How many recording artists are there where you own every single album or at least almost every album from them? For the vast majority of artists I like I'm content with just having their greatest hits collection and that's it. There are a few rare ones though where I have all or almost all of their albums.

The Beatles
Genesis
Pink Floyd
Wings
Paul McCartney
Billy Joel

I have those and also (all or almost all):

Foo Fighters
Green Day
Nirvana
Stone Temple Pilots
Offspring
Weird Al
Phil Collins
Bush
Aerosmith
Alanis Morissette
Audioslave
Garbage
Nine Inch Nails
Simon and Garfunkel
Traveling Wilburys
Velvet Revolver


I think that's it.



The Jedi Master

I'm pretty good with "Greatest Hits" albums too.

My favorite bands I think I own two or three albums. The closest I came was having I think the first four Def Leppard albums...until they started sounding old and lost their hard edge. Might have the first four Bon Jovi...again, until they got too poppy. These were all bought around 20-30 years ago.

So, I'm pretty confident that I don't own any band's complete collection...unless you count a Led Zeppelin master box set I got as a gift about 20 years ago. I didn't ask for it, and not sure why it was given to me...lol. Nothing against Zepp, they rock out some awesome songs, but I really was never THAT into them.

I have a few albums from the Foo Fighters, AC/DC, STP, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Beatles, Tool, etc.

On the hardcore side I have pretty much everything by

Heart
Magnum
Laibach
Front 242
Electric Light Orchestra
Muse
Radiohead

yeah, I know... weird

I have a many bands whose albums I have all bar a view of their albums. Usually just missing an album from a reunion.

The B-52's
Babes in Toyland
Band of Susans
The Beatles
Big Black
The Black Crowes
The Blue Aeroplanes
The Byrds
Camper van Beethoven
Cracker
Cream
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Crippled Black Phoenix
Crosby Stills Nash & Young
Sandy Denny
The Doors
Dream Syndicate
Bob Dylan - 31, so missing quite a few
Fairport Convention
Free
Fugazi
Peter Gabriel
Genesis
David Gilmour
Green on Red
Green River
Jimi Hendrix
Hole
Husker Du
Jethro Tull
Led Zeppelin
Mudhoney
Naked Prey
The Nice
Nirvana
Nomeansno
Pearl Jam
Pink Floyd
Robert Plant
Porcupine Tree
Queens of The Stone Age
R.E.M.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Riverside
The Rolling Stones
Rollins Band
The Screaming Blue Messiahs
Screaming Trees
Siouxsie & The Banshees
Sonic Youth
Soundgarden
Stone The Crows
Talking Heads
Ten Years After
Thin White Rope
Richard Thompson
Tool
The Who
Wipers
Wishbone Ash
The Yardbirds
Yes
Neil Young
Frank Zappa - 52 of 62 official releases

Love Front 242, good taste!

Hardcore fan is having a tattoo of favourite band!

I draw the limit at all studio albums. There is no single artist I have all live, greatest hits and whatever albums.
(why buy a greatest hit album when I have all the studio albums? I also prefer watching the band live, not listening to a live album).

But plenty I have all the studio albums of.

Queen (greatest band ever in the world)
Bruce Springsteen
A-ha
Bon Jovi
Alice Cooper
Kiss
Iron Maiden
Nightwish
Blind Guardian
Loreena McKinnit
Clannad
Running Wild
Therion
Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire/Luca Turelli's Rhapsody
Anathema
Amorphis
Genesis (even Calling All Stations)
Phil Collins

To name some

Everything...

MUSE

Almost everything...

Mike Oldfield (up to a certain date).I have 4 different versions of my fave LP Hergest Ridge.

Grandaddy

It's not often I can find a group where I like almost all of their stuff but those 3,yes.

I really tried to like that album but just couldn't. I gave it several attempts.

Calling All Stations is an acquired taste. I like about half the songs. Congo is quite good for instance. It's just not traditional Genesis. The loss of Phil affected the group far more than the loss of Steve or Peter.

I buy live albums for the (usually) alternative versions of the songs they perform. The live version of Invisible Touch, for example, is a hybrid of the original release and the 12" remix done shortly afterwards and I prefer it.

The only greatest hits albums I own are of groups that either I don't like enough to buy their albums, or are because they released songs that were never on albums. Phil Collins is one.
None of his albums have Separate Lives, True Colors, Against All Odds, or Easy Lover. Only the live and greatest hits albums had those.
Had to get Nirvana's to get You Know You're Right. Had to get Wings' to get Hi Hi Hi, etc etc.



The Jedi Master

+1


I guess overall I could be called a casual music fan because for the vast majority of bands/artists out there, I'm fine with just having a CD of their well known hit songs.

I come pretty close to being a hardcore fan with Rush, Yes, Genesis, and The Police. It's not so much how many albums I own, it's more my long-term continued interest in their music and backgrounds.

For me, the definition of hard core would be someone who bought all those Pearl Jam concert albums. Remember the ones they made from that tour where each show got a separate release?
Most artists go on tour and they take the best performances from each song and compile them, so you'll get one song in Rome, another in London, one in NYC, one in Rio, etc.

Not the Jam! Each show was released separately, despite the setlists almost never varying. So what? Buy them! BUY THEM ALL! YOU ARE A FAN YOU WILL BUY EACH ONE.



The Jedi Master

Pearl Jam definitely qualifies as one of those bands where I'm fine with just having a greatest hits CD.

I got a handful of MP3s from someone's PC almost 15 years ago and that's still all I have.
Pearl Jam is my least favorite of the big grunge bands of the 90s.



The Jedi Master

There is a reason there never was an album after it, after all.

Worst of the Genesis albums

It was a rebuilding album. Had they stuck it out I think they would've had a good album or two ahead of them. However, Mike and Tony were too old to want to go through that grind again.

I was really hoping after the reunion for the tour and the reissues that they were going to work with Phil again on something new, but his injury and retirement 4 years later killed that. Of course, after 5 years of that I think he's grown bored with it and come back out of retirement, but I think his drumming days are done.

Still, it was what he wrote the drums to do that was so unique. A good drummer can play the drums like Phil, it's just that no one can write a drum line like he can.



The Jedi Master