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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: Xanthul on May 04, 2010, 06:46:05 AM
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I was wondering, what's the minimum piece of music you keep from an artist? Say you are told about this awesome band, you try their albums and enjoy some songs. Do you keep it all? Do you keep just the albums you enjoy the most? Do you keep single songs and get rid of the rest?
I ask this because I'm kind of OCD when it comes to arranging my library and on one hand I hate not having at least whole CDs (not necessarily the whole discography) but I also hate having to skip tunes. Maybe I should just downvote the awful ones and keep them there for sanity purposes.
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I keep what i like, which is either the album or the discography. :P
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I rarely just can't have 1 album from a band. 90% of my bands I collect the whole discography. It's like a disease, I can't explain why.
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I rarely just can't have 1 album from a band. 90% of my bands I collect the whole discography. It's like a disease, I can't explain why.
I'm almost like this but not quite. If a band has a bad (IMO) stretch of albums, I'll leave them out of my collection. F'rinstance with Maiden, I've got everything from s/t debut through SSOASS, then skipped the next 4 albums (No Prayer for the Dying, Fear of the Dark, The X Factor, Virtual XI) but picked up everything from Brave New World to current. As for Rush, I've got everything EXCEPT their s/t debut album.
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I won't go as far as ALWAYS having the full discography for an artist. But I never can just have one song from an artist, or even just one album. I always have the bulk of their material.
I cringe when I check peoples mp3 players and see something like "1000 songs, 1000 artists"
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It depends on the artist. For example I don't particularly enjoy full Train albums so I just keep certain singles. But in the case of cKy, I really really loved IDR, so I proceeded to collect the whole discography (which I ended up not liking, but whatever).
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I rarely just can't have 1 album from a band. 90% of my bands I collect the whole discography. It's like a disease, I can't explain why.
I got this disease too since the DT encounter. The only one album artist in my library is Meshuggah, the album being Chaosphere. But I can't boast my music library anyways because I'm still a beginner progger.
Edit: Oh, forgot about Marillion and Season's End.
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Full albums, at least. There was a time that I was really an mp3 collector, collecting everything that I could find, from every band that I liked. (Zappa, 150 albums, DT and related over 200 albums, Klaus Schulze over 200 albums)
But I'm glad that has changed ;)
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Full albums, usually. I believe every artist should be rated by their albums, not their singles. If I've been an album a bunch of listens and really cant stand the whole thing, I'll jettison it and keep the tracks I like.
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Discographies. I haven't listened to a lot of stuff in my library yet due to this but you never know what awesome stuff you could be missing by not having everything.
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Full albums, usually. I believe every artist should be rated by their albums, not their singles. If I've been an album a bunch of listens and really cant stand the whole thing, I'll jettison it and keep the tracks I like.
I never do that. Even when I only like one or two track from an album, I keep the entire thing. Hoping that the album will click, or at least, when I really start to like the good tracks, that I've got more material from the same band.
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I much rather prefer to own a band’s albums than their random singles, but generally if I like a few of a band’s songs, I like most of them. Though there are a haphazard 20-30 songs I have on my computer where it is the only song I have by the band. I won’t purchase a band’s whole discography solely on principle, though. If a band I like has a dud of an album, I don’t feel obligated to buy it. Just as I will buy only one album from a band if it’s the only one I like, but that is much more rare.
On rare occasions, a band will have an extensive discography where I’ll only like a handful of songs, and will end up putting them on a CD myself so it can sit on the shelf with the others (as I tend to listen to listen to music off of CDs rather than on my computer).
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I believe every artist should be rated by their albums, not their singles.
Agreed. Especially since most of the time the best songs on an album aren't released as singles or given a video.
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Full albums. If it's single songs, then it's only a starting point, or seriously the only songs I really like (might be the case with e.g. Slipknot eventually). But overall, a full album is when I really feel I'm listening to the band and see what they are capable of - what kind of atmosphere they try to create, what kind of message do they have (if any), how well the albums flow, what kind of a journey overall it is. If I really like one album, I'm going to eventually try out the whole discography - but I basically never just go for the entire discography at once, I do it gradually (the only exceptions ever were Dream Theater and Riverside - but it was around a year in case of the former, and around 4 months in case of the latter, so it's hardly "all at once"), and when I really get into a band's one, two, in rare cases three albums in a row, I decide it's time to give the band a break for a while and go for something else.
Something like this.
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I always have at least on album. I find it funny when people are self-claiming themselves ''fan'' of an artist and have 5 songs of them of their mp3 player.
