I’ve got a shitload of music by the Bachs (J.S. mostly), 2.3 days worth if you played it all back to back, but I probably haven’t added much to the Bach family livelihood seeing as they were dead quite awhile before I bought any of their stuff.
Lessee…
15 Genesis albums
12 by The Who
13 NRBQ albums (can’t say I contributed much to the group’s income, seeing as how all but two of these were bought used).
I do have a Gary Glitter album but that acquisition dates from many years before his unfortunate um, brush with the law, and anyway it was a radio station freebie.
For me, the musicians I have supported the most are probably the members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I’m not even going to try to count every cd I have of theirs, but it’s many dozens.
In terms of living composers, I have more cds by Elliott Carter than any other living composer.
In terms of dead composers, I have more J.S. Bach than anyone else, followed by Mahler and Stravinsky.
Bob Dylan, easily. I’m not a completist, but I count around 24 albums.
Van Morrison might be next, except most of them are on cassette and date back to my teenage years when tapes were $6 a pop, so Loreena McKennitt might have the edge in monetary terms.
Well, Peter Hammill apparently has 57 official releases on cd (including VdGG albums) and I have them all. I also have the earliest 28 of them on vinyl, making 85 items. Then there’s various tapes and other vinyl releases of varying legitimacy, some of which he might have received royalties for.
And other artists’ projects he’s appeared on - David Thomas, Robert Fripp, the Stranglers, others…
And don’t forget the other group menbers’ solo stuff; I don’t have it all, but that’s another dozen or so.
Trailing behind are Mark Eitzel - 30 maybe
Beach Boys - again, around 30
Bunny Wailer - 20 or so, I expect
X / John Doe - again, around 20
Grateful Dead - um, 15 - 20 official releases at least, I’d say, and an unknown number of live tapes and cds…
I hadn’t thought about classical - for me, it’s the Vienna Philharmonic with various conductors over the years.
For dead composers, it’s Beethoven by a long way - I still have the Beethoven Bicentennial Collection, offered by Time-Life records and Deutsche Grammophon in 1970, on vinyl, along with many CDs collected over the years, including chamber music, symponies and piano works. Total vinyl and CD collection would weigh in at ~150.
Living composer is more of a challenge - I keep thinking of people and then realizing, ‘Oh, no - he’s died, I forgot’. Leo Brouwer is in the lead at the moment at about 10 discs - yes, I know most non-guitarists would barely have heard of him.
I do have a couple of Elliott Carter discs - he was someone that had me thinking ‘Are you sure he’s still with us? He was born in 1908, after all…’, but while confirming that he’s still alive, I found this image linked to his name because of this article on OperaChic. (Scroll down to the article dated August 6th, 2008. All images safe for work, if a little incongruous with Elliott Carter.)
