The recent posts on the demise of CDs, discussions on vinyl and spotify show that many of us still have our own collections of music (be it physical or digital).
I know we have down this before, but I think it was a long time ago…. how big is your music collection and any other interesting details of its composition ?
I’ll show you mine in the comments.
I have all m music digitised so this is somewhat easy..
According to my Roon library details, I have a total of 7628 separate albums comprising of 129009 individual tracks and by 2108 different artists (with 169 different classical composers)
The album breakdown by genre shows…
5031 Pop / Rock
517 R&B
507 Blues
399 Jazz
253 Classical
205 Folk
201 Electronic
and by release date decade….
293 1960s
857 1970s
903 1980s
1265 1990s
1361 2000s
2407 2010s
462 2020s
Note the genres and release dates are used on Roon’s database categorisation – and with that many albums, I haven’t checked them all !
Doesn’t this tell us mainly that you have both more money and more time than you know what to do with? (Just asking).
I mean how long did it take you just to compile the stats on release dates of all those albums? And why?
Ah oui
The decade/genre sorting is done automatically by the software.
OK I’m getting the hang of this. So what it says is something like I’m more of a 60s person than an 80s person (true of me even without counting).
And then genre. How do I classify my Defunkt albums? Does the software help me with that?
So that still leaves the size question, What does that say about me? I have about 500 albums. So? Small spender? Not much of a fan?
You are probably partially right @chinstroker on the money and time thing – I was lucky enough to have a reasonably good disposable income during my working life and didn’t have any other vices apart from buying CDs. It would also take about 10 years to listen to every album if I just listened for a few hours each day – I know that there are lots of albums there that I will never listen to again, but then again – I know that have them if the inclination takes me…….
On the stats side of things though, as Dai says, its all straight from the software interface and took me all of a couple of minutes………
Actually there’s a good reason for having a CD collection that includes stuff you yourself never play. Someone else can look at it and say “Oh you’ve got this. Let’s put it on.” Only works if your collection is displayed of course.
Is own as in on the shelf or chez cumulo-nimbus?
Own as in on the shelf or on the hard drive – I include digital download purchases, but not Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube etc.
Simultaneously too many and not enough.
Digital:
Total Tracks: 27,689
Total Albums: 1,865
Total Artists: 1,876
Total Genres: 91
Total Playing Time: 2027:55:54
This is from Squeezebox, probably incomplete.
Probably around 800 vinyl albums, maybe 150 singles haven’t counted them in a while
Worth up to $42,000 (Discogs), come and get them!
Too many DVDs and Blu-rays. Too much crap all together.
It feels like loads but in RC world it’s a tiddler.
CDs… 800.
45s… 300.
LPs… 400.
70% 60s / 30% pre-60s.
I’ve got more music I can shake a stick at. Even with those slight numbers, huge swathes of it haven’t been played for years. Do I need Modern Jazz? I mean, really “need” it? That’s about 60 CDs for a start.
Aim for about 2023:
CDs… 400, with a greater emphasis on Ace/Bear Family/Fantastic Voyage Rock ‘n Roll compilations.
45s… 200, cutting out the chaff and sticking to Rock ‘n’ Roll and original Beatles, Stones, Who.
LPs… 200 max. The 50 or so Rock ‘n’ Roll LPs released in the UK and original pressings of the Beatles etc.
And something to play it all on.
Mind, I’m not bothered if none of this comes to pass.
Come on admit it, you have at least one album released after 31 Dec 1969!
Let It Be, for sure, The Who at Leeds and Who’s Next on vinly. 60s goes up to Jimi, so Band of Gypsies, Cry of Love, oh, and Nick Drake. But these are all fag-end frankies, aren’t they, not really 1970s?
I do have some Sainted Daves (quite nice copies of Hunky Dory and Ziggy) and I definitely have a Wish You Were Here with the cellophane around it and Blood on the Tracks. Picked them all up for pennies about seven years ago. All mint.
They’re going to be the first to go, so I don’t really count them. They’ll go to good homes, homes I might return to if I need a favour.
Sounds vaguely threatening …
Digital files:
137,539 music tracks. 1244 of them unplayed.
3961 podcasts. 1552 of them unplayed.
Can’t be arsed to count up the number of artists or albums. Thousands of each. I’m not bothered much about genres because so much stuff doesn’t fit the accepted ones.
Some of the items in my small vinyl collection (a few hundred albums, a few dozen 7″ singles and about a dozen 12″ and 10″ singles) do not have digital equivalents. Not very many though.
All of my single-artist CDs (about 1500) have been digitised losslessly. Ditto my couple of hundred box sets. Most of my Various Artists CDs have been losslessly digitised too. The rest have all been ripped to mp3s. I have a load of “unofficial” downloaded albums on CD and some are not in my digital collection. Not sure how many.
I also have a few boxes of minidisc radio show recordings (a few hundred) that need converting. Charlie Gillett GLR and World Service shows, Andy Kershaw Radio 3 shows, old Radio 3 jazz shows etc.