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No offence to anyone but I don't see how anyone can call themselves a fan of a band and not buy even one physical release.
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No offence to anyone but I don't see how anyone can call themselves a fan of a band and not buy even one physical release.
Being a student working to pay his car and his studies is a reason.
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Regardless of anything I don't believe someone is unable to buy one album a month... especially if they have enough money to have a decent computer and a strong enough connection to download lots of music.
But let's not derail the thread...
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No offence to anyone but I don't see how anyone can call themselves a fan of a band and not buy even one physical release.
Being a student working to pay his car and his studies is a reason.
I don't want to get into a downloading war here, but that is always a piss poor justification. Not being able to afford something doesn't give anyone the right to outright steal it. If you hear something and like it, for goodness sake, go out and buy it.
To answer the question, if I really get into an artist, I will usually buy all of their studio records, unless they either have some that are panned by most of the fan base, or if they have too many to buy at once (see: Zappa, Frank :lol). And when I say "buy," I mean buy the physical CDs.
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Always at least a full album. I think the only exception to this rule is Theocracy.
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Regardless of anything I don't believe someone is unable to buy one album a month... especially if they have enough money to have a decent computer and a strong enough connection to download lots of music.
But let's not derail the thread...
Don't worry, I do have at least one album of the bands I really like. I also have the complete discography of some of them. But it would be ridiculous (in my case) to buy everything I love, since I have other priorities in my life.
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Albums. I jsut cannot allow myself to have just one song of one artist.
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Regardless of anything I don't believe someone is unable to buy one album a month... especially if they have enough money to have a decent computer and a strong enough connection to download lots of music.
But let's not derail the thread...
Don't worry, I do have at least one album of the bands I really like. I also have the complete discography of some of them. But it would be ridiculous (in my case) to buy everything I love, since I have other priorities in my life.
I said one album. :P Though another thing is, I don't see the point of getting lots of new stuff... How can you possibly get into the music listening to like 5 different albums a day, and listening to an album once or twice?
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Regardless of anything I don't believe someone is unable to buy one album a month... especially if they have enough money to have a decent computer and a strong enough connection to download lots of music.
But let's not derail the thread...
Don't worry, I do have at least one album of the bands I really like. I also have the complete discography of some of them. But it would be ridiculous (in my case) to buy everything I love, since I have other priorities in my life.
I said one album. :P Though another thing is, I don't see the point of getting lots of new stuff... How can you possibly get into the music listening to like 5 different albums a day, and listening to an album once or twice?
It takes time, but it works like a charm.
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There are so many artists that I really like one song, but can't get into the rest of their music. So I have lots of singles, a ton of whole albums, and several discographies. Just depends how much of their collection I like.
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Regardless of anything I don't believe someone is unable to buy one album a month... especially if they have enough money to have a decent computer and a strong enough connection to download lots of music.
But let's not derail the thread...
Don't worry, I do have at least one album of the bands I really like. I also have the complete discography of some of them. But it would be ridiculous (in my case) to buy everything I love, since I have other priorities in my life.
I said one album. :P Though another thing is, I don't see the point of getting lots of new stuff... How can you possibly get into the music listening to like 5 different albums a day, and listening to an album once or twice?
It takes time, but it works like a charm.
I find it really strange, personally. I listen to one album regularily, and it just follows me during the day, and it's like I'm waiting for the evening to listen to it again. It's more than just giving it a listen and then "neeext".
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I do have a bunch of singles (like "All Right Now" by Free, "Barracuda" and "Crazy On You" and others by Heart, etc.) but usually when I'm checking out a new band, it'll be a full album nowadays.
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Bands release their material as albums, not single songs. Therefore, I collect albums, not songs (unless they are singles).
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I need an album or two. If the band begins to slowly grow on me then I need like half their discography if it's a huge one, and the better half. Just don't know what you can miss out on that's also awesome.
For example, I have all the Ozzy & Dio era albums of Sabbath (including Born Again with Ian Gillan) but don't have the other stuff coz it's not so necessary. Heaven & Hell's album is pretty good too, it's basically the 4th Dio era album.
Younger bands I can easily obtain a few albums and say "hey I have their 2/3 album discography! XD", or just like a 5 album band is just as sweet.
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When I'm getting into a new artist, I'll usually listen to their most critical or fan-acclaimed album all the way through.
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I rarely just can't have 1 album from a band. 90% of my bands I collect the whole discography. It's like a disease, I can't explain why.
