Never mind the quality look at the quantity
....of the collection. So which artist do you have most tracks by? Be honest now. Having sorted out my CD/Itunes collection and in the event of any damage/loss I wanted a list so I copied and pasted my itunes list into MS Excel. Then, with a minute on my hands I thought to pivot it to find the which artists I have accumulated the most tracks by. Here is my top 10 artists based on tracks (No cheeky remarks please!):
The Beatles 408 – sort of obvious
Chris Rea 355 – includes his blues box sets here
Tom Waits 223 – Naturally
Prince 202 - those triple sets stack up
Bruce Springsteen - 169 I am bound to be missing some here
Yann Tiersen 117 (French dude) Amelie, Goodbye Lenin etc
Billy Bragg 86 – the odd box set here too
David Gray 83 – I think hes great
Bert Jansch 70 – acoustic period
Joe Satriani 70 – shredding period….still prefer him to Vai
It must influence what turns up on the MP3 shuffle. Gone on, have a go, surprise yourself…..maybe
- More from Commoner.
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The Beatles - 408... 408?!
I didn't know you could get 408 tracks by The Beatles! That's a lot of moptop...
ahh
i knew there would be technical questions...note my reference to "Tracks" rather than individual tunes....repeats do happen due to Anthology? Past Masters etc etc...i tried to keep focused on my point of how the total influences the shuffle function....
Actually 415! Just checking my figures...
....and I have yet to upload Hard Days Night, Rubber Soul, Yellow Submarine...and could have addedd Red & Blue compilations and Let it Be Naked
17 Abbey Road
27 Anthology 1 Disc 1
26 Anthology 1 Disc 2
24 Anthology 2 Disc 1
18 Anthology 2 Disc 2
14 Anthology 3 (Disc 1)
22 Anthology 3 (Disc 2)
14 Help!
12 Let It Be
34 Live at the BBC Disc 1
35 Live at the BBC Disc 2
26 Love
11 Magical Mystery Tour
16 Past Masters, Vol. 1
15 Past Masters, Vol. 2
14 Please Please Me
14 Revolver [UK]
13 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
17 The Beatles [White Album] Disc 1
13 The Beatles [White Album] Disc 2
19 Uncut:The Beatles Press Conferences [1964-1966]
14 With the Beatles
415 Grand Total
I know there are some duplicates but they are all uploaded on my Itunes and ready for the shuffle!
Lots more
How about 761 Beatles tracks? Thank heavens for bootleggers.
Boy
you have to shuffle those tracks a long time.....(cmon everyone, to the tune of carry that weight!)
How do you paste an iTunes list into a spreadsheet?
As for Chris Rea, I have separated his pop-rock stuff from his blues music. Dancing Down the Stony Road and the rest of the blues material onwards are listed under the artist name "Chris Rea (Blue Guitars)."
simply select all
in the main window in itunes...go to edit menu...copy....then into Excel and then paste....does that work?
Further destructions........
After pasting your list of artists into Excel.
Then
Select the whole column of artists in Excel
Goto Excel menu option “Data” select Pivot…leads you into a Wizard
Use default for Step 1 then goto Step 2
Click “Layout” button
You should see a little box on right in the box (probably name of artist)
Drag this little box and drop it into the “Row” and again into “Data” – make sure Data is using a ‘Count option’
Then select where to locate Pivot and then press Finish
Sorry if its not straighforward, I do this stuff everyday
Here Goes...
Oh I love an excuse to create a list.....
Genesis 387 (all the box sets, a few bootlegs, probably lots of repeats)
R.E.M. 385 (I have quite a few bootlegs, but that surprised me)
Fleetwood Mac 278 (the Blue Horizon box adds up....)
Prince 278 (those triple albums again...)
The Who 266 (also a surprise)
XTC 263 (coat of many cupboards box - Andy Partridge solo is just below this lot with 160 tracks - the Fuzzy Warbles)
Chris Rea 241 (blue guitars....)
Eric Clapton 241
David Bowie 232
The Rolling Stones 232
U2 230
Pink Floyd 229 (a few bootlegs)
Bruce Springsteen 215 (tracks, triple live albums)
Kate Bush 215 (if only she'd record more often....)
