Sunday, June 02, 2013

My CD Leaderboard

I just alphabetized my CD collection for the first time since maybe 2005 or 2006. Nobody's asking, but just for the sake of curiosity I tallied things up to make a leaderboard of which artists (or composers) I have the most CDs by. The rules I went by were to (a) only count CDs and (b) to count all CDs equally. So multi-disc sets counted for each disc, singles, bootlegs, live, greatest hits, duplicates, etc. all counted equally. What did not count was appearances on multi-artist compilations. I've sorted things by primary artist but also added notes on solo releases or other related acts parenthetically. I've listed every artist with totals of 10 or above.
  • 43 Depeche Mode (+ 3 solo = 46) [Lots of singles] 
  • 35 Philip Glass [as composer] 
  • 33 Yes (+ 4 ABWH + 2 other solo = 39) 
  • 32 Guided By Voices (+ 1 solo = 33) 
  • 31 Björk (+ 2 with bands = 33) [lots of singles] 
  • 30 Genesis (+ 26 Peter Gabriel + 2 Phil Collins = 58) 
  • 30 Pink Floyd (+ 2 tribute + 7 solo = 39) 
  • 28 Beatles (+ 6 solo = 34) 
  • 28 Richard D. James (incl. 17 as Aphex Twin, 10 under other names, 1 collaboration) 
  • 26 Peter Gabriel (+ see above for Genesis) 
  • 24 Chemical Brothers 
  • 24 Flaming Lips 
  • 23 Prince (+ 1 tribute = 24) 
  • 21 Rush 
  • 20 Einstürzende Neubauten (+ 1 solo = 21) 
  • 20 The Orb 
  • 19 Steve Reich [as composer] 
  • 19 Led Zeppelin 
  • 18 David Bowie 
  • 17 New Order (+ 4 Joy Division + 2 related acts = 23) 
  • 17 Jefferson Airplane (+ 3 solo/Jefferson Starship = 20)
  • 17 The Cure 
  • 16 The Who 
  • 16 Beck 
  • 16 Brian Eno (includes many collaborations)  
  • 15 Kraftwerk (+ 2 tribute = 17) 
  • 15 Neil Young (+ 2 CSNY + 2 Buffalo Springfield = 19) 
  • 15 Orbital 
  • 14 Fleetwood Mac (+ 3 solo = 17) 
  • 13 Autechre 
  • 13 Moby
  • 12 King Crimson (+ 4 Fripp + 3 Belew = 19) 
  • 12 Animal Collective (+ 4 solo = 16)
  • 11 Oingo Boingo (+ 1 solo = 12) 
  • 11 John Adams [as composer] 
  • 11 Radiohead 
  • 11 Underworld 
  • 11 Stevie Wonder 
  • 10 U2 (+1 Passengers = 11) 
  • 10 Beastie Boys 
  • 10 Moody Blues 
  • 10 Pizzicato Five 
  • 10 Velvet Underground 
  • 10 Glenn Gould [as performer]
  • 9 Morrissey (+ 4 Smiths = 13)
So there you go.