Then there’s my big box of cassettes..
More than I need or should really been able to afford, but how come I still want more? i tunes library, which houses everything I want, whether ripped from the groaning shelves of cds and vinlys, missing out the tracks I like less, then all the downloads from e music, Bandcamp and elsewhere, whether legit or eely, same rule, no likey, no keep = 60, 928 songs.(Mind you, I have about 150 cds and cdrs in the queue for filleting, which aren’t included.)
Not catalogued yet, so here is the basis for my estimate:
10 Bennos from Ikea, each with 12 shelves which can accommodate approx 15 CDs. If rammed full, that would be 1800 CDs, but there are some shelves reserved for ornaments and mementoes, so I’m guessing 1600.
But, there’s the classical collection, much inherited from my dear aunt (OK, I nicked it; I was the executor) in a freestanding unit – another 150 there.
Then there’s the ‘I must not file these new additions until I have got to know them properly’ stack to my left. Most of these new additions were newly acquired 10 years ago, before I turned lad rock aside and became a proper folkie. To be fair, lockdown has seen me get to know these better, and I am still reassuringly pleased with these purchases – but there’s still about 50 there. So I’m back up to 1800, aren’t I?
Ah, hello box sets! You were a good idea, weren’t you? Probably another 100 discs in there too. Oh, why don’t I just round it up to 2000?
At least the vinyl collection has remained stable for the last 30 years, at about 500.
The bit I’m most proud of is the very-much-not-digital collection in my head. I reckon I’ve got about 230 learnt songs up there, most of which I could belt out with little revision.
Looking through the rest of the posts, I am now feeling inadequate … or maybe sensible, I’m not sure.
Sensible
Ones and zeros:
In the digital cumulo nimbus world: 0 (that’s nada, zilch, zero, not interested).
If I need a bloody internet connection to listen to them remotely from a server farm in ruddy Croatia (randomly chosen location) or somewhere, they are hardly my own, mine, all mine, my precious, are they, FFS?
In the digital, on my own hard disc world: about 12 or so albums and a handful of tracks.
If I have to fire up a computer to hear them, I can’t be bothered, as the computers are all upstairs, and I listen to music in the Room With The Big Stereo, which is downstairs. The ones on my hard drive are just the ones I haven’t made the effort to burn yet.
Physical, actual artefacts (now you’re talking):
CDs, on my shelves: approx. 10,000 or so.
LPs, on my shelves: approx. 2,500.
12″ Singles, on my shelves: about 50.
7″ Singles, on my shelves: about 30.
Bugger taking the platter off to change speed; they are only still here because they have sentimental value from childhood. ‘When You Are A King’, by White Plains anyone? Thought not.
Why rip CDs? I used to in order to put music on an MP3 player but now I stream if I am mobile, otherwise I play CDs and LPs on a hifi or I listen to Spotify on a hifi via bluetooth or streamed to Sonos. Why the need to have everything on a hard drive or cloud?
So I can stream them (losslessly) on my Squeezebox connected to my HiFi or in multiple rooms. Choose one of thousands with a remote control, no messing around with plastic cases, opening and closing CD drawers, playlists, randomising etc. Laziness I suppose.
Fair enough.
A lot of preparation but then sit back and enjoy I suppose.
Initially yes, but now if I buy a CD then first thing I do is rip it, takes a couple of minutes.
I initially did it to (a) put them on a iPod and (b) stream then around the house via Apple TVs. I now much prefer the ability to pick up the iPad and stream any album I want to the HiFi via Roon – no more searching the shelves and it allowed me to dump all the jewel cases and significantly reduce storage space using plastic wallets.
Never enough
(an answer Mrs D fails to understand “Surely you have enough?)
7″ Singles =1738
12” Singles = 177
LP = 923
CD = 1910
See, not enough …
(there’s another 2 shelves of CDs and vinyl above the picture extents)
Nice
How I hope those groovy curves are real, and not just fish-eye artefacts?
I have far too much time on my hands, so I have a very well curated iTunes library, plus spreadsheets galore, as I’m doing my album ranking project. So some stats…
CD – 3,614
Downloaded albums – 4,817
Bootlegs – 507 (mainly Beatles or Dylan related)
Mixtapes – 219
Total – 9,157
Live albums (across all formats) – 871 (94 Dylan)
Jazz albums (2/3 on CD) – 435
Rap albums (across all formats) – 1,922
Reggae albums (needs work) – 208
Total albums ranked for my project – 6,113
Left to do (or ones I’ve previously ranked that I want to review) – 1,603 (I got it below 1,200 at one point, but I am making good progress now)
Total tracks in iTunes library – 152,901
I’m wondering which song has the highest track count. I’ll hazard a guess, based on the ridiculous amount of Dylan live albums I have, that it’s Like a Rolling Stone. Including The Replacements’ Like a Rolling Pin there are 104 tracks dedicated to that song. Nope, way out. I forgot about those dozens of albums of Let It Be sessions. I have 250 different tracks of Get Back, although many, many are incomplete takes.