The Beatles 191
Peter Gabriel 186
more analysis...
Sorry folks - RT is all the way down at 144th place with only 36 tracks (looks like I need to go shopping). Supertramp do better - 67th place with 69 tracks !!!
I am impressed Chrisf
that you got there....was there a better route than my complicated instructions...in case others cen benefit
Not really
I just did the cut and paste from iTunes to excel and then used the Pivot Table tool to create - I did create a header row to make it easier to do the Pivot Table.
I'll play...
Here's m'top ten:
Tom Waits 257
Lyle Lovett 217
Nick Lowe 213
The Beatles 179
Steely Dan 156
Ry Cooder 151
Claire Martin 139
Boz Scaggs 138
Suzy Bogguss 134
Saint Etienne 114
Claire who?? She's worth discovering, believe me...
217
Lyle Lovett songs!! I'm impressed. I've got all his cds and I only have 135.
Check yer inbox
Email on its way to you Big Stevie!
Top of my pops......
384 Guided By Voices
296 XTC (includes Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles versions of XTC songs).
255 Bowie
235 R.E.M.
201 Robert Pollard
171 Billy Bragg
163 Bob Dylan
151 The Beatles
That really is
way too much Guided By Voices for a human, and approaching 600 tracks with the Robert Pollard stuff? Good grief
Too much GBV?
Probably true. On almost every album there's "filler" that I could delete but I tend to keep whole albums so I can play them when the mood takes me. I can see your point though.
I have a similar situation with Saint Etienne
But I quite like the little snippets popping up in a shuffle
De La Soul
For some reason, every time I put my ipod on shuffle, it found tracks from De La Soul's 6 ft high and rising album (and there are a lot of them). I ended up having to take the album off my ipod because I'm not always in the mood for De La Soul. I have hundreds of other songs on the ipod so why did it take a liking to them?!
Chalky
http://terriblelovesongs.blogspot.com
Using iTunes
Highlight the whole album.
Right click.
Select "Skip When Shuffling" (bottom right of the window).
Tracks from this album will no longer play when in shuffle mode.
Essential if you want the Beatles albums on your iPod, but don't want to hear random tracks on shuffle.
Moot point?
If you have more than 200 by anyone you have too many. Nobodys that good. How many of the 408 are essential? 40? I have a 80 i-pod, near full, but no more than 100 by any one of even my most favourite acts. (I may have access, thru' CDs and records, of more, but only the goodies get on the pod.) Yes, I need a bigger one, but that is for an even greater variety.
I take an opposing view...
It's cobblers, that, Retro. Who says 200 is the limit? Why not 210? or 300? or 3000? or 20?
If you've got the space, fill it up. Let the randomiser decide what's essential. If it throws something up that you don't want to hear again, flag it as "1 star" and delete it next time you hook up. That way you might discover some buried treasure.
What use is empty space lying around on an iPod?? Cram a dodgy old album in and see what get's thrown up. Big fun!
If only you could wait until till
the end of their career before choosing the 'best of'. Lifes not like that though and you 'accrue and upload' stuff as time goes by. Plus there are inevitably completists out there....408? As I say compilations and anthologies have creeped into my itunes but on the whole double counting was not a major issue....just a bit of fun
My view!!
Don't agree with Retro but I think it's because I'm out of step with what most of you seem to do. I don't use shuffle on the 80GB iPod, I use my head to choose, and like to listen to albums as constructed or concerts as performed. The only shuffle I use is for around 200 tracks labelled as 'singles' which I like to listen to on shuffle if I want my own personal pseudo-radio station.
Neil Young / Neil Young and Crazy Horse 735
Bruce Springsteen 597
Beatles 518
Jackson Browne 182
Warren Zevon 176
Bob Marley and the Wailers 166
Ron Sexsmith 153
(As others have mentioned, this includes a number of copies of the same track in different contexts. For instance I have a number of quite different versions of 'Thunder Road' that I love.)
I dont think
i could get bored hearing different versions of Thunder Road too....
Confirming the joy of mooting!
