Your music collection ...

How the fuck is a band like that still together? They weren't any one of the numerous hair metal bands that had one big chart hit that they can perform at state fairs every summer. They weren't even the Bullet Boys, who had two Headbangers Ball hits. They had one song that was a minor hit on Headbangers Ball. It never broke beyond that. Yet 20 years later they're still touring. Geez. And who sees that show? How does a band like that make any money?

Did Every Mothers Nightmare open for them? Or maybe kingofthehill (that band was actually really, really good)?

 

OK, but realize that I love music and have been buying it for myself since I was nine-years-old and have parted with almost none of it in the 29 years hence.

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: 5,987 CDs (I shit thee not). Amount of MP3s? Slightly north of 1 terabyte. Number of LPs? More than 850.

Now, that's not too impressive given that roughly half of the CDs have been imported while about a fourth of my LPs have been imported to digital files. I use Apple's lossless codec for importing and keep my favorite singles and albums on an iPod.

Yes, to answer your mental question, I do have a music room that is nothing but CDs, LPs and and a turntable that is connected to a dedicated laptop for burning LPs and CDs into digital formats.

Best music purchase: "Radio Free Europe" single by R.E.M. pressed by Hib-Tone. I heard it, bought it and fell in love with the band only to have them break my heart when they continued on as a trio after Bill Berry split. I still buy their new work out of a jaded sense of loyalty but the new stuff doesn't move me.

Worst music purchase: "Cleopatra Grip" by the Hearthrobs. A really sexy single sandwiched between utter shit, on both sides of the LP.

First music purchase: Rolling Stones 45 "Waiting On A Friend" from Tattoo You LP.

Best musical discovery: Minutemen which resulted me in exploring punk and its descendents and I've never looked back.

 

Tagging onto what GS said, playing REM's Automatic for the People was one of the great suprises for me.

To have an album that great more than a decade after their first release to me is amazing.

 

Holy cow, GS. That's a lot of music.

 

Nearly 7,000 CDs or LPs? How the hell do you find time to listen to any of it? Damn that's impressive.

 

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: About 600

Best music purchase: "The Joshua Tree" by U2. That record pretty much changed my life. Before that, I was listening to a lot of Top 40 junk and hair metal. If I didn't get that record, I probably would have ended up a big fan of American Idol.

Worst music purchase: "Whiplash Smile" by Billy Idol was pretty shitty. I also recently repurchased "Looked What the Cat Dragged In" by Poison. Doesn't even hold up good ironically. Also bought some crappy records by English college rock bands that had once decent tune per album (like the Primitives and Daisy Chainsaw)

First music purchase: "1984" by Van Halen

Best musical discovery: My Bloody Valentine "Loveless"...bought the album because of a lot of hype in Rolling Stone (back when you could depend on Rolling Stone to hype you right to good bands) It blew my mind. Neil Young was also a big discovery...I remember hearing Joe Walsh cover "Cinnamon Girl" on MTV Unplugged and thinking that was a hell of a great song. Bought "Decade" and I was just amazed at all these great tunes on it.
A recent musical discovery....I've always been a David Bowie fan, and I found "Hunky Dory" on Amazon.com for $6 a few years ago. That record blows away "Ziggy Stardust".

 

I haven't been back to Athens in about three years, but Wuxtry was still around -- now downtown off Broad Street, IIRC. (Clayton St., I think.) One of my favorite places to stop in and spend an hour, even if I rarely bought anything from there. ... Bizarro Wuxtry, upstairs, was also pretty cool.

My turn now ...

Number of CDs/MP3s: About 150 CDs still with me*; and 1,600 MP3s on my laptop.

* Unlike many teenagers, my dad and I had very, very similar music interests -- so whenever one of us bought a CD, we filed it in the drawers of their big entertainment center (that took up half the living room.) We had more than 500 at the time, including the entire catalogs of the Beatles, Stones, Springsteen, etc. It was never really a question of possession -- if you wanted to listen to it, you pulled it out of the drawer and did. ...

