Survivors!

Hopefully, this will not end up as another 'my all-time favourite albums' list, but let's see...

No New York
Blue
Sign Of The Times
My Aim Is True
Wild Gift Los Angeles
Raw Like Sushi
Take The Guitarplayer for a Ride
Immaculate Collection
Exp Jetset
VU&Nico
Entertainment!
Worst Case Scenario

Probably a different list tomorrow.

I would make copies of everything and keep the 12 discs with the best packaging ha! I win!

I like Andy's answer. Or I'd just get one hell of a harddrive and mp3 the lot.

Sign Of The Times The Ideal Crash VU & Nico Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea Kind Of Blue Odelay Vitalogy Fear Of A Black Planet Bryter Layter If You're Feeling Sinister Loveless Things We Lost In The Fire

...then I'd start a murderspree to get the rest of my records back.

But Jeff, can you explain the difference between this and one's favourite albums? Do you just mean CD singles are allowed and vinyl is excluded?

Er yes, that's partly it, Nick. For the purposes of this thread, CD = single or LP or EP or one disc from a box-set. (And this is not explicitly an anti-vinyl thread, either, I am just riffing on the 'people with only 12 CDs' threads. I leave it entirely to your conscience whether you pretend that you have on CD a record that in reality you have on vinyl or on tape or in mp3 format.)

What I suspect may be true, however - until y'all prove me wrong of course - is that if we were genuinely forced to choose which 'items' in our CD collections we couldn't do without on a day to day basis from now and for ever more, the ones we'd pick would not in fact be the ones we thought were 'the best' - maybe even not the ones we thought were our favourites. Hope that makes sense. My list to follow when I've given it some thought.

You're right about that--my favorite albums are not the 12 I would spare, exactly. I think I would be struck permanently numb with sadness at the thought that I'd never be able to listen to Uncle Wiggly's _There Was an Elk_ any more, for instance. I'd probably save a couple of records I've put out (most notably Family Fodder's _Savoir Faire_ and the wedding CD). My PoPuP CD of the Magnetic Fields' _Distant Plastic Trees/The Wayward Bus_ qualifies on both favorite-music and favorite-object grounds. Disc 3 of James Brown's _Star Time_, so I'd always have something I'm in the mood to listen to. The Fall's _Hex Enduction Hour_, which is not my favorite of their records but is the one I'd most want to hold on to for the sake of my future self. Etc.

12 copies of Depeche Mode "Speak and Spell"

Is anyone else here particularly fickle?

I'd keep the 12 I'm listening to at the moment. Nothing beats the buzz of falling in love with a cd for the first time. Even if you end up hating it 3 weeks later. Perhaps I show my age here but I'm sure theres some people who know what I'm talking about.

I hear you,Ronan - there's nothing like getting used to a great album.

anything on 3" cd.

Jeff w,

Please clarify: After being stripped of all our CDs but 12, would we be able to start replacing the others, or would we be limited to these 12 forever.

i am assuming this as these are the only twelve cds i can ever have
MY TWELVE
01) The Goldberg Varitions -performed by glenn gould
02) Hyantihs and Thistles - The Sixths
03) John Cage-Selections for prepared piano
04) Bob Dylan-Blood on the tracks
05) Soundtrack-Umbrellas of Cherbourg
06) Ute Lemper-Berlin Cabaret Songs
07) Momus-Little Red SOng Book
08) Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
09) Serge Gainsbourg-Couler de la Cafe .
10) Live at Folsom - Johnny and June Carter Cash
11) Pulp-This is Hardcore
12) Nina Simone- Vintage Collection


these are not nessc. the best but i think all my emotions could be covered .

DeRayMi - I think Douglas W has got the idea: what 12 CDs do you currently own that you'd really miss the most if you had to do without them from this moment on?

Here's my list. I solved the vinyl problem just by ignoring my fairly substantial vinyl collection.