Didn't expect agreement, it was merely my view. I agree with Commoner as to the impending difficulty of what to do with those, pre-end of career, who are in the mid 190s and still pumping out good 'uns. Sadly, even those artists I really like, Costello, Dylan, RT, Jackie Leven, Fairport, Albions come to mind, have only tickled me to the tune of about 130 songs, so far.........
Missed one
If I add Gram Parsons solo and the Flying Burrito Brothers (only when he was a member, of course) that's 176.
Jo Satriani?!
Even one track is unforgiveable
With Joe you get
melody, balladry, shred and a sense of humour
one more
Joe and Chris
I do like a bit of Joe. But I cannot imagine the horror of having to sit through hundreds of Chris Rea tracks!
I suppose
Thats what the selection and shuffle facilities are for though? I will tell you something about Mr Rea.....if he came from America I reckon people would go mental for him here but as he is homegrown we would not give hime the credit....Costello feels neglected by UK music listeners...umm any others? Must be loads with talent but little affection......
Incidentally
I was uploading a host of new stuff onto my iPod last week, and when I switched it back on, all the cover artwork had seemingly disappeared/ fallen off. Now, I've done the 'Get Album Artwork' and that doesn't seem to like me. Any ideas on how I can get the covers back? I really don't want to upload everything again
Presumably
The viewer in the bottom left corner is visible and saying "No artwork" or whatever it usually says?
Aye
That's when it's plugged in to iTunes. For instance, I played a couple of tracks that I knew I had covers for on my PC's iTunes, and they showed up, but when I played them through my iPod on iTunes, there was nothing. AND what covers are on my iPod, are all over the shop
Weird, not sure there...sorry
Is the artwork thats missing artwork sourced from Itunes direct or artwork you have sourced seperately and saved it yourself somehere on your PC?
I think there may be
something about where the cover art is saved - it could either be in the library or on the song file. I suspect if it is saved in the song file it will transfer to your ipod.
Not sure how to pick but you get this option on Mediamonkey (and cover art management was another reason I changed).
Gap Analysis
Of course the reverse to having lots of stuff is gap analysis in the colletion. What am I missing out on? For example I only have:
2 RT tracks
1 Johnny Cash
1 James Brown
2 Take That....twice too much?
2 T-Rex
10 Bob Dylan
0 XTC!
5 David Bowie
Oh dear....I am missing out!
YES !
No XTC is a crime - one of Britain's finest and most underated bands..... start with Skylarking.....
Deep breath...
I have 1325 tracks by Bob Dylan, but I've just had a bit of a clearout. It used to be closer to 1500. There are 30 versions of Like A Rolling Stone. I won't go on.
Well done that man...
And there was I thinking that 16 versions of Maggie's Farm was excessive
Top Ten on Mine
Tracks Artist
183 Radiohead - I think I have every cd bar OK Computer which has gone missing
150 Johnny Cash - Boxset bumps it up
144 Billy Bragg - Pretty much everything I think
128 James - Same again. Big soft spot for James
121 Joy Division - Boxset adds a lot.
116 Ryan Adams - have quietly bought a lot of his stuff
101 A House - All the albums (I think)
98 Ron Sexsmith - like him a lot
97 Teenage Fanclub - quality
96 Coldplay - ahem.
Here's mine...
Nick Cave (& The Bad Seeds): 281
New Order: 244
Tindersticks: 207
Cocteau Twins: 186
David Bowie: 174
Spiritualized: 166
Radiohead: 144
PJ Harvey: 143
Yo La Tengo: 121
The Jam: 117
On my Pod - The +100 Club
259 The Fall
228 R.E.M.
226 Sparks
214 Ramones (oh such variety in that lot...)
181 The Who
186 Robyn Hitchcock (includes Soft Boys Egyptians etc)
170 Brian Jonestown Massacre
167 Frank Black post-Pixies
166 Iggy Pop solo
158 Julian Cope solo
156 Buzzcocks
153 The Clash
152 Guided By Voices
139 XTC
138 Matthew Sweet
135 Wire
129 The Fleshtones
108 Go-Betweens
107 Teenage Fanclub
101 Shack
Actually that lot pretty much sums me up! Although no Soul or RnB artists make the grade and surprisingly a bit short on Kinks, Stones and Beach Boys.
