To begin with, I'd say rock and metal are my favourite music genres. Rock is a broad category that can include everything from Beatles and Alan Parsons Project to Blue Oyster Cult and Burton Cummings. You'll find those artists on my record shelf, along with many others.
I won't list off every album or even artist in my small but growing music library, but a handful of rockers I've got are:
Cheap Trick, The Doors, Elton John, Elvis, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Journey, Kiss, Max Webster, The Police, Tom Petty, Supertramp, Van Halen, The Who, Yes, and ZZ Top.
There are artists in the rock category that verge on pop here and there: for example, Elton's pre-80's tunes were rock (with slight variations), while his later stuff went more pop; Elvis was all over the map... from early rock'n'roll to gospel to ballads and pop, and so on; and The Police were sort of lumped into the New Wave movement where their pop-rock hybrid blended with other influences.
My Buggles, Devo, and Cars records would also fall under the New Wave classification, the first two a bit more pop, while the Cars are probably more rock. Also Marianne Faithfull, at least on her Broken English album. And The Monks, a Brit band with a catchy punk-pop flavour. New Wave seemed to define a time period - late 70's and into the 80's - more than a style of music, since the range of sounds out of that era was so diverse.
It's easy to see the hard rock acts in there that might be mistaken for metal, but I prefer to differentiate. Guys like Kiss and Van Halen often fall victim to that, but not in my house.
Metal, too, is comprised of countless subgenres, though most of them came about within the past twenty years or so. My interests in this department are more old-school, leaning toward traditional (70's) heavy metal like Black Sabbath, Scorpions, and Judas Priest. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal gets a tiny bit of representation on my shelf in the form of Motorhead and Accept, while Megadeth and Voivod are the only thrashers I've got on vinyl so far. And the one modern metal band I've got on LP is Ghost, though they are frequently termed hard rock. Remember, this is just my vinyl collection, still in its infancy... my CD shelves are far better loaded with metal.
Then there are my pop records , which include The Monkees, Partridge Family, ABBA, and the Bay City Rollers. So far, just those favourites from my youth. Actually, ABBA is a newer interest that I've cultivated, though I sort of liked a few of their disco-ish tunes back in the day.
The only exclusively dance-pop album I've got on vinyl is Kylie Minogue's Golden, one of the very few new (2018) releases I bought. Pretty much all of Kylie's other albums command seriously high prices on the used vinyl market. Too much for my wallet, but I'm always on the lookout for a deal.
I've got a smattering of 70's K-Tel hits compilations that include a cross-section of rock, pop, and disco (among other hybrid genres)... often all together on one record. On those, you'd see pop artists like Captain and Tennille, Eric Carmen, Pilot, and Hall & Oates.
Also on those K-Tel comps were disco tracks by the likes of Bee Gees, KC & the Sunshine Band, Sylvers, and more. Equally dance-oriented were the funk and soul artists like Earth, Wind & Fire, War, Commodores, and Ohio Players. These timeless tracks still hold up well, putting to shame what passes for dance music today.
The rockers on the K-Tel discs include Heart, Chilliwack, Prism, Moxy, and Rush, just to name a few.
Now on to the country section: I don't claim to like much of this genre, but the older music, mostly from the 70's often appeals to me. And the few country records I've got are by artists who have crossover appeal, so some of them might be tagged country-rock, country-pop, or whatever. I've got some Marty Robbins, Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, Linda Ronstadt, Anne Murray, and Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Of those, I'd say the Emmylou and Ronstadt are my faves. The only reason I bought some of those LPs was that they were ridiculously cheap (maybe a dollar or so) at a thrift shop.
The one-and-only folk album on my shelf is Summertime Dream by Gordon Lightfoot. It's hard to argue with that choice, as the man is a living legend... and he's from my hometown. Good ol' Gord.
Though I have a decent bunch of classical CDs, I rarely play those any more. My mood just doesn't take me there much these days. So it was an easy choice to pass on adding much classical to my vinyl shelf. I did recently find a used box set of Beethoven's nine symphonies in great condition. I've long been a big fan of ol' Ludwig Van, so this seemed essential to me. And I just might leave it at that for classical LPs. We'll see.
With jazz, I've got Oscar Peterson's classic Night Train album. A chillaxin' set of piano that is perfect for almost any low-key occasion. Not long ago, I snagged my absolute favourite jazz album of all time, Time Out, by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Both on vinyl. As with classical, I very rarely am in the mood for jazz, and tend to ignore even my decent-sized CD collection of the genre.
There is one unusual compilation album that I'm happy to have in my collection. It belonged to my grandfather and came down to me... a Columbia Records promotional disc called Q... On The Aisle, a cool mix of jazz, classical, and easy listening from probably the late 50's or early 60's.
My one comedy album is Bob & Doug McKenzie's Great White North, a 1981 offshoot of the Canadian TV sketch show SCTV. Never played, and still in mint condition, I'll hang onto this. At Christmas, I sometimes put on my CD version of it, just for kicks.
Though I have several dozen movie soundtracks on CD, my only ones on vinyl are mainly from the early 60's James Bond films. The music from the first four Bond films ever, starring Sean Connery, contain the classic spy themes we all know and love today. Much imitated and rarely matched, this is the real thing. These records may never hit my turntable, though. They're old, old... and I'd rather preserve them. Well, maybe someday I'll play them once through, just to say I did. There is also the Moonraker musical score, from 1985. Excellent music, but as with the Bond oldies, I'd rather put on my CD copies of these albums instead.
And that concludes this overview of genres within my record collection. It's possible I'll dabble in some new genres sometime, but for now, I'm sticking to my favourite types of music on vinyl. Now off to spin some tunes...
No comments:
Post a Comment