"Summer Dreams" (Beach Boys singles compilation)
Shostakovich Symphony No.11 (National Symphony Orchestra/Rostropovich)
YesYears, Disc 2 (from YesYears Box Set, covers period 1971-74)
"Classic Public Enemy" (compilation)
"De La Soul Is Dead"
"Feral Pop Frenzy" - Even As We Speak
"Refried Ectoplasm" - Stereolab (compilation)
"Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night" - Stereolab
"Protean"/"Taal Zamaan" - Transglobal Underground (single) "InSides" - Orbital
"Christmas" - Low
"Vespertine"

1. Buzzcocks - A Different Kind Of Tension

2. The Zombies - Odessy and Oracle (german import with 28 tracks!)

3. Vic Godard and The Subway Sect - disc one of "20 odd years"

4. The Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society (stereo and mono on one CD)

5. Kraftwerk - The Man Machine

6. Various Artists - 'Tears in Their Eyes', disc one of the Factory 'Palatine' box-set.

7. Nuggets from Nuggets - 20 trax from the Nuggets box-set.

8. Andrew Weatherall/Various Artists - 9 O'Clock Drop

9. Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

10. Don Letts/Various Artists - Dread Meets Punk Rockers Uptown

11. Various Artists - Disc One of Motown Gold

12. Madonna - The Immaculate Collection

why should i be forced to give up my cds? except to pay my dealer off? dont make sense. just buy them back a week later.

i keep all those what are real music. that means all of them.

Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Out There a Minute (This is one that has grown from being "Well, this is kind of disappointing" when I first got it over ten years ago to "This is amazing," for the last few years at least. The first track is probably my least favorite. I've even gotten to like the couple noisier, chaotic tracks on here.)

The Beatles: White Album (I wish I could compress the songs that I like onto one single disc, but I guess this will have to count as two. Would probably pick more Beatles, but my Revolver is on cassette and Hey Jude is cassette only, and my collection is spotty.)

Billie Holiday: Disc 1 of The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve

Oum Kalthoum: Ana Fe Entezarek; Awatt Eny/Ya Zalemny (for Ya Zalemny); Lumiere Sur Le Desert, which did nothing for me for years but has become a favorite; Roba'eyat el Khayam

Frankie Ruiz: Nacimineto y Recuerdos (I've been on this Frankie Ruiz kick for a while)

Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe: El Juicio

Jose (Cheo) Feliciano: Cheo

Frpp & Eno: No Pussyfooting

I find this list kind of embarrassing. I feel sad that I would not include anything from my punk/indie listening in the 80?s, but none of it, that I own on CD anyway, seems essential.

But Jeff.... you picked "Feral Pop Frenzy".... good God man you are a genius and nothing less. A perfect collection of off-kilter pop at it's oddest. But it wouldn't be in my 12 - it would be a close run thing though. If there were 20, it would be in there. I'll keep thinking of my 12 and write them in when I'm good and ready and have argued them out in my head.

Alacran, FWIW, of your choices, I like (to some extent): Sign Of The Times, VU & Nico, Odelay (not much though), Fear of a Black Planet. Don't recognize: Ideal Crash; Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea; Bryter Layter; If Your Feeling Sinister; Loveless; Things We Lost in the Fire. I'm probably more interested in listening to Prince at this point than VU, PE, or Beck.

Sonic Youth - Evol
Led Zeppelin - 4th album
La Monte Young - Well-Tuned Piano, disc 1
Ravi Shankar - Raga From Music Today
Maryanne Amacher - Sound Characters
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
Deep Purple - Machine Head or The Stooges - Fun House
Edgard Varese - Complete Works, disc 1
La Monte Young and the Theatre of Eternal Music Brass Band - The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer
Anton Webern - Complete Works, disc 2

Just saw yr list, Jeff - TWO Stereolab? TWO?

Yeah, so shoot me. My secret vice revealed at last :) (hitherto only Ned knew). I very nearly left out Cobra even tho' I own THREE COPIES!!! of it, but in the end I couldn't do it. The Shangri La's would have been the alternative choice BTW.

After becoming heartily sick of The 'Lab, I was given a copy of Sound Dust for my birthday, which has reawakened my interest *slightly*. The brass sounds less timid for one thing. For some obscure reason I kept a copy of 'Cobra..' when I cleared some of their stuff out, and the last time I played it, it wasn't quite as dull as I remembered. I still didn't get through to the end though. The only stuff I play reasonably often is parts of Refried Ectoplasm and 'Iron Man' or 'Get Carter' from Aluminum Tunes.

You should've picked The Shangri-Las, though ;)