Albums per decade (only albums from my project, so no compilations, etc – this is accurate, so it shows that I have put 305 albums I have already ranked forward to be reviewed)
1950s – 352
1960s – 700
1970s – 821
1980s – 993
1990s – 1,236
2000s – 1,461
2010s – 1,713
2020s – 160
The year with the most – 2017 with 228. 2017 also tops another list. I knocked together a list of the average rating (I rate the albums out of 20) of the top 40 albums of each year. This, in theory, should tell me which years I think are the best for albums. Had you asked me this a few years ago I would have instantly said 1985. 2017 was ridiculously good though, so it sits too, followed by 1995, 1991 and then 1985. 1990 and 1989 follow on, to show that there was a right old purple patch from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Heppo’s 1971, meanwhile, sits in 27th. I think it would be much higher if I only used the top 20, but I can’t be bothered to work that out! Of the years I’ve completed most of the ones at the bottom are from the 50s and 60s, but the lowest post 1970 year, so far, is 1983. Still have 22 post 1970 years to finish though.
More stats…
Only 35 albums have been given 20/20 so far, but I’m like Simon Cowell x Craig Revel Horwood once albums score above 15. And, fan my brow, I hadn’t noticed this before, only one album post-1998 has scored a 20, 2017’s All The Beauty In This Whole Life by Brother Ali. But 2017 was a freak year, with 7 albums getting an 18 or above, when no other year post 1998 has had more than 3. It’s natural that the higher rated albums are mainly from the years when my listening pattern was different and my record collection was much smaller, as I will have listened to albums more times than I have since then. I was out at gigs far more often, had a less time consuming job, no kids, etc. The Dream Academy’s first album, for example, I must have listened to practically every day for nearly a year.
I’m still surprised at only one 20 in 23 years though. I’m going to have to go through the lists, as I was far stricter when I first started doing it. I’m just looking at my top 250 list and there’s some ruddy good albums on 19, but they are lesser than every album that are on 20, even if it’s only just. I have less 19s than 20s though, so I don’t know how I’ve managed that.
Enough stats already!
Like Vulpes I am not interested in streaming and downloading.I have Amazon music unlimited but use it primarily to play my own library.
Let’s get physical:
Estimate 4500 cds
100+ boxsets
Vinyl approx 150 albums.
Ipod classic has 38,000 tracks – used to play it daily- now I use it for random playing at dinner parties.
I’ll have to guestimate my totals.
LPs 2,000
7″ 100 mostly in box sets Beatles, The Who, Cream, R.E.M.
CDs 6,000
Box Sets 250
Hard Drive zilch
I reckon most albums are from the 60’s, then 70′, the 80’s are well represented and there are lots of releases from the next 3.1 decades.
Nationalities, probably 60% American, 30% UK 10% Rest Of The 🌎
I have all the albums by many bands/artists but none by David Bowie.
I have a Blue Nile CD which has been stuck in the car player for around 6 years. Apart from that no physical product, including vinyl, in the house.
My eldest son, on the other hand, as well as my record and cd collections has approximately 3427 CDs, 17,213 vinyl singles and 23864 LPs. I taught him everything.
I’ve slimmed my collection down massively in recent years – a whole mid-life crisis, life laundry, pre-retirement thing! I used to have everything catalogued but then cleverly deleted the file from my iMac without ensuring that I had recent backup copies, so the following is a guesstimate.
CDs – around 2500, of which 400 or so are classical, 100 early music, and the rest are rock and pop heavily skewed towards Americana with around 100 world music albums thrown in for good luck.
I don’t have any vinyl, or albums on any other format, with zero MP3 or digital downloads of any description. I do have an Amazon Music Unlimited account as part of a Prime package, and use it to listen to new music or other stuff I don’t already have. If I like it, chances are I will then fork out for it on CD. So CD is my main listening format, and I’m probably too old and stuck in my ways to change that. I also have 2 hi-fi systems based around CD players, and 2 other spare CD players, so I’m pretty much committed to the format. I also like owning physical product, but am less dogmatic about this than I used to be, and space and lack of pennies are now major consideration in deciding what to buy.
Cripes! just realised I hadn’t even considered classical music – which is all downstairs in The Room With The Big Stereo. May have to do a re-count.
Never bothered counting, but it’s big enough for me to keep finding albums that I’d forgotten I own.
You and me both – I was looking for a Shack album this week and fo6nd an album (unrelated) by the Shacks. No idea when I bought, where I bought it from and what it sounds like. I might have to investigate.
You should have found the Shack album, they are all superb.
Less than 25cds – not sure exactly as they’re in a box in the loft … or the garage. I sold most a few years ago To the Musical Magpie one desperate Summer. I have one vinyl 7”. I also have a (vinyl) record on pre-order, but have no player – it just looked good in the ad.
However, don’t ask me about comics.
Magnus, Robot Fighter. Issue 1. Acquired when I was five years old. Can I retire on that?