Musical Faves

At last night's meting of the OGC, Brian asked me a rather difficult question: "What's your favorite band?" I gave him the first answer that come to mind: "What, this week?"

The fact is that I have a lot of different bands that I listen to, and they cover some interesting and diverse musical ground. I came up with a Top Ten list as best I could, but on my way home, I came to realize that even with that there were some groups I'd left out or temporarily forgotten about.

So today I stood before my CD collection and took a brief census. I basically included any band or performer from whom I have at least three albums. Here's the list I came up with:

David Arkenstone (10)
Asia (11*)
The Beatles (4)
Jason Boland & the Stragglers (3)
Boston (5*)
Jimmy Buffett (11)
Peter Buffett (4)
The Cars (4)
Peter Cetera (6)
Chicago (6)
Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers (3*)
Cross Canadian Ragweed (5*)
Dire Straits (7*)
The Eagles (4)
Electric Light Orchestra (3)
Enya (5)
Genesis (7)
Jon & Vangelis (3)
Kansas (14*)
Kitaro (3)
Mark Knopfler (5*)
Lana Lane (7)
Richard Marx (5)
Micky & the Motorcars (3*)
Mike + the Mechanics (6*)
The Moody Blues (4)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (3)
Queen (3)
Reckless Kelly (4*)
REO Speedwagon (3)
Rocket Scientists (4*)
Royal Crown Revue (3)
Rush (14)
Joe Satriani (7)
Michael W. Smith (4)
Squirrel Nut Zippers (4)
Sting (3)
Toto (14*)
Vangelis (12)
Wilson Phillips (3*)
Yanni (4)
Yes (12)

* These are bands for whom I have the 'complete run', that is to say, all the original studio albums the band produced. This would not include boxed sets, greatest hits collections, or concