Poll: Your Music Library

[Daft Time]

This thread is rather simple, but I was curious of a few things:

* What musical styles make up the majority of the music you own?
* Is this a good indicator of your musical preferences?
* What kind music do you wish you had more of?
* Is you collection mostly digital, CD or vinyl?
* How much of your music have you seen live?
* Anything notable that you've seen live?

EDIT: A lot of people haven't managed to see anything, so here is are questions to include you guys:

* What acts would you like to go see?
* What gigs do you wish you could have been at?

Yeah, that's it. I hope despite the relatively simple questions there's some decent discussion to be had here.

=================

The majority of the music lies in two broad categories; EDM and Alternative Rock. The second 'genre' I loathe - not for it's content, but the fact it's just so broad without actually being descriptive. It seems if you have guitar and a drum set in your band you get dumped here. As for EDM - it's fairly evenly broken down into - admittedly, another broad title in-and-of-itself, but the number of sub-genres in EDM is impenetrable for a casual discussion - Drum and Bass and Dubstep. To this day, I'm still not sure how I've accumulated so much of the latter.

I really wish I had more female vocalists. Despite actively searching for artists with female vocals the number of them is out weighed quite significantly by male vocals. I've got more than enough to be content, but not so enough for me to stop looking. Bonus points for Jazz - and it's numerous related sub-genres - with female vocals. There is some beautiful stuff there.

My music collection is, currently, all digital - though the origin of much of my music is rips from CDs or Vinyl recordings. I move around a quite a bit, and a lot of my stuff gets lost along the way or temporarily out of reach (for instance, I currently don't have anything to game on but this old laptop despite owning a decent PC and a horrid Xbox 360) so it's only practical to keep a digital library.

I haven't seen nearly enough live music in my time - a few concerts and festivals here and there. Unfortunately, many acts are prohibitively expensive or simply don't come to my city (I really don't blame them on the second part). My favourite has to be Tim Minchin, where he had the Symphony Orchestra of my city with him and the worst had to be how disappointing the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were when I saw them live as part of a festival. I ended up leaving before they were finished.

EDIT: To answer my new questions; I'd love to go see Of Monsters and Men in particular. Especially because I just stumbled across this:

Spoiler: Coachella Of Monsters and Men performance.

As for a performance I wish I could have been at:

Spoiler

 

[capper42]

My itunes has 9880 songs. A reasonable amount of this is ripped from CDs, but the majority I only have digitally. I also have about 20 lps, and am steadily buying more (they're just so expensive, but I love the ritual of putting them on, and find them much more fun to listen to).

It's hard to say what musical styles make up most of what I own, because there's a lot represented in there. I have a lot of what would be considered (although I don't really like the terms) indie, alt. and classic rock, as well as fair amounts of hip hop and electronica. The rest is folk, soul, blues, pop, whatever. Although some of it could be considered, obscure, most of what I actually listen to the most isn't really. The Rolling Stones are probably my favourite band.

I can't really say I specifically want more of one type of music, because it just sort of becomes added to as I find new bands or whatever. I will say there's a pretty hefty amount of shit in my library, stuff I used to listen to a few years ago and have since changed my mind about, or just random stuff that I've never really liked (Coldplay!?) I hate the thought of deleting stuff though, I guess I'm a bit of a hoarder in that respect. Tastes change, so some of it might grow on me, and it's not exactly a hindrance to keep it on there.

As for live music, I've been to several gigs, and a few festivals, but not nearly as many as I'd have liked to. I haven't really seen anybody live most of the time I've been at uni, because where I go is completely off the radar for touring. I could go to London to see people, but that's expensive and I'd have a harder time getting people to go with me. Going to Glastonbury in just over a month though, and I'm so excited to be back at a festival for the first time since 2010.

 

[purplecactus]

This thread is rather simple, but I was curious of a few things:

* What musical styles make up the majority of the music you own?
* Is this a good indicator of your musical preferences?
* What kind music do you wish you had more of?
* Is you collection mostly digital, CD or vinyl?
* How much of your music have you seen live?
* Anything notable that you've seen live?

Going on about 3000 at this moment in time, but I've had a few disastrous deletion problems. If my iTunes retained everything I'd put on it since getting it, I'd be up to about 9-10k. Realistically, allowing for deletion of utter crap... 7000?

Anyway. I have a whole range of stuff on there just now. Folk, metal, classical, alternative rock, electro, good old fashioned rock, a little rap, indie, blues, and a few more and variations thereof. I love most kinds of music, which makes building a decent library hellishly expensive.

I wish I had more of a few things. More electro-inclined rock, a more prevalent female presence because somehow I've wound up with so many male vocals, some decent folk (of all nationalities). Lots of stuff, really.

Right now my collection is almost all digital. I have about fifteen or so CDs. I sold my CDs off way back when I was struggling for money, which although it helped massively at the time, I wish I hadn't had to do it. I'd like to rebuild that collection though, I like having a physical copy of something.

As for how much I've seen live... none of it. No concerts, gigs, or otherwise for me so far. Either there's nothing good playing when I'm free, or it's too damned expensive. And I suck at finding decent local gigs from local bands.

 

[Aris Khandr]

1961 songs in iTunes right now. I "have" quite a few CDs I never ripped, though. "Have" in quotation marks because my former roommate still has them, and I'm not entirely sure I'm getting them back at this point.

As such, most of my music is in digital only. I've purchased 3 physical CDs in the last year, and all three were bought because they came with a free digital copy from Amazon, and the CD+digital combo was cheaper than the digital on its own. I don't buy physical media anymore, as I've pointed out more than a few times. Sometime in the near future, the stereo in my car is being pulled out and replaced with one that I can connect my iPod to, and any CDs I buy to save money will either be given away or tossed in the trash as soon as they arrive. My Amazon library has just over 400 of those 2000 songs, and another 32 from iTunes directly. That number will jump before long, as I intend to pick up the entire Beatles collection digitally, and that is iTunes exclusive.

The vast majority of my music is 60s, 70s, and 80s pop. And yes, that is a pretty good indication of the sort of music I like. My song collection drops to almost nothing post-1993, other than Disney soundtracks. Most of my post-93 music is from three places; Alizée (4 albums), Empty Hats (3 albums), and Pandora Celtica (5 albums). The rest is usually just grabbing the one song I heard that I actually liked, and not really bothering to look into the artist any further than that.

Obviously, my tastes mean that I've not seen the majority of bands I enjoy live. When one is born in 82, one does not get to go see the Beatles. I saw Michael Bolton for my Sweet 16 (on my birthday, was great), the Moody Blues a few months later. When I lived in Florida I saw the Turtles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Grass Roots at a concert on the beach. Two of the best were seeing Billy Joel and Elton John together, even though I had to drive ten hours to the concert and ended up being seated one row from the back, and seeing KISS. I've seen Pandora Celtica perform a lot, because they go to DragonCon every year and I try to make as many of their performances as I can. Which usually means 4 or 5 times a day, all weekend.

 

[OneCatch]

1782 song. A lot of that is soundtracks and other 'long' stuff though.

Genre in itunes is overwhelmingly 'alternative & punk' but that's because itunes is crap at classification and I cba to correct it. As it happens I actually hate punk. Postpunk stuff I don't mind, but straight punk? Euch

An accurate representation would be a pretty broad spectrum between metal on one end, alt rock (in the narrower sense) and acoustic rock on the other. Dabble in electronica, indie and industrial also.


Most of that's on CD, the stuff that I bought digitally is backed up on disk also.

In terms of live music, almost none. I've only seen a few bands live. Seen Muse, Foo Fighters, Feeder. Can't really think of anything else notable.

--------------

OP, if you're after female vocalists, try 'Garbage' and 'Curve' if you haven't already. I cannot promise that they are Jazz however

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well, I don't have all my music stored on one player, such as iTunes or whatever. Instead, I have it all neatly arranged into folders and just play them via WMV through said folders. So I can't accurately tell you how many songs I have, but when checking the properties of all my music folders together, it comes to 16,691 files. In each album folder, is the cover artwork, so you'd have to subtract several hundred files for that reason. No matter what, it still exceeds your highest option of 7,000. As for the questions:

* What musical styles make up the majority of the music you own? - Death metal by a long shot. Black metal would be the follow up.

* Is this a good indicator of your musical preferences? - For the most part, yes. Death metal is my favourite genre of music, so that's accurate. Black metal by itself, not so much. But it's a HUGE genre, countless bands, of many different styles, so it makes sense for me to own a lot of it.

* What kind music do you wish you had more of? - Epic doom metal. It follows death metal closely as my 2nd favourite musical genre, yet I do not own much of it. It's unfortunate, as a lot of it can be hard to get. It's not the most popular form of music.

* Is you collection mostly digital, CD or vinyl? - Mostly digital. I am slowly building my physical collection though. I find myself having little money, so can only buy 2 or 3 CDs a month nowadays. But little by little, it is expanding. Last time I counted, I had about 190 physical CDs, and that was awhile ago, so I guess I have little over 200 physical albums. Not a small collection, but it could be bigger, and hopefully will in the future. When I get a job, I assume it will build far more rapidly.

