I was on my way to work today listening to The Rising, and I realized I’m about the only person I know that never bought Born in the USA. Staying along those lines I also realized I’m the only person I know to have never owned Joshua Tree. I know all the songs, but I’ve never had a copy of either album, and it feels like I’m the only one living in Western Civilization that hasn’t.
So what albums does it seem everyone has that you’ve never picked up?
I know every track on Licensed to Ill like the back of my hand, but I’m certain I’ve never owned a copy.
Define “everyone.”
I know, I’m just being a stick in the mud, but my point is serious. There are 300 million people in this country. If an album has sold 15 million copies over the years, that’s considered phenomenal… but that means 95% of the people in this country have never bought it.
In other words, there is no such thing as a record, a movie, a book, or anything else that “everybody” likes but you.
Now, as a practical matter, we tend to socialize almost exclusively with people who are just like us, or at least, very much like us. For that reason, we tend to assume (wrongly) that the people in our circles are typical of the world at large. For instance, I’m a 44 year old white male nerd who was in high school in the 1970’s. At that time, it sure seemed as if “everyone” loved Monty Python. But as the Python members could tell you, “everyone” didn’t like them. THeir TV show and their movies were never more than cult hits. If “everyone” had liked them, they’d be incredibly rich, and Eric Idle wouldn’t have to do things like “Casper” to pay the bills.
But of course, I was a white male teenage nerd who hung out largely with other white male teenage nerds, all of whom had Monty Python’s songs and sketches memorized. That gave me a very skewed idea of what “everyone” liked.
Among my friends, “everyone” liked Yes and ELP. It doesn’t follow that more than a small percentage of the population liked them. And so it is with every singer, every band, every book, and every movie. A “smash hit” TV series like “Desperate Housewives” gets about 25 million viewers. That’s, what, 1 in 12 Americans? It’s a large number, but nowhere near a majority.
So, nobody should ever ask “Am I the only one who doesn’t like ____?” Because no matter what you put in the blank, you can be sure you’re not the only one. No matter what you put in the blank, most people won’t like it.
Another GNR disparity between my husband and I is the fact that I never owned a copy of “Appetite for Destruction”. I’d like to say it’s an age gap thing (my husband is nine years my senior) but a lot of my contemporaries own it.
You’ll pry my Led Zeppelin IV from my cold, dead hands though. 
I somehow know the entirety of Weezer’s first album, but I never have gotten around to buying it yet. I do have Pinkerton, which I love. Maybe I’ll get it next time I place an Amazon order I’ll pick it up - it’s only $12.
Another album I know practically by heart but never bought is Nirvana’s Unplugged session. In fact, I’m probably one of the few “music people” that I know who doesn’t have any Nirvana albums whatsoever (though I’m also very familiar with In Utero. I’m also one of the few who doesn’t own any Smashing Pumpkins albums, though strangely my dad has Siamese Dream (he loves “Disarm,” and I don’t blame him). In middle school, it seemed like everyone had Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
I’ve never even heard of most of the Albums mentioned thus far in this thread, so obviously I don’t own them.
Puts up a sign that says “Welcome to Squaresville: Pop 1”
Except for, um…
The, um…
Um…
The Beatles. I do not own any records by the Beatles. I have mp3s of the songs I like, but I do not own an album.
There. I’ve said it.
What about the Reverse? I’m starting to think I’m the only one on earth who likes certain things.
Oh, I know that feeling well! And I can’t reassure you (or myself) on that score.
I merely point out that, in pop culture, a book, song, TV show or movie can be deemed a phenomenon or a blockbuster even if only a tiny fraction of the country pays it any mind. A movie that earns $200 million bucks in the U.S. is considered a smash hit- but average ticket prices are, what… 8 bucks now? That means only 25 million tickets have to be sold for a movie to be a blockbuster. Heck, if a mere 15 million teenage girls like an Olsen Twins movie, and large chunk of them go back to see it again, you’ve got a “smash hit” on your hands, even though just in in 20 Americans has seen it.
NOTHING is as popular as you’d think it is.
I’m sure if we put our heads together we can come up with a common, non-food item that the vast majority of Americans have owned at one point or another – I respective of whether they actually paid for it – that has a practical use that fulfills a common need and possesse inherent aesthetic and artistic value that people will have an opinion on.
Wal-Mart bags. (Very handy!)
How’s about the new redesign of the twenty dollar bill? (Love it!)
Microsoft products? (Except for Windows XP – Meh.)
