Which artists or genres do you collect/are a completist of?

*waves white flag*

No competing with that Kevin!

The nearest I get is:

Tangerine Dream - 77 (No duplicates, but a zillion miles off the complete set as much of the post 1990 stuffis pish)

Neil Young - 65 (Duplicated up to the point vinyl stopped, and I stopped buying everything automatically  recently)

Radio Massacre International - 47 ((I’m actually quite close to a complete set)

The Grateful Dead - 43 (I competed until I found I couldn’t face any more Going Down The Road Feeling Bad)

...

XTC - 26 (Everything bar the modern vinyl, in multiple versions, plus every single they made under whatever names). Possibly the most underrated band ever.

None - I have to like it, and if another version of the same thing it has to bring something better to the party!

With re-issues etc I have to have a reason to think it is better, having learnt that ‘remixed’ does not mean the same thing. New versions of the same music can be of interest, but more often not, and ‘previously unreleased’ track can be quite a mixed bag... 

However in general when I have liked a particular band, I have tended to have tended to their next album ‘on spec’, though sometimes leading to disappointment, thereafter listening first.

So as an example, with Pink Floyd, one of my favourite bands that I liked throughout their career, I only  have 15 PF, and 6 Roger Waters albums (including the rather different but excellent Ça Ira). Or Led Zeppelin, whose early albums I loved greatly - and still do, playing LZ1 & LZ2 quite frequently, I found i was a little less keen with LZ4, and not keen at all on LZ5, which I only play very rarely - and was the 5th and last album of theirs I bought.

When I was really into collecting rare classical LPs, I had a couple of dealer contacts who would give me first refusal on the really good stuff. One was fairly local, and he would ring me whenever he took in a nice collection from one of his customers. He liked to sell to me as he realised that otherwise most of the best stuff was making its way to the far East and wouldn't be seen here again.  That way I built up a complete Lyrita 1st issue collection sometimes with both Nimbus and Decca issues where available. I attempted a complete Decca SXL, EMI ASD, and Columbia SAX collection too but it proved too big (and costly) a task, and then sanity returned.  I probably got about half of each label's output, including most all of the really early ones. My US Mercury and RCA Living Stereo collections through were far less complete.  I had to relay on swaps with US collectors and I generally found that US condition was not quite up to UK condition (usually mint). I did though get all the original Classic Records Living Stereo reissues, and very nicely done they were too.

I was a Grateful Dead completist (including all solo outings and offshoots) until about Dicks Picks 12 - didn't like them any less but the torrent of releases in recent years coupled with the massive availablity of good quality live recordings from sources such as Wolfgangs and Archive led to me realising there was a potential overshoot of Dead music relative to my life expectancy! I've never bothered to count but have about 4 feet of vinyl and 8 feet of CDs, plus a few large boxes full of cassettes. Errr some, OK many, of them are "unofficial". There are also loads of digital files, DVDS, Blu Rays etc. I only have a few of the post Jerry incarnations - good though they are they ain't the real thing...

I have also been a completist of Captain Beefheart, John Mayall, Van Morrison, Steve Miller, The Doors, The Band, The Decemberists, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen  amongst others but now Tidal gives me access to more music than I ever dreamed of I don't buy anything by anybody any more!

I have just about every release on the wonderful quirky Fruits De Mer Record label going back 10 years.

Other than that although  I love certain artists Bowie/Roxy/Velvets/Nick Cave I have most of their UK albums but don’t go in for singles or foreign issues.

As above on my Discogs profile among the most conspicuos artists there are:

Bauhaus 72

D. Mode 771 

Duran Duran 313

Dead Can Dance 90

Durutti Column 77

Brian Eno 223

Japan/D. Sylvian 118

The Smiths/Morrissey 445

Regards

Roberto

Interesting! Complete, for me, means simply acquiring all an artist’s listed studio and live titles, as per their website or Wikipedia. This means, on most occasions, taking pot luck in respect of which ‘version’ I buy via eBay or Amazon. The only exception was my purchase of Jimmy Page’s remastered versions of Led Zepp’s studio albums. I wish I hadn’t bothered!!

All that said, each to their own. I thought I was a hifi enthusiast until joining this forum, when I quickly realised I was a dabbling amateur who has spent a fraction of the time and money laid out by many others. Nonetheless I still thoroughly enjoy all my my music played back via my wonderful Naim system.

I am quote complete with a lot of artists. But complete doesn’t Jean extremely complete like some items above. For instance with regards to bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc, Yes I am com0lete as to THE list of official albums, do i have all THE blootlegs etc, no...

With regards to the artists, it’s in all type of genres, so difficult to express. In general my collection is in a way to big as I never will be able to hear all, but on the other hand it’s comfort and freedom. While with my 13.000 albums I am not at the lower end of the list, but I belief some forum members have a considerable bigger colllection.

Beach Boys and solo , last count around 150 cds, lps, boots  and a few cassettes. Probably nowhere near the numbers available. 

Nearly complete, official releases only ... Allmans, Van Morrison, Jefferson Airplane & Starship. Chuck Mangione. And several of the obvious ones.... led Zep, Floyd, Beatles, Stones etc. 