Do I detect a certain conservatism here ... ?
Rolling Stones - 314
Beatles - 313
Tom Waits - 285
Dylan - 267
Van Morrison - 186
Neil Young - 185
David Bowie - 180
Elvis Costello - 142
Aretha Franklin - 122
Paul McCartney - 111
This reflects to an extent 'homework' in advance of recent Tom Waits gig in Dublin, which I might add was the highlight of 28 years of concert going.
I seem also to have acquired 53 tracks by Harry Nilsson along the line.
No surprises, but no shame either...
XTC - 361 (and that's apart from all the Andy Partridge solo stuff)
Miles Davis - 296 (first hint of jazzist tendencies)
Ella Fitzgerald - 273 (I'm addicted to her voice)
Thelonious Monk - 267 (I'm addicted to his angular piano stylings)
Robyn Hitchcock - 230 (2 great songwriters in the top 5!)
David Bowie - 225 (enter The Dame as the first really obvious name)
Tom Waits - 208 (several Great Eccentrics on this list, hmmm?)
Charles Mingus - 184 (yet more fantastic jazz)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - 181 (Plus 84 sans Attractions)
Andy Partridge - 172 (told you!)
I'm well pleased with that Top 10. Other artists with more than 100 tracks on my iPod were: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (171), The Fall (160), The Magnetic Fields (154), Steeleye Span (153), Dexter Gordon (150), They Might Be Giants (140), Laurie Anderson (136), Half Man Half Biscuit (126), McCoy Tyner (123), Cocteau Twins (121), Belle & Sebastian (112), Depeche Mode (103), Horslips (102), R.E.M. (102), The Cure (102), Super Furry Animals (101) and Pat Metheny (100).
Steeleye Span?
Do, PV, tell all? All of their output? The early "credible" Carthy/Hutchings years, the middling Below the Salt (o, how apt)years before the Even Below the Day Trip to Bangor horror of All around my Hat, the brief welcome back Carthy/hello Kirkpatrick contract filling interlude, the dull years and the Gay renaissance, or the current pension alert re-tread?
(Funny how the Fairport versus Steeleye prejudice lives on)
Just the good stuff...
...of course. Do you seriously think I would load my iPod with material I deem shoddy? It's purpose is to entertain me, not you. Oddly enough.
;-)
Nice reply. Soft spot for 'em myself. Rick Kemp rocks.
The relief
is palpable! Glad to see you're being mischievously provocative, Ret2. I thought you'd got out of bed the wrong side today! And, OK, if I need the space, there're probably a few Steeleye tracks I'd prune - but not that many, really. And I'd never begrudge 'em the chance to announce live - as they do - "here's a medley of our greatest hit" before launching into That Hat Ditty. By the way - bubbling under, there were rather a lot of Fairport tracks, so put me down as "AND" rather than "OR"!
This was sort of interesting
I have 139 tracks by The Jam and 98 tracks by The Style Council at the top of the list, but then the next one down is Saint Etienne with 79.
Nothing else below there gets over about 50 tracks. But there are 10,000+ tracks on my iTunes.
Makes for a good random play, I can almost guarantee never hearing the same artist during a listen.
Except my iTunes does like Saint Etienne, especially the odd little instrumental tracks. I seem to hear them more than anything else...
would you know if it make much difference
altering the Smart Shuffle option on preferences? I havent tested it....
I'll have a look when I get home...
...I think I remember seeing a setting for ignore during shuffle somewhere...
skip on shuffle
For tracks you don't want to play on shuffle:
right click on the track in iTunes
click on Get Info
select the Options tab
check the box marked Skip when Shuffling
Bob's yer uncle!
I'm doing that from memory as I'm in the office and don't have iTunes on this PC, so it might not be 100% but it should get you there or thereabouts. Dead handy for all those little fiddly tracks that are an integral part of an album but don't mean anything on shuffle.