For most bands I really like/love, I tend to try and get everything they've made and released, officially and perhaps unofficially (like DT's YtseJamRecords or Marillion's RacketRecords). Other bands I at least get all their studio albums, and maybe the good live ones, but not all the compilations and rarities. Others I just get a few studio albums, or even just a compilation (although I rarely start with those).
-Marc.
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When I'm getting into a new band, I tend to do a bit of research so I know which of their albums are generally considered to be the strongest. If I like those albums, I'll often pick up the rest of their discography.
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When I'm getting into a new band, I tend to do a bit of research so I know which of their albums are generally considered to be the strongest. If I like those albums, I'll often pick up the rest of their discography.
This. I hate being kept in the dark not knowing about all this info that people don't know about.
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When I'm getting into a new band, I tend to do a bit of research so I know which of their albums are generally considered to be the strongest. If I like those albums, I'll often pick up the rest of their discography.
Ditto. I read articles, reviews, message boards, and more, just to see what many fans (or fans of music that I already like) think is a band's best album. Then after some research, I buy one or two albums by said band and explore their music further if I like it!
-Marc.
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Though another thing is, I don't see the point of getting lots of new stuff... How can you possibly get into the music listening to like 5 different albums a day, and listening to an album once or twice?
Yeah I have a hard time with that too sometimes... right now I'm trying a lot of bands at once (Dredg, The Mars Volta, Oceansize, Beardfish, Riverside, the Flower Kings, Muse...) it's kind of impossible so I've decided to focus on Dredg and Riverside for now and get into the others later.
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No offence to anyone but I don't see how anyone can call themselves a fan of a band and not buy even one physical release.
I have to agree. I HATE this conversation;
Me: "I like this band, ____________, I love this album, but their whole catalog is good."
Someone else: "Oh, yeah, I LOVE that band, their music is awesome"
Me: "Cool, what albums you got from them"
Someone else: "Oh, I don't know, just got a bunch of songs from limewire"
Me: *walking away*
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I tend to lean toward complete discographies, but that said there are artists where I don't feel the need to own all their albums, and many artists complete discographies are not on my iPod because I have about 58 GB of music and only 32 GB on my iPod touch, which is effecticly 30 GB.
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Though another thing is, I don't see the point of getting lots of new stuff... How can you possibly get into the music listening to like 5 different albums a day, and listening to an album once or twice?
Yeah I have a hard time with that too sometimes... right now I'm trying a lot of bands at once (Dredg, The Mars Volta, Oceansize, Beardfish, Riverside, the Flower Kings, Muse...) it's kind of impossible so I've decided to focus on Dredg and Riverside for now and get into the others later.
I can however download let's say 10 albums in one day, listen to each album one time, or even less, just to determine what kind of style it is. Example: I downloaded a post-rock album a couple of days ago (I can't even remember the band name), but I'm not really in the mood for post rock now, so I'll save it, and pick it up again when I am in the mood.
So I'll stack it up, not even trying to get into that particular album.
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When I'm getting into a new artist, I'll usually listen to their most critical or fan-acclaimed album all the way through.
I've stopped going that way, after a bunch of disappointments with absolutely cult albums [*cough*i&w*cough*] and being incredibly pleasantly surprised with many "controversial" or simply totally hated albums, I just choose my first album of a band based on some songs I've heard and really liked, and it's proved to work very well. Even if it turns out I can find something better, I've found some absolutely amazing albums that way (e.g. Opeth "Ghost Reveries", based on hearing Ghost of Perdition earlier).
[this is part one, something is weird, I'm getting an error when I try entering the whole post]
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When I'm getting into a new artist, I'll usually listen to their most critical or fan-acclaimed album all the way through.
I've stopped going that way, after a bunch of disappointments with absolutely cult albums [*cough*i&w*cough*] and being incredibly pleasantly surprised with many "controversial" or simply totally hated albums,
We get it ;)
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Scrolling through itunes right now and it looks like, for the most part, I keep a whole album in the hopes I might get into it one day. However, because of my ipod capacity reaching its ceiling recently, I do find myself deleting more things out of itunes but keeping them on my hard drive so that my ipod will sync up with newer music I'm trying out. Thus, the "deleted" stuff is still around should I want to pursue it again.
As far as "singles" in the more traditional sense of mainstream radio or whatever, I unashamedly have lots of them on my computer. That's a lot of the fun, to me, in getting an itunes card as a gift -- I'll go pick out 15 "singles" that I remember liking from various years that I don't have.
Lastly:Always at least a full album. I think the only exception to this rule is Theocracy.
And how exactly does this exception work?
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When I'm getting into a new artist, I'll usually listen to their most critical or fan-acclaimed album all the way through.