Part of the fun is scouring record fairs , second hand shops etc.

Bob F 

Nick Lees posted:

Tangerine Dream - 77 (No duplicates, but a zillion miles off the complete set as much of the post 1990 stuffis pish)

 

While I am not a completeist, I have about the amount of TD, mainly because I subscribed to the Tangerine Tree about 15 years ago and loads of boots came with that. I like the Esoteric remasters and I wish they had done a few more but they seem to have stopped.

You are so right - I agree post 1990 is pretty awful compared to the golden years (I reckon 1974-86 - Phaedra - Underwater Sunlight). Out of all of them Ricochet is my favourite. Post 1990 it went cheap trance!

sjt posted:

Nick Lees posted:

Tangerine Dream - 77 (No duplicates, but a zillion miles off the complete set as much of the post 1990 stuffis pish)

 

While I am not a completeist, I have about the amount of TD, mainly because I subscribed to the Tangerine Tree about 15 years ago and loads of boots came with that. I like the Esoteric remasters and I wish they had done a few more but they seem to have stopped.

You are so right - I agree post 1990 is pretty awful compared to the golden years (I reckon 1974-86 - Phaedra - Underwater Sunlight). Out of all of them Ricochet is my favourite. Post 1990 it went cheap trance!

Somewhat perversely one of my favourite TD albums is Soundmill Navigator - starting with a base of the live Berlin concert in 74, then futzed with by Edgar and Jerome in the 90s, which should have resulted in an abomination. But it’s brilliant.

Can't say I am a completist as I don't tend to keep albums I don't like but I have got approx 180 TD albums incl solos, 107 Dexter Gordon, close on 200+ Steely Dan, BB King 86, Jackson Browne 125 +, Springsteen 200+ and Dylan far too many, think it was almost 5tb of his at one time before I deleted a lot. I do have a lot of some other artists such as Little Feat etc but can't be bothered looking to see how many I have.

As this thread continues all I can do is say wow! Some people have as many albums from only a handful of bands - in one case just two bands - as I have in my entire collection amassed over nearly 50 years! 

Including The Jam, Style Council and solo stuff I probably have close to fifty Paul Weller releases maybe twenty Bob Marley and going on for thirty Miles Davis and probably twenty to twenty five each of Dennis Brown and Gregory Isaacs then lots of Artists like Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder where I have between ten and twenty.

I only collect normal releases and perhaps remasters if I think they might sound better but I don't have to have every single release, greatest hits, imports, releases with spelling mistakes or with the wrong track listing.  I'll also collect labels like Steeplechase, Pablo, Scotch Bonnet, Analogue Productions.                                                                                                                                                  

I do enjoy discovering the odd label here and there. Recently been taken with BineMusic. A small kind of boutique label dishing out extraordinary electronica. Been going since 2002 and have released some 30 albums that I've mostly got now. Plenty of other labels in the past that I've collected, but not anywhere near the numbers here already.

In C by Terry Riley.

Don't quite qualify as a complete completest, but do have a soft spot for collecting certain artist's albums...

perhaps because they're consistently good : )

Beatles

Rolling Stones

Jimi Hendrix

ELO

Kate Bush

Pink Floyd

Tom Petty

Neil Young

Ozric Tentacles 

Cat Power (Chan Marshall)

Steven Wilson [ not quite sure how i amassed so many   ]

Anything on the british blues label Blue Horizon...

Not quite a completist, but nearly:

Pentangle

John Renbourn

Bert Jansch

Sandy Denny

Tangerine Dream (for a while)

 Pink Floyd

The Shadows (once upon a time)

 

You are so right - I agree post 1990 is pretty awful compared to the golden years (I reckon 1974-86 - Phaedra - Underwater Sunlight). Out of all of them Ricochet is my favourite. Post 1990 it went cheap trance!

Yes, Ricochet was good, but I didn't really like Phaedra.  My favourite was Poland and Tangram, I think

While many posts above start out sounding like this is an AA meeting for non-completists, I will happily say that my name is Florestan and I am a completist.  Or just another way of saying that life happens while you are living.

In some respects, I wish my major musical obsession was with modern day music.  I'd be done by now, I think?  The good news though is that as a strong secondary love it is quite easy to be a completist of Hendrix, ELO, Kate Bush or even the Doors. 

In all cases though, I am only a completist of any music that is profoundly special and great (based on my opinion, of course).

From early on, I set as my goal to at least get complete recordings of my favourite composers.  This took many years but I think at this point I just collect the same music seeing how different artists, living or dead, interpret my favourite music.  While I continue to add to every genre and period I can say that probably the largest projects within has to be Bach WTC and Beethoven Piano Sonatas or otherwise known as the Old and New Testaments.

The LA independent label Brainfeeder is just beginning to celebrate its first ten years with a big compilation coming out next month.

Its true, if Sun Ra was still releasing music today he would be on this label.  They have a very impressive roster of artists. All mostly genre eschewing in a funky jazz hip hop electronica imprint.   It would be quite an effort to collect all its releases, but worthwhile and as an investment if on vinyl.