So when I moved out for the first time, I only took the CDs that a) he didn't care as much for (like Sublime); or b) I never, ever let out of my sight (like Live). The rest stayed at my parents' house. ... But then (after I moved out for good) came a rather harsh falling-out between stubborn son and stubborn father, then came an affair and a divorce, which exasperated the falling-out between son and father, and we don't much speak to each other now. Thus, the CDs I took with me the first time are the only ones I now have. Gone is the entire Beatles catalog, which I'm slowly trying to build back up, and so many others. But I digress.

Best music purchase: "The Distance to Here," Live. Hands down, the most influential album of my life.

Worst music purchase: "Rent" soundtrack ... well, I don't think so but my girlfriend says there's really no debate about this. 8)

First music purchase: "Live at the BBC," The Beatles. This is what started the obsession for me. By the time the Anthology came out (on TV, then CD), I was a full-fledged Beatlemaniac. And remain so today.

Best musical discovery: Got to think about this one ...

 

CDs in my collection: haven't counted in years, but it's north of 3000

MP3s: My 80 gig iPod is nearly full, and I've got a lot of stuff that's one the hard drive but not the iPod.

LPs: A few hundred scattered over two states - I just got a turnable that plugs directly into a USB port, so I've been converting some of them to mp3s

Best music purchase: "True Colours" by Split Enz. Saw them in a bizarre concert on PBS -- one half-hour was Leo Kottke, the other half-hour was Split Enz, from their early weird period. I picked up "True Colours," loved it, and became a huge music fan.

Worst music purchase: I've got loads of 80s no-hit wonder schlock on vinyl. My buddy and I used to go up to the record stores on Melrose in Hollywood, where they would have piles of promotional copies of new releases for $2.99 or $3.99. There's stull in my LP piles I barely remember. I've got an album by Horizontal Brian -- the one not-quite-hit was "Practicing First Aid." More recently I downloaded something by a band called Chewy Marble on eMusic on a recommendation from someone with tastes similar to mine. It really, really sucks.

First music purchase: I think it was a used copy of The Beatles IV, or some other Beatles record. First new purchase may have been "Frampton Comes Alive!" or Kiss "Alive."

Best music discovery: Probably Split Enz. Outside of that I'll throw out Klaus Nomi -- if you haven't seen or heard him, I implore you to watch this now:

. Also, I saw No Doubt live more than 20 years ago; Gwen was still in high school, I believe, and was the cute little backup singer. They were a really cool ska band. I assumed they had been broken up for years when "Tragic Kingdom" came out.

Best recent discovery: David Mead. Hadn't even heard of him until a couple of months ago, but he's got 4 or 5 records out. Really good songwriter, phenomenal singer, kind of Neil Finn-like. I'm completely at a loss to explain why he hasn't gotten 10 times bigger than he has. My tastes run to the obscure-hipster-doofus side, so this is completely up my alley and I'd never heard of him. Check out his song "Wherever You Are" on iTunes or eMusic or Amazon mp3s. I've listened to it over and over for a month. Maybe I'm nuts, but I think the guy's terrific.

First concert: The Police/Oingo Boingo, Ghost in the Machine tour, the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, CA.

Best concert: I saw Fishbone about 15 times between 1984 - 1986, and most of those shows were unbelievable. I'm a major Joe Jackson fan, and when he reunited the original Joe Jackson Band I saw them in a bar in Tempe. Also, just last year Crowded House reunited after 10 years and their first reunited US show -- and first real concert, I think -- was in Tempe. Pretty great. Outside of that, a few Elvis Costello shows would be near the top, plus Midnight Oil around 1984 and Springsteen at the Tacoma Dome on the Tunnel of Love tour. (The best concert lineup I saw was "New Wave" day at the US Festival in '83: The Clash, Men At Work, the English Beat, Wall of Voodoo, the Stray Cats, INXS, A Flock of Seagulls, and the Divinyls. It was actually a fairly lousy concert experience though, and the Clash were fucking AWFUL. I was a huge Clash fan and saw them twice; they were merely mediocre one time and godawful the second. Men at Work blew them away. The day was worth it, though, just to see the English Beat once before they broke up.)

