h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I believe I have mentioned 'At the Court of the Crimson King' by the rock group "King Crimson" - well, at least I have now" [Pierce]

Such an album does not exist,Pierce . I will just have to settle for "In the Court of the Crimson King."

When you're collecting music recordings, there is no such thing as being finished. New music gets written, old music gets rediscovered [like those 20,000 Baroque scores discovered in Bolivia recently], and some young whippersnapper comes along with such a revolutionary new take on an old warhorse that you can't think about the music in the same way that you used to. Nevertheless, one has to take stock of organizational matters and one's pocketbook. When I started collecting pop music, I had to decide whether to go with albums or artists. Did some artists only ever do one standout album? If not, then collections of greatest hits or best-ofs will do. For Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen, a selection of high points will help you avoid unevenness.

So, I've mostly gone with anthologies rather than albums. Nevertheless, some albums are so extraordinary [from the Beatles, Paul Simon, etc.] that you can'tnot have them. Right now, I'm leaning toward emphasizing great albums again.

My instrumental and vocal collections are roughly equal in size so that I can
alternate between the two types. here are some numbers:

INSTRUMENTAL:

Renaissance & Baroque: 220 CDs
Classical period: 260 CDs
Romantic and Post-Romnantic: 320 CDs

VOCAL:

Christmas, all periods: 100 CDs*
Opera [1600 to present]: 140 CDs
Choral, all periods: 105 CDs
Lieder & Art-songs, all periods: 105 Cds
Miscellaneous classical, all periods & types: 140 CDs
20th century Musicals for stage and screen: 210 CDs*
20th Century popular music: 190 CDs*


*Mostly vocal, but some individual CDs are entirely instrumental, i.e. big bands or movie soundtracks.

re 41:

'bout that! Glad to hear no serious harm was done

I was teasing you. I'm sure the Crimson King will be merciful,too.

I mentioned AC/DC in a retirement thread, and someone suggested I listen to "Thunderstruck." It's the first song in the album "Razor's Edge." Some catchy tunes there, but the lead singer sounds like Donald Duck with bronchitis . I wish I had some way to filter out the singing and just hear the instrumentals. [I'm listening to a library CD. I also have Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell." and will listen to that later.

I won't be getting "Razor's Edge," but "Bat out of hell" is fantastic.

I totally agree on what you say on both AC/DC and Meat Loaf, who is a fine actor too by the way

and what I may buy, genre by genre:

ADULT CONTEMPORARY

I have pretty good holdings here.

BIG BANDS

I have most of the well-known big bands. I will consider adding
Guy Lombardo and Paul Whiteman.

COUNTRY

Well-represented. I don't plan to add more any time soon

DISCO

I have The Village People, the Bee Gees, and Barry Manilow.
That seems to be enough.

GOSPEL

I have nothing. Mahalia Jackson is the best-known artist in
this genre, so I will buy one of her CDs

HARD ROCK AND/OR HEAVY METAL

I can't find any consensus on whether these are two separate categories or all one category. If they're two categories, then I have about a dozen hard rock, and one or two heavy metal. I will leave three or four slots open in case I later hear some heavy metal CDs that I like and wish to add.

HIP HOP

Black-Eyed Peas is sometimes included in this genre. That seems enough for now. The audience for this music has started to decline, at least in my area.

JAZZ

I looked at a list of the 15 most influential jazz artists of all time. I have 7 of them, and will consider adding four or five of the others on the list.

MUSICAL HUMOR

This is a quirky category, and it isn't especially large. Victor Borge, Spike Jones, and Anna Russell owned it in the 1950s [The Goons on the other side of the Atlantic] Tom Lehrer and Allen Sherman dominated it in the 1960s [Flanders and Swann across the pond]. Doctor Demento and Weird Al Yankowicz have built long running radio careers
in this genre since then. I don't feel a need to build up my holdings here.

RAGTIME

Here's the problem: all the original performers are long-dead. Even Eubie Blake, who lived to be 100, succumbed at least thirty years ago. I have all of Scott Joplin's piano music -- in my classical instrumental collection.. Some of his rags were orchestrated for the sountrack of "The Sting" [It's in my collection of musicals]. Some rags had lyrics added -- I have a recording of those in my collection of art songs and lieder. But there's no ragtime in my popular music collection. Solution: add Eubie Blake, who put his rags on piano
rolls. Someone has played those rolls on a player piano and recorded them.

RAP

I have nothing. Eminem can be added.

REGGAE

I have Bob Marley and the Wailers

RHYTHM AND BLUES

Some stores combine this with the Rock category. Others keep it separate. Some of the better-known R&B artists have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Some of these also appear on lists of great Soul artists. I'm going to assume that my holdings here are fine and do not need to be added to.

ROCK AND ROLL

This was the earlier version of what later came to be called Rock Music. Whatever. Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis are the only leading representatives of this 1950s genre to be absent from my collection. I don't have a burning desire to add them, but who knows what the future may hold?

ROCK MUSIC

This is a catch-all category that includes or intersects with many others. I think I have plenty.

SOFT ROCK

I have a lot of CDs in this genre.

SOUL

Getting a firm definition for this genre is harder than I thought it would be. I found a list of the greatest soul artists and found rock stars [Michael Jackson], Adult Contemporary stars [Lionel Richie], R&B stars [Aretha Franklin], and many others who seemed to belong to
other genres. Ray Charles seems to belong here, but he has strayed across genre lines as well. I'm going to declare that I have enough CDs in this category.