(The alternative is to "link" the small tracks to the preceding or following track if you're uploading from a CD, but that's a bit more complicated and I wouldn't like to try to remember the process without iTunes in front of me. It's also not an option for tracks you download.)
No real surprises
Radiohead - 288
Bob Dylan - 242
The Beatles - 229
Tom Waits - 187
The Rolling Stones - 131
Otis Redding - 117
The Roots - 111
Van Morrison - 91
Bruce Springsteen - 77
Beck 75
Led Zeppelin - 73
It would be quite interesting...
although very sad - to compile a list of the most popular artists contained in the Word massive's pods!
I'm heartened that XTC appear quite a bit however I do feel a bit out of place here with my list as I can find no trace of beard in my Top 20 artists!
The closest I get is Ron Mael's dodgy moustache.
Please do not cancel my subscription guys!
Can't believe the quantities
I made the mistake of buying a 30 ipod a couple of years ago. It has been full from the start. Good thing about that is it's made me edit and delete songs I don't love. So while I've probably got a good 1000 songs betwwen Dylan and Neil Young only a fraction have actually stayed on the pod.
Bob Dylan 105
Barry Adamson 89
Neil Young 91
Lambchop 88
Lloyd Cole 87
Echo and the Bunnymen 84
Tindersticks 65
Cocteau Twins 61
Staple Singers 58
Byrds 56
Finally got this to work...
Too many songs to import. Had to create a txt file and import that.
Anyway....
Paul's top ten:
1. Bob Dylan 620 (one or two bootlegs in there plus all the 'official' bootleg series
2. The Beatles 572 (official, anthologies and boots)
3. Elvis Costello and the Attractions 501 (but see 5. also)
4. The Fall 479 (when you've released as much as they have...includes the Peel sessions box)
5. Elvis Costello 403
6. The Who 393 (How can that possibly be??)
7. Bruce Springsteen 385 (More boots and Tracks)
8. Elvis Presley 365 (box sets mainly but another surprise)
9. Go Home Productions 342 (the lure of the free download)
10. David Bowie 339
Bubbling under....
Stones, Prince, Pet Shop Boys(!) and Tom Waits.
Shocks to me:
I have 255 songs by the Manic Street Preachers!
226 by The Cocteau Twins!
203 by Joy Division - they only released two pigging albums!
There are 2,677 artists in my collection by whom I only have one track each.
Very good fun
but I feel the need for graphs!
Bob Dylan 1130
Led Zeppelin 415
David Bowie 286
The Clash 276
Van Morrison 220
The Beatles 195
Elvis Costello 190
Rolling Stones 171
Steely Dan 160
Tom Waits 157
Where did 1130 Dylan tracks come from!! I think I must have some duplicates somewhere.
A++
Top marks for the chart!
His Bobness wins again
1 Bob Dylan 219
2 Big Bill Broonzy 155
3 Tom Waits 120
4 Stevie Wonder 96
5 Bob Marley 95
6 Ryan Adams 81
7 The Beatles 72
8 Johnny Cash 69
9 Captain Beefheart 60
10= Outkast 62
10= Charley Patton 62
My top 10
492 Costello and Attractions
269 Cave (not inc Birthday Party or Grinderman)
172 Clash
156 Luke Haines/Auteurs (not inc Black Box Recorder)
149 The Fall
133 Shena Ringo (not inc Tokyo Jihen)
117 The Jam
98 Fatima Mansions
98 White Stripes
83 Sparklehorse
Rearrange:
More Get You To Need Out
Thanks for that, Steve
really. Appreciate you taking the time to contribute. Have a nice day. Come back real soon y'hear?
Point taken ...
...sorry to seem churlish. I work with spreadsheets and pivot tables a lot in my job and so this too seems like work. But just to show willing I am prepared to offer my own number one spot - The Eels with 102 tracks.
Cheers
more of the same but a few new ones...
First the usual suspects...
