stomp 442, Anthrax: just a horrible, boring record. Nothing distingushes it other than the fact I have never listened to it all the way through, more than a decade after I bought it.

First music purchase: An audio cassette of Appetite for Destruction.

Best musical discovery: Well . . .I was on the Alice in Chains bandwagon pretty early. Helmet too. There are a couple of local bands I support, but that's about it.

 

Maroon cover, unfortunately.

The original Greatest Hits -- the superior version by far -- wasn't available when I bought the album in '98.

 

Number of CDS: Probably about 500

Best Purchase: Nirvana's greatest hits album. Everything a girl needs for her Nirvana listening pleasure on one CD that lived in my car for years. Either that or the time I traded Michael Jackson's Thriller (I had two copies) for Def Lep's Pyromania in the fourth grade.

Worst Purchase: The Verve Pipe. Yea, one really good song, and the rest was dreck.

First music purchase: Either Cyndi Lauper or The Culture Club. I was in elementary school and it was eons ago. I'm not counting the Muppets Disco Album my mom bought for me because I asked when I was 3 or so.

Best Musical discovery: Well, I had Nirvana's Subpop album before Nevermind came out, and I lived in Ohio at the time, so that was pretty early.

 

Fortunately, I bought the single.

 

Number of cds: Close to 300

Best purchase: Atreyu, Suicide notes and butterfly kisses. If you knew me, you'd see a pretty calm, quiet, laid back guy. For whatever reason, I love me some headbanging, screaming music.

worst purchase: Juvenile, Tha G Code. Awful. Just awful.

First musical purchase: Alanis Morrisette, Jagged little Pill. i was in fourth or fifth grade. Loved the fact that she said the F word.

Best musical discovery: Scary kids scaring kids. Saw them on one of the smaller stages at warped tour. Fell in love. Bought The city sleeps in flames. Fell deeper in love.

 

Number of cds: Somewhere between 550 and 600.

Best purchase: Damn, this one is a tough one, but I think I'd have to say the four-disc, 100-song box set of Nat King Cole.

Worst purchase: Probably the 4 non blondes disc. "What's up?" was a great song, the rest of the album was unlistenable.

First purchase: Other than 45 rpm singles (the first of which I couldn't possibly remember) I'd say the first album was Photographs and Memories: Jim Croce's Greatest Hits.

Best musical discovery: Probably a tie between Lowen & Navarro and Darryl Purpose. Bought a Lowen & Navarro cd off a friend's suggestion. Grabbed the Darryl Purpose cd when one of our critics was unloading a bunch of cds. I now own all of both of their stuff.

 

Number of cds: Mostly deal with MP3's, about 700 songs on mine.

Best purchase: Zeppelin's Complete Studio Recordings box set. It was a family Christmas present more than a decade back. My parents were tremendous fans; I was more than a little skeptical. By New Years of that year I was absolutely hooked and they've been my favorite band since.

Worst purchase: 50 Cent, The Massacre. Don't remind me. It was so bad that I stopped listening to current hip-hop altogether and now only listen to the classics, namely "Reasonable Doubt" and "Ready to Die."

First purchase: Blink 182, Dude Ranch when I was about 9. Like many, many young adults around my age, they were the first band I really fell in love with.

Best musical discovery: Pink Floyd (especially the early work with Syd Barrett) consistantly gets my creative juices flowing. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is psychedelic rock at its finest and I usually pop the disc in and relax for a while when I'm having trouble focusing on a column's direction.

 

Number of LPs: 250-300. Eh, maybe they'll be worth something as collectors items someday:
Number of CD's: 300-400

Best Purchases:

Beatles, "1967-1970": one of my first buys; an excellent start on one's musical education

REM, "Dead Letter Office": not any songs that would warrant a buy (essentially an album of b-sides and outtakes), but some outstanding, eclectic music on that one.

Worst Purchase:

Lord Tracy, "Deaf Gods of Babylon". Apparently BYH and I were the only two people to buy this CD. Googled them to get the album name and I am literally shocked to see they are still together--just played Little Rock Saturday night

Mighty Lemondrops, "Laughter". Sorry, none to be found on that disc.

First purchase: Was actually a gift rather than a purchase, but it was Bachman Turner Overdrive's, "Not Fragile". The topographical album cover with the box full of gears--ah, the 70s.

Best discovery: DiVinyls, "Desperate." Before Christina Amphlett touched herself, this band made a very nice album. "Boys In Town" is an outstanding song.

Musical Oddity: Last vinyl I purchased: U2, "The Joshua Tree". Released right as CD's were becoming the recording vehicle of choice, youngsters. Had both the album and the CD within a matter of months.

 

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: 350-360 legitimate releases. Throw in all of my Springsteen concert CDs and other artists concert CDs, you can double that, maybe triple.

Best music purchase: Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run". This 1984 purchase made me the Springsteen fanatic I am today and helped open up a whole new world of other music.

Worst music purchase: In the mid-70s when I was only 8 or 9... a cassette of whichever Village People album contained YMCA.

First music purchase: I bought two cassettes in the mid-70s as my first music purchase. My worst music purchase was one of them. The Best of Glen Campbell was the other.

Best musical discovery pre-2007: Outside of Springsteen, that honor would likely go to Slaid Cleaves' 'Brokedown'. Just a great disc of depressing story songs.
Best musical discovery 2007: Josh Ritter: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter. Just a great album of fun songs, made me go back and start discovering his other stuff which is pretty damn good as well.

How I keep CDs on the shelf: Alphabetical by artist - various artists compilations coming after Z. Then for the times when I have more than one CD by an artist, chronologically by that artist. So my A-to-Z is Abba to Mark Zubia. Only letter not represented is X. V is represented by Van Morrison.

 

CDs and tapes and albums and 45s - Well past 500
MP3s - close to 5 MBs

Best - Power, Corruption and Lies (New Order); Murmur (REM); Excitable Boy (Warren Zevon)
Honestly I cannot say one is so much better than the other when it comes to the great, great albums.

Best discovery - Every time Bill Simmons talks up a band, I will Napster the band's top 5-6 songs into a huge playlist. Bill and I have the exact same taste in music.

Best discovery II - Looking at playlists of my favorite radio stations online and creating my own MP3 playlists.

Best discovery III - Youtube has almost every song ever recorded in some format (live, studio).

Musical oddity - I took History of Rock and Roll and History of Jazz, separate courses, at my Alma Mater in a Frank Lloyd Wright building.

First purchase was probably a cheesy 45 in 1976. Leo Sayer anyone?

First concert - Howard Jones at a State Fair

Best concert - Oingo Boingo at the same same State Fair years later.

Best concert for great looking women - Depeche Mode