* How much of your music have you seen live? - None. Unfortunately, I live in a shitty little corner of the world where no real metal bands play. Or very rarely at least. I'm still a gig virgin :/

* Anything notable that you've seen live? - N/a.

 

[Daft Time]

No matter what, it still exceeds your highest option of 7,000. As for the questions:

Yeah, the poll was an after thought so I didn't think it through in the slightest. The highest option on the poll is smaller than my library as well, and I feel my collection is rather modest.

OP, if you're after female vocalists, try 'Garbage' and 'Curve' if you haven't already. I cannot promise that they are Jazz however

Will do! I'm obviously not after only Jazz - though quite a significant portion of my library has fallen under Jazz and it's sub-genres of late - I just happen to find the combination spectacularly pleasant.

Spoiler: This, for example, makes my ears blow their load.

Sort Of Edit: I listened to your suggestions while writing this post, and from what little I've heard both are pretty cool. I'll be sure to check them out some more. Thanks for the suggestions.

* How much of your music have you seen live? - None. Unfortunately, I live in a shitty little corner of the world where no real metal bands play. Or very rarely at least. I'm still a gig virgin :/

As for how much I've seen live... none of it. No concerts, gigs, or otherwise for me so far. Either there's nothing good playing when I'm free, or it's too damned expensive. And I suck at finding decent local gigs from local bands.

Yeah, I really get how hard it is to find anything worth seeing or reasonably priced. It's worth doing at least once though, even if you have to scrimp some cash for awhile to do it. Pick a big festival or a band you really like and travel a bit with some friends to see them. Even a poor performance is likely to be a mind blowing experience.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I have absolutely no idea how many tunes I have, and I'm not about to count them. Lots.

* What musical styles make up the majority of the music you own?

Gabba/hardcore techno

* Is this a good indicator of your musical preferences?

Obviously it doesn't cover everything, but I primarily listen to various forms of techno, plus older ambient, some jungle and DnB, also death and black metal, doom/death, folk and various 60s and 70s rock type stuff, some 80's heavy metal, hip-hop up until the late 90s. Also stuff from the first half of the 20th century, though I don't own much.

* What kind music do you wish you had more of?

Early to mid 90's continental techno, also US from same era, early UK/European breakbeat hardcore.

* Is you collection mostly digital, CD or vinyl?

Vinyl, tape, CD, digital, in that order.

* How much of your music have you seen live?

Mostly Death and Black metal, some hardcore techno acts (and a bunch of them DJing, if that counts).

* Anything notable that you've seen live?

Not in the grand scheme of things, but Death and Sepultura prior to Max Cavelera's departure .

* What acts would you like to go see?

It's not going to happen, but I'd have loved to see Emperor while they were still going, though I saw Zyklon, which was 2/3 of Emperor.
Leonard Cohen.
Somehow I never saw Obituary live despite them being my favourite death metal band, so that would be cool.
Various hardcore techno acts.

* What gigs do you wish you could have been at?

None that spring to mind. Maybe Castlemorton, but that would be too much of a cliche.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well, I live in Tasmania, AU, so unfortunately I'd have to fly/take a boat to the mainland if I wanted to see any kind of show. It just isn't worth the hassle for what would inevitably be a 45-60 minute long show, you know? There is the very rare exception. Not long ago, the Swedish legends, Grave, actually played down here, but I wasn't aware before it was too late! Once in a lifetime chance of a notable band playing here, and I missed it. Bah, sucks to be in isolated/rural places, I tell you.

However, maybe some time in the future, with enough money saved and a few friends gathered, we'd fuck the whole Australian thing off and go all the way to Germany, and attend one of the big metal festivals up there. That's be a better way of doing it, I'd wager.

 

[Daft Time]

Well, I live in Tasmania, AU, so unfortunately I'd have to fly/take a boat to the mainland if I wanted to see any kind of show. It just isn't worth the hassle for what would inevitably be a 45-60 minute long show, you know? There is the very rare exception. Not long ago, the Swedish legends, Grave, actually played down here, but I wasn't aware before it was too late! Once in a lifetime chance of a notable band playing here, and I missed it. Bah, sucks to be in isolated/rural places, I tell you.

However, maybe some time in the future, with enough money saved and a few friends gathered, we'd fuck the whole Australian thing off and go all the way to Germany, and attend one of the big metal festivals up there. That's be a better way of doing it, I'd wager.

Go to a festival, seriously. The last won I went to was ~12 hours, and I know they do metal heavy festivals in Australia (Adelaide here, btw, only slightly better). Going overseas for an act would be pretty awesome, I know of a couple who never come down under who I'd love to see.

 

[staika]

I don't know how many songs I have at the moment since I pretty much only have physical CD's and only put a few of them on my phone. When I'm at my computer I usually have youtube up playing music so I really only need CD's for my car since I hate everything on the radio.

Most of my music is in the core metal genre, IE metalcore, hardcore and deathcore. I do have some synthpop and electronic stuff mixed in but that is usually only one band that I like from the genre.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Checking my iTunes, 5242 songs, 14.5 days of music. Most of it's heavy music- metal, hardcore, punk and rock, but there's quite a bit of ska, blues and electronica on there. I generally don't bother setting all the genre things properly so I can't really say for sure what's what, a lot of it's probably quite debatable. Probably a good indicator of my tastes; I like my heavy stuff, but that doesn't mean I won't listen to anything else.

Honestly, there's not too much that I don't have enough of but I need to get my hands on the new Dillinger Escape Plan album and there's a couple of Ratatat albums I haven't gotten around to getting yet. In terms of genres I guess I'd like more electronica and trance stuff. The problem with trance is that as soon as it's on my body thinks I'm at a rave and my heart rate goes through the roof.

Most of my music is digital, but a lot of classic stuff I've gotten off my family's CDs. There's only a few albums that are actually mine, I'd have more if they weren't so bloody expensive (I was in HMV the other day, £16 for a Volbeat album. The fuck?).

I've seen a fair amount of my heavier music live, there's a few I'm yet to see- I'm finally seeing Iron Maiden at Download, and thankfully Streetlight Manifesto in a couple of weeks (Probably won't have another chance to see them). I guess the most notable live events I've seen were Sonisphere UK 2011, where The Big Four played together and Frank Carter announced he was leaving Gallows (although he said when we saw them on the tour before it). If I had to pick the best gig I've been to it would probably be Gallows at The Fleece in Bristol a couple of years ago. The atmosphere was insane, it was everything you'd want from a hardcore punk gig.

Go to a festival, seriously. The last won I went to was ~12 hours, and I know they do metal heavy festivals in Australia (Adelaide here, btw, only slightly better). Going overseas for an act would be pretty awesome, I know of a couple who never come down under who I'd love to see.

Don't you have Soundwave down there? The lineup for that always looks awesome, it makes me hate that I'm the other side of the planet.

 

[Total LOLige]

I feel so inadequate and less of a man, I only have 806 songs. That breaks down into 60 albums form 26 artists. Feeder are leading the pack with nine(two comps) albums and 144 songs, followed by The Pixies with four albums and 65 songs, coming in at third are Smashing Pumpkins with three albums and 54 songs. Everything in my library is rock/alternative rock and it does give a good good indication of my musical preference. I haven't seen any of it live but my favourite Neil Young album is Rust Never Sleeps which is a live album, if that counts, I haven't actually bought it yet either.

In terms of live music, almost none. I've only seen a few bands live. Seen Muse, Foo Fighters, Feeder. Can't really think of anything else notable.

Feeder five.

 

[Daft Time]

Go to a festival, seriously. The last won I went to was ~12 hours, and I know they do metal heavy festivals in Australia (Adelaide here, btw, only slightly better). Going overseas for an act would be pretty awesome, I know of a couple who never come down under who I'd love to see.

Don't you have Soundwave down there? The lineup for that always looks awesome, it makes me hate that I'm the other side of the planet.

Indeed! Though the line-up usually isn't my style. I much prefer Big Day Out as far as festivals that come down here go. It's also worth noting that we lose a couple of artists that only really perform in the big cities on the east coast.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I must have like 200-ish songs on my iTunes, I used to have a LOT more, at least over 1000 but I lost all the data off my old laptop so I just had to redownload as many songs as I could remember. Though most of that 1000 were things I never listened to anyway.

I listen to loads of soundtracks and I prefer recorded songs rather than listening to live versions. Anyway going to a gig would be way too socialable of me.

 

[Private Custard]

20,000+ and counting!!

A lot of it is ripped from my CD collection. I still have the first CD I ever bought, when I was 11.....Dark Side of the Moon, 23 years ago.

I have a bit of pretty much everything, and a lot of other stuff!

 

[doggy go 7]

accidental double post (pressed quote instead of edit), please ignore and read the next thing

 

[doggy go 7]

1202. It would be more, but actually paying for your music tends to mean it accumulates over a longer period of time, and I'm only 17. As for the questions

* What musical styles make up the majority of the music you own?

the majority is roughly evenly split between rock (admittedly "rock" includes a lot of sub-genres) and rap but...

* Is this a good indicator of your musical preferences?

I have every single Beatles song (which numbers around 250), so it tends to skew it. There's a bunch of other genres on my itunes, just in no such bulk as the previously mentioned two, so I guess so. I don't tend to just like genres, more bands/artist, the only genre I've yet to hear nothing good from is the heavy metal screaming type

* What kind music do you wish you had more of?

I WANTS ALL DA MUZIKS. More specifically, bands like the artic monkeys and greenday, whom I like (and have seen both live, though green day were at a festival), yet have none of their music. Also artists I like (eg. Tech n9ne and Queen), where I have some of their collection, but not all of it...yet.

* Is you collection mostly digital, CD or vinyl?

mostly digital, I've got a couple of CDs that I put onto my computer, and then very rarely listen too straight from the CD. I do like buying CDs when the opportunity arises, because they tend to be cheaper, and having something physical is nice to look at.

* How much of your music have you seen live?

I think I've seen 5 of the people in my library *goes and checks*, OK technically 4, but I'm seeing Muse in a week so I'm counting it (for the record, the other 4 were; the Foo fighters, Dry the River (they're good, a bit indie but still a good listen), the Kaiser chiefs and Tim Minchin, who also happens to be my favourite person ever)

* Anything notable that you've seen live?

See above

* What would acts would you like to go see?

I don't know, I rarely think about if I want to a band live, I'll just go if the opportunity presents itself

* What gigs do you wish you could have been at?

Many of my friends are going to Reading festival this year, with one of the headliners being Eminem. I have all his music, and can probably recite half of it without help, and all of it with a couple of prompts (well that's not technically true, I don't know the crap he put out on Encore and Relapse, but I tend to conveniently forget about those). My jealousy knows no bounds

 

[repeating integers]

2950 exactly.

AND IT'S ALL BETTER THAN ALL OF YOURS NANANANAAAAAAAA

I don't really have a main genre either. Um... just "rock", I guess, inasmuch as most of it involves guitars of some description, from Coldplay to Meshuggah.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Currently my music collection is sitting at 4509 songs. That's slightly more than I thought I had, but I suppose I do buy a crapload of music. It's where most of my student loan goes each term after I pay rent after all.

Most of my music is metal, in all its wonderful flavours. I have heavy metal, black metal, death metal, metalcore, symphonic metal, folk metal, power metal, industrial metal - basically all sorts of metal. It's not necessarily the best indicator of my musical preferences though - I do have a lot of non-metal in my collection. There's a fair bit of folk, some blues (admittedly my blues collection is lacking on my laptop because most of the blues I like I have on vinyl, not on CD), even some jazz, though I've only just started to get into that. I have a big wodge of rock, from The Beatles, to Dire Straits' roots rock, to Queen's anthemic stadium wonderment (slight Queen bias), all the way into hard rock like Kiss and such. I have a tiny amount of hip-hop and electronic music in my collection as well - I have Ephixa's dubstep remixes of various The Legend of Zelda songs on my laptop, and I have pretty much anything Dan Bull releases sitting on there representing hip-hop. Basically, I have a lot of stuff, but I have more metal than anything else.

I'd quite like to have some more blues on my laptop - like I said above, most of the blues i own is on vinyl and I've not got round to getting them on CDs. I have my eye on the new Hugh Laurie album and a complete collection of Robert Johnson's songs though, so that should add a bit to my iTunes.

My collection is mostly CDs - I have hundreds of them laying around in stacks. While I'm not against digital music, I'll usually only get digital copies if there's no option for physical copies - so, Dan Bull, Miracle of Sound, This Cold Life - my copies of their songs are digital. My vinyl collection is decently sized, although it's mostly stuff I've inherited from my Dad.

Out of artists in my collection, I have seen live:
- Andy Fairweather Low (blues guitarist, played on a bunch of Clapton's records)
- Bullet for My Valentine (metalcore band, I loved them when I was 15.)
- Black Tide (used to awesome classic metal, which is what they played when I saw them. Now they're just metalcore)
- John Renbourn and Robin Williams (folk guitarist and harpist. Part of Pentangle)
- Stone Sour (good alt. metal)
- Avenged Sevenfold (metalcore, I saw them on the tour they did following their drummer's death, so I got to see Mike Portnoy killing it)
- Hellyeah (southern groove metal, actually quite good)
- Iron Maiden (gods of heavy metal)
- Airbourne (AC/DC in all but name)
- Cancer Bats (brilliant and energetic hardcore punk)
- Skid Row (awesome glam metal)

I would like to see Metallica and Megadeth at some point live, as well as some of the punk bands in my collection like Rise Against and Bad Religion. In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and Amon Amarth are also all bands I'd like to see at some point.