Radiohead 296
Beatles 218
Dylan 159
REM 118
Joy Division 81 (sorry, but how did you get a couple of hundred? 81 includes the albums AND box set)
Then a few newbies;
Go-Betweens 184 (not including solo stuff)
Billy Bragg 108
Microdisney/Fatima Mansions/Cathal Coughlan 139
Steely Dan 93
And some lesser scores;
Half Man Half Biscuit 68
Everything but the girl 65
Aimee Mann 58
Sigur Ros 49 (but rising fast)
Richard Thompson a measly 27 - I must upload some of the 20 or so CDs before I am expelled from the Word forum. Same for Tom Waits at 46
Couple of Hundred Joy Division
There are duplicates, it will come as no surprise to hear...
10 - Unknown Pleasures
12 - Live at The Factory, Manchester (Unknown Pleasures disc 2)
9 - Closer
12 - Live at ULU (Closer disc 2)
20 - Still
14 - Live at High Wycombe (Still disc 2)
81 - Heart and Soul (discs 1-4)
4 - An Ideal For Living EP
13 - Live at Bowdon Vale (Bootleg)
1 - North by Northwest (Compilation)
4 - Palatine (Factory records box set)
17 - Substance (JD Best of)
1 - 1-2-3-4 Punk & New Wave (Compilation)
4 - 24 Hour Party People (Soundtrack)
1 - 25 Years of Rough Trade Shops (compilation)
Total - 203 tracks.
I also have 18 tracks by Warsaw (17 on a bootleg, one on the N by NW compilation), and 196 by New Order. Oh, and one track by 'englandneworder'
Very sad I know. But I would have it no other way.
PS: looks like you're only counting the box set in your numbers according to my figures!
Just for clarity
Have you lot with 200+ songs for artists sorted out your duplicates?
Not at all
Think of it as 'weighting' -the more copies of a single song you have - the more you want to hear it - and the more often it will come up on shuffle.
Duplicates are a good thing - hard disc space allowing!
Weighting a good idea
Bigger ipod will let me. Am over the edge of my 40gb so have pruned all duplicates.
My Top Ten
I'm not going to list all of the 29 acts with 100+ tracks on my iPod, so here's the Top Ten (well 12 given the three-way for the last spot).
1) The Fall (341) - A 97 track Peel Sessions Box Set is largely to blame!
2) Pet Shop Boys (310)
3) Nick Cave 187 (+ 31 more from Grinderman / Birthday Party)
4) R.E.M (175)
5) St Etienne (165)
6) Jesus and Mary Chain (147)
7) Blur (144)
8) Throwing Muses (143) (+ 108 from Kristin Hersh)
9) Placebo (133)
10) Billy Bragg (132) (+ 30 with Wilco)
10) Chemical Brothers (132)
10) New Order (132)
I thought life might be too short...
...but I still find myself joining in and counting the number of tracks. A look at my iPod tells me I have:
Jethro Tull - 209 (most CDs apart from the early, bluesy stuff)
Marillion - 195 (haven't put everything on the iPod yet...)
Nine Inch Nails - 169 (everything apart from a couple of the remix CDs)
Kate Bush - 130 (everything plus a bootleg)
Dead Can Dance - 129 (everything official plus a couple of bootlegs and an extra live double)
My brief survey reveals that most of my groups (quite a few of whom have now split up/folded) have produced somewhere between 50-70 songs. Maybe four or five albums is the average for a band to produce before musical differences/drink/jealousy force them to not speak to each other/abuse each other in the media/die.
I hate the suggestion that you ought to limit the number of tracks by a particular artist - why? I only wish some of my favourites - Kate Bush, particularly - could be a little more prolific. OK, so not every album is packed 100% with gems, but almost every song has something, be it a chord change, lyric, harmony or indefinable X factor, to make it worth listening to. Although, saying that, I've got a song by Einsturzende Neubauten that makes me feel ill and is best not heard by man or beast...