AOL CD-ROMs? (Meh.)
The Yellow Pages? (Not since the internet.)
Reader’s Digest? (I like it, but I like to read.)
We start naming ubiquitous American processed foods like Pepsi and McDonalds, i’m sure there’s lots more things we can name.
Bullshit.
Everybody owns The Eagles’ Greatest Hits at one time in their lives.
Except me.
Um…
I think you just qualified as The SDMB Freak[sup]TM[/sup]
Did you happen to notice that in the thread title I included the qualifier “It seems”?
No kidding–I feel this way about music in general. There was a blog meme a while back along the lines of “things your friends go on about that you just don’t see the appeal of”, and bloggers were mentioning bands like Interpol and the Fiery Furnaces. I just wondered, where does one get friends that go on about bands like Interpol or the Fiery Furnaces? I mean, consider Wilco, who are not exactly confined to hipster status anymore; I can count the number of people I know (IRL) who own a Wilco album on one finger.
Most people more than once. This is supposedly the reason for its place at the top (IIRC) of the best-selling-of-all-time list; it came along at just the right time for everyone to buy it first on vinyl, then on cassette, and then again on CD.
Hey guys! Quit overanalyzing and taking all the fun out of the thread. I thought duffer was perfectly clear in stating the objectives of the thread. Obviously, he didn’t literally mean that “you are the only person in the world not to ever own this album”; rather “what album does a large percentage of the group you run with/people you know own that you don’t?” I’d hate to see such a promising thread crushed by pedantism. 
Really? Several of my friends are fans of Interpol (I’m not, though I’ll confess that “Slow Hands” may be the best single of last year) and almost all in my close group of friends has at least a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (me included), and a couple have other Wilco albums. Besides, I consider both Interpol and Wilco to be more in the range of “pop-indie,” in that they’re “alternative” but you can buy their albums at Target. I dunno; maybe you’re just not hanging out with the right people.
I’ve never ever owned an Eagles recording of any kind.
I also never owned Led Zeppelin IV, although when I was married my wife had it.
In terms of “went to the store and shelled out 18 bucks for a CD,” I currently own no Rolling Stones albums (had Tattoo You on vinyl for two years in the early eighties until a friend destroyed it for me), no AC/DC (same story as above, but the album was Flick Of The Switch, no big loss). For Christmas in 1984, I asked for the Eagles’ Desperado and received, to my great disgust, the first hits album (which my mom played in the car so much that the felt pad came off…that took about a year, and I never bothered replacing the damned thing).
Never owned Born In The U.S.A. or any Springsteen, for that matter. I’ve never owned a Guns ‘N’ Roses album, either. All my friends in college seemed to have that Poison album with “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” for me a song whose appeal was severely limited in the first place…so I dodged THAT bullet. I know a lot of people who had Jewel’s first album, but I couldn’t muster much interest after the first song, so, no. No current pop tarts have clogged my collection, thankfully.
Tried to get the fourth Led Zeppelin album during my record club days, but they accidentally sent me III in the sleeve, a mistake I’m still thankful for…I’ll take “Gallows Pole” over almost anything on IV (the exception being “Four Sticks”).
I hear enough of most of these albums at work that I’ll probably never own any of them, either.
Now, if we get into dubs of albums and not actual went-to-the-store-and-bought-them versions, I have a cassette dub of about half of The Joshua Tree. Somewhere. Probably at my mom’s house. Likewise a couple of Springsteen songs from “Tunnel Of Love” (and I literally mean a couple…“Valentine’s Day” and “Ain’t Got You”). I also dubbed about five songs from Exile On Main Street. I don’t listen to most of these for the same reason listed above: I hear this stuff all the time at work in one way or another, and would rather spend the time listening to something else when it’s recreational.
I don’t have Born in the USA, which is no surprise since I don’t like Bruce Springsteen. I also don’t have The Joshua Tree, which is kind of a surprise since I like that album a lot.
It seemed like everybody in the world had a copy of Boston except me, so I got one over the Apple Music Store.
Other ones I don’t have:
Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon
Any Weezer album
Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt
Rain Dogs by Tom Waits (could’ve sworn I’d bought that one by now, but apparently not)
Back in Black by AC/DC
You guys missed a couple of obvious ones…
Frampton comes Alive…Peter Frampton
Rumours…Fleetwood Mac
Thriller …Michael Jackson
Pretty much all of them. My music collection is somewhat eclectic and lacklustre.