I've stopped going that way, after a bunch of disappointments with absolutely cult albums [*cough*i&w*cough*] and being incredibly pleasantly surprised with many "controversial" or simply totally hated albums,
We get it ;)
Didn't want any off-topic or anything bad here, it's just the most obvious example and the easiest to understand for people here I guess :P
[part two of yesterday's post...]
I can however download let's say 10 albums in one day, listen to each album one time, or even less, just to determine what kind of style it is. Example: I downloaded a post-rock album a couple of days ago (I can't even remember the band name), but I'm not really in the mood for post rock now, so I'll save it, and pick it up again when I am in the mood.
So I'll stack it up, not even trying to get into that particular album.
I'm totally the other way around. When I really like an album, I focus on it entirely, and I haven't found any band that I feel would "not fit" into any mood. There are times when I feel like listening to something fitting a certain mood, but then I go back to something I know and what I have on PC. When I'm getting into an album I listen to on CD/vinyl, I never have this kind of problem.
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Strange, I often even buy albums that I know I won't be listening to for weeks.
For example, I bought Neal Morse's It's Not Too Late, I never saw that actual cd, and it was really cheap, but I wasn't really listening to prog at that time. I was exploring Zappa and other fusion type stuff, totally ignoring prog for a while. But over a month later I really became addicted to Neal Morse again, and I popped that cd in.
But I totally see where you're coming from too. I just have cd's from all sorts of styles, some especially to get in the mood for certain stuff, sports, sleep, melodramatism, happyness. I've got albums that I only listen to once in a year, but that are really have a prominent place in my collection.
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If I connect to an artist in a big way, of course I strive to get at least a few of their best albums - their entire discography if I really like them. But I'm not going to go and collect every album by a band I think are just "pretty cool."
That said, though, I only have a couple of songs by... Amorphis, Anthony, The Attery Squash, The Automatic, Between the Buried and Me, Big Big Train, The Butterfly Effect, Calvin Harris, Deep Purple, Department of Eagles, Dizzee Rascal (!), Dream Evil, Elbow, Eldritch, Electric Six, Engineers, Finntroll, Fozzy, The Gossip, Great Northern, Heed, The Human Experimente (although, admittedly, they've only released one song), The Jam, Jeff Buckley, John Petrucci, Jonsi, Katatonia, Katy Perry, Kevin Moore, the Killers, La Roux, the Libertines, Lily Allen, Lost Horizon, Massive Attack, Men Without Hats (!!), The Ocean, Pain, Pendulum, Phideaux, Prodigy, Pulp, Scissorfight, Screaming Trees, Shadow Gallery, Shaman, Sia...
[deep breath!]
...The Stranglers, The Strokes, Suede, Tarja, Theatre of Tragedy, Turtlehead, U2, Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes, The Who, Will Smith, The Wombats and Zero 7.
Jesus, I only thought I had a handful. Didn't realise how many bands I'd picked and chosen from. Yes, a song is definitely the smallest unit in my book.
Do I feel like I want to hear more music by some of these artists? Definitely. Do I feel bad about not having full albums? Not particularly. Heck, not at all, actually. I've got a few songs that I like, and I just see getting an album as a possible next step, should I decide I like the songs I have enough.
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I don´t own the whole discography of any band except 3 or 4 I really like and are current so I don´t have to buy lots of older albums. I often buy the more acclaimed albums of the artists I like, that´s the way I start and usually works very well. I did that with Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Amorphis, Rush, Anathema, Spock´s Beard, etc. But having their complete discography it´s just impossible for me, I simply cannot afford it, for example, I would like to have more than 1 physical Flower Kings CD, but I usually have to content myself with the legal mp3 downloads. While in the US I´ve been buying albums like crazy because I can get them much cheaper than in my home country, but when I leave I´ll have to cut it off.
Another reason is that I´m just not interested in the rest of their discography. For example, for Pink Floyd, I have all albums from Meddle to The Final Cut plus The Division Well. I think the marginal value of owing the other albums is just very low. With Dredg I wanted to complete their whole discography (only 4 albums) so I got Leitmotiff, and I didn´t like it and barely listen to it. And for other artists not in my top 10, I can´t see myself exploring their whole discography, doing that with Yes or Rush would be completely impossible and as I said, the marginal value of the other albums will probably be very low.
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No hard and fast rules. For my faves (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, DT, Porcupine Tree, etc), I want everything. For other groups/artists, if I only like a few songs by them, then I only need to have those few songs. Whatever.
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It's all about the albums, baby.