I can never resist a list,
I can never resist a list, so here's my top ten:
The Beatles 404
The Wedding Present 146
John Williams: London Symphony Orchestra 121
Cud 118
The Fall 117
Pixies 109
Blur 103
Morrissey 79
Orbital 77
R.E.M. 75
The top 10 accounts for a third of the 4,180 tracks analysed. 36 artists take up the next third and a whopping 318 artists bring up the rear. I have a 189 single track artists although this is skewed by the "Mark Ronson feat . . ." type artist listing
The obvious question mark is over the 121 tracks by John Williams. A sad devotion to Star War answers that one (albeit unsatisfactorily). Cud's recent rereleases has given them a surprise Champions League qualification. A lot of my Pixies bootlegs haven't been ripped but had I merged my Frank Black and official Pixies collections they would have finished runners up, but then I would have to consider the Wedding Present/Cinerama merger. Most of all I was surprised to see I had more Morrissey than Smiths (60) but I suppose he's been kicking around on his own a lot longer.
Once more I find myself
agreeing with fellow Lichfield person Retro. I dont put whole albums onto the IPOD as a rule - I choose my favourite tracks by and large which is probably why I only have about 4600 tracks as opposed to 18,000 t0 20,000 that I could easily put on there. Favourites are Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Leonard Cohen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nils Lofgren, Jackie Leven,Eels and Ron Sexsmith.
Costello and Richard Thompson may have around 100 tracks each but noone has any more than that.
By the way quite a few mentions on here of Chris Reas post rock-star period. This has intrigued me - any pointers as to where I should start with this?
It's expensive
Chris Rea's post illness albums are nothing to get too excited about. Dancing Down The Stony Road (2CDs) is a bit bland, and so is The Blue Jukebox (1CD), although it's got a nice ambient quality to it.
They feel like rough sketches to me and I wouldn't recommend them. Instead you need to buy Blue Guitars, an 11 album box set. As I said, it's expensive, but you get a lot of quantity for about £30. I like it, but I wouldn't shout from the rooftops about how great the albums are. Good, solid and enjoyable albums, but not sublime.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Guitars-11CD-DVD-Chris/dp/3937406328/ref=sr...
I am not sure the 11 album set is the best intro
Although I have it there is soooooo much information on there. I'd rather a shorter focused album
Yes, but the shorter albums...
...are inferior to the albums on the box set.
Musically they're maybe on par with each other, but lyrically there's a massive difference between them. Stony Road has weak, tepid, semi-abstract lyrics. The songs on Blue Guitars tell proper stories. This is important to me. If you don't care what the lyrics mean then go with Stony Road, but if you want your lyrics to mean something then you should go straight to Blue Guitars.
Plus I find the pre-Blue Guitars blues albums to be a bit dull.
So I suppose
going back to the original request of where to start its as case of a toe in the water (Stony etc) or a full-on belly flop (Blue Guitars)
Yes
As I said, it's expensive.
But
Great value for money
Chris Rea post pop star
The thing which often goes unmentioned is the amount of slide playing in CR albums, often rucked away in the mix and sometimes, when the record executives were not looking, the slide was brought to the fore e.g. Gods Great Bananna Skin (1992), Blue Cafe (1998).
A dip into the 'new direction' is possibly Blue Juke Box (2004) or Dancing Down the Stoney Road (2002)
Probably worth trying the snippets on downloads sites before fully dipping in. Maybe others have other ideas too
This suggests
you don't see your iPod as a means of discovering *new* favourite tracks. I often find, when listening on Shuffle, that a track plays, and I think "Oo, that's good - where did that spring from?". When I look and see, I'm often surprised to find it's from an album I thought I was fairly familiar with. A lot of tracks lurk quietly on albums, overshadowed by their flashier, gaudier neighbours, overlooked until they're suddenly displayed in isolation by the whim of Shuffle. And I rather like that.
If it's a pi$$ing contest, I lose...
Got busy with Excel as soon as I got back from work (tragic?).
No artists with 1000+ (Dylan's good and all, but...), only two artists in the 100+ club. Putting this down to youth and the fact I tend to steer clear of bootlegs (with the exception of the number 1 slot), although most of the surprises were mostly mid-table (more Bloc Party than Manics?!?) Here goes then:
Nirvana-182 (More scentless apprentices than you can shake a shattered Jagstang at)
Ramones-147 (each faster than the last one)
Radiohead-88
White Stripes-86
Muse-77
Johnny Cash-75 (I had no idea)
Paul Weller (solo)- 68
Beck-67
The Mighty Boosh-66 (do they count?)
Blur-62