Big Artists

10-3-07 Big Artists

Who are the artists that I really collect? Who are the ones that other people have heard of?

10cc, A Certain Ratio, Kevin Ayers, Lucio Battisti, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Harry Belafonte, The Bill Black Combo, David Bowie, Don Bowman, Arthur Brown, John Cale, Can, Leonard Cohen, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Cornelius, Charlelie Couture, Floyd Cramer, Etienne Daho, The Damned, Sammy Davis Jr., Donovan, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Bob Dylan, Earth & Fire, Family, Tim Finn, The Firesign Theatre, Stan Freberg, Serge Gainsbourg, Gang Of Four, Genesis, Philip Glass, Golden Earring, Gruppo Sportivo, Peter Hammill, Jerry Murad & The Harmonicats, Roy Harper, George Harrison, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Haruomi Hosono, Barry Humphries, Icehouse, INXS, Japan, Jethro Tull, Elton John (pre-1980), Grace Jones, Hideki Kaji, Kayak, King Crimson, John Lennon, Level 42, Lio, Love And Money, Kirsty MacColl, Madness, Magazine, Paul McCartney, Mental As Anything, Midnight Oil, Mi-Sex, Models, The Monochrome Set, Monty Python, The Moody Blues, Motorhead, The Nits, Mike Oldfield, Le Orme, Pink Floyd, Pizzicato Five, Michel Polnareff, Procol Harum, Les Rita Mitsouko, The Rolling Stones, Sade, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kenji Sawada, Scritti Politti, Simple Minds, Split Enz, The Stranglers, Yukihiro Takahashi, Tangerine Dream, The The, Sue Thompson, Pete Townshend, Traffic, Van Der Graaf Generator, The Who, The Wonder Stuff, Robert Wyatt, XTC, Yello, Y.M.O. (Yellow Magic Orchestra), and Frank Zappa.

It’s more likely that you will have heard of these artists that I collect for one main reason – all of these artists have a ton of records / CD’s released! I have 30 (or more) titles by each of these artists. They are (or were) all working, releasing artists. Some of these collections I am still working on – or hoping to work on – and a few of them are basically inactive – such as Mi-Sex, the NZ group – the lead singer died, they stopped releasing records some time ago – I can only really wait on subsequent CD issues of things that were only LP’s – that do not appear to be forthcoming. But I have all of their albums and a ton of singles.

I actually know some of these artists – Hideki Kaji, The Nits…I’ve met lots of them (sometimes even asked for autographs)…I’ve seen lots of these artists in concert, too (too numerous to mention!). Of the listed artists, my “special” (i.e. exhaustive) collections are A Certain Ratio, Arthur Brown, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, The Firesign Theatre, Stan Freberg, Gruppo Sportivo, Barry Humphries, The Nits, Procol Harum, Scritti Politti, Split Enz and Frank Zappa. At the moment, I am really working on 10cc, Family, Philip Glass, Elton John, Level 42, Scritti Politti, The Who, Robert Wyatt, Yello and Frank Zappa. I suppose Mr. Zappa is my #1 favorite artist.

Yes, there are artists that I like as much or even more than some of the artists listed above – but they don’t have as many releases (Lavvi Ebbel, Hermeto Pascoal, Urszula Dudziak, Ivor Cutler – for example).

So, what artists do you have large (30+ titles) collections of? Which artist on my list above do you also like / collect? Are there any artists on my list above that you’re not familiar with?