 

I saw No Doubt open up for Public Enemy at a show in Baton Rouge during the fall of '92. P.E. were doing some stadium shows with U2 and they had an off night....and I think the promoter told Chuck D. the club they were playing was near Southern University. (He made a remark about that from the stage). Anyhow, I remember thinking "That chick is cute, but the band is kind of ehhhhh". It was kind of a surprise when No Doubt blew up four years later...

 

I bought the double-disc Hall & Oates compilation on my last road trip, perhaps one of the last double-discs I'll ever buy since I know own an iPod. Every song off Abandoned Luncheonette is very good, I love that early 70s soul sound they had back then, with She's Gone always having been one of my faves. I might need to get that one.

I definitely need to get Private Eyes. The one track I hadn't heard from it, Your Imagination, a kind of late 70s David Bowie-like song crossed with Hall & Oates' pop sensibilities is very, very good. Hall & Oates is criminally underrated as artists, not just a pop chart success story. They should be in the RNRHOF.

The purchase was a full-circle thing for me, as H20 was the first album I ever owned (a gift, so it doesn't count as my first buy). Anyway, here's my list:

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in your collection: something like 300 CDs. No LPs anymore, unless you count the two Culture Club LPs my sister gave me as a joke present. Have no idea how many MP3 I have independent of my CDs, a whole bunch.

Best music purchase: Paul's Boutique, Beastie Boys. There's albums I like more, but I doubt there's been a single album that has sent me on so many different musical journeys. The samples on that album so grabbed me that I have sought many of them out. For example, I own jazzbo Idris Muhammad's Power Of Soul, which is the source of those mesmerizing opening electric piano chords of To All The Ladies.

It directly led to an obsession with funk, which led to an interest in Bitches Brew-esque fusion jazz, to more traditional jazz. I'd say at least 20 percent of the music I own is influenced by my purchase of Paul's Boutique. Thank God for the amazing creativity of the Dust Brothers.

Worst music purchase: I'm sure Z-Man would give me something worse, but The Best Of's For Eddie Money and .38 Special jump to mind. So does Boston's debut album. The worst still in my collection is The Best Of Foghat and Pink Floyd's The Wall. I love Pink Floyd, but The Wall is soooo fucking whiny.

First music purchase: Pretty sure it was a cassette of Quiet Riot's Metal Health. Most of the LPs and tapes I got before high schools were gifts. I thrived more on taping songs off the radio. First CD was Chicago's Greatest Hits, which miraculously, is in decent shape nearly 20 years later.

Best musical discovery: This is a tie between Funkadelic's Maggot Brain and the Raspberries' Capital Collection. Both were purchased without having been influenced by any outside sources, aside from having heard Go All The Way by the 'Berries and Maggot Brain by Funkadelic. Total intellectual curiosity in power pop and funk that paid off big time. Sadly, my Raspberries' CD is missing and is out of print. :'(

 

You are a music collecting god. I envy you. I am thoroughly impressed.

 

Number of CDs/MP3s/Records in Your Collection: CDs: Somewhere around 800, LPs: About 250, MP3s: 6 gigs

Best Musical Purchase: It's hard to say, probably "The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society"

Worst Musical Purchase: The Godz - "Contact High" or Wesley Willis - "Rock and Roll Will Never Die". I blame Lester Bangs for making me buy the former, the latter was entirely my fault.

First Musical Purchase: The Beatles - "Sgt. Pepper" on cassette during the "It was 20 years ago today..." hype of 1987.

Best Musical Discovery: Finding The Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action" on vinyl for $3 when it was still out of print.