Two more genres:


CROSSOVERS

Mario Lanza grew immensely popular with a mixture of opera, show
tunes, and vintage popular songs. Andrea Bocelli seems to be following
suit. The Three Tenors have also been immensely popular.

WORLD MUSIC

I am considering a CD of classical ragas from India. For France I have
Edith Piaf, and might add Johnny Hallyday. Boney M is/was popular in
Germany. There are three top Japanese artists.bands to choose from. Mexico has a couple of top pop stars. Scandinavia has ABBA. Central America has Shakira.

GOSPEL:

I was going to suggest that you should consider a recording of Paul Simon Live in Concert with Urubamba and The Jesse Dickson Singers, but a Google search revealed I have already done so (post 32 in your thread Thank God I'm a Country Boy" :

"I once bought a used copy of "Paul Simon in concert with Urubamba and The Jesse Dickson Singers". Loved it! About a year later I had the chance to see Paul live at Tivoli Concert Building in Copenhagen/Denmark - and to my great surprise and even greater joy he was still touring with Urubamba and The Jesse Dickson Singers and played the entire album for me live! Plus a lot of other songs as well, of course. "

Jesse Dickson Singers rendition of "Jesus is the Answer" is the best gospel I have ever heard live! Most of the rest are songs by Simon so this way you get some of the best of two worlds

By the way: do you have any chance of borrowing and listening to records before you buy them? That would save you a lot!

"By the way: do you have any chance of borrowing and listening to records before you buy them? That would save you a lot!"

That's just what I was going to mention next. You have ESP!

Space and money are finite. That's why I limit the size of my collections. I only have room for 19 more pop CDs, though I think I can squeeze 21 in by using skinnier jewel boxes.

Here's the strategy: I only own the CDs I want to hear again and again. That's why I have so many "Greatest Hits of" and "Best of" albums. Hundreds of albums must have been issued since 1950. Trying to collect the hit songs and best albums overall is what I'm doing. The last CDs I buy fopr this collection will multi-CD sets of number-one songs of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Then I will start patiently going through great albums that I borrow from my library. I'll keep a list of what I've heard so I don't inadvertently listen to the same one twice. Unless I really want to.

Trust me, the same limitations on money and space have also inhibited what I've been able to do in classical music. About 200 Bach cantatas have survived [they've all been recorded], but I only have 60 or 70 of them. Haydn wrote 104 symphonies, about 80 string quartets, and about 60 piano sonatas. I only have about a quarter or a third of them. I rely on "100 greatest symphonies/quartets/sonatas/choral works/etc." lists from digitaldreamdoor.com for highlighting the stuff that should be in any serious collector's collection. Then I relax.

My insatiable curiosity will keep me going with borrowed recordings.

I meant "Hundreds of *thousands* of albums have been issued since 1950."

Being able to borrow is a good thing

I'm watching "The Gregorian" - apparently monks from a secluded monastery somewhere down south (Bavaria, Switzerland or Austria) performing Metallica's "Nothing else Matters" and instantly thought of you

Now they're singing REM's "Losing my Religion"

If this doesn't count as crossing boundaries I don't know what is

But it's not bad - a bit too much pop for my taste, but not the worst I've heard in 60 years

I don't have a problem with crossing boundaries, Pierce. What every good song needs is good people to sing it. What every good singer needs is good songs to sing. It astonishes me that people with fine voices so often find themselves singing uninspired songs. Usher, for instance. I could listen to his singing all day, as long as I don't pay any attention to his lyrics. But, he's sold a zillion more records than I have. New Kids on the Block have a great sound, but I'm not crazy about their material. They seem like a result of a corporate mentality that treats music like a commodity rather than an art.

If the monks you mention sing expressively, that's what counts. Group singing tends to even out the rough edges of individual voices. That's why I love singing in choral groups.

I am not against crossing boundaries in music (or other art forms for that matter). On the contrary I welcome it. After all it gave us gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, rock and roll and so on (not necessarily in that order, I'm no expert).

Did I ever mention the band Osibisa? Check it out. The members come from Ghana and the Caribbean islands and their music is like the second merger between African and European music - and most of it is very happy music

No need to be modest, Pierce. You got the order right pretty much.

There are musicologists who think Turlough O Carolyn [the blind itinerant 17th Century Irish musician] was influenced by Baroque music that he may have heard in the wealthy estates where he entertained. No matter what era you live in, if you keep your ears open you hear a rich mixture of different kinds of music. When I was in Riga, I had lunch at an Italian restaurant. They were playing recordings -- possibly by Andrea Bocelli]. Later on, touring the city center, I heard a street-corner saxophonist playing the theme song for "The Flintstones." My chorus had sung a medley of TV theme songs at nursing homes a few years earlier, so we were all able to sing along with the saxophonist.

Popular songs often get adopted as TV theme songs. Billy Joel's "My Life" and John Lennon's "You are so beautiful" have both been used. "Married with children" used Frank Sinatra sinigng "Love and Marriage." Then again, some TV themes become famous as songs in their own right. It was a hoot for us to finally learn the words to themes from"I Love Lucy"and "Star Trek." Who knew there were words?

Pierce, you have my undying gratitude for suggesting "Days of Future Passed," which is playing on my stereo right now. I will definitely be buying a copy for my collection.

The copy I'm playing was borrowed through my local library. Two other CDs were waiting for me when I got there: The King Crimson CD you suggested, and "The Sound of the Smiths." I'm not going to get the Smiths.

I'll listen to the King Crimson CD when I get back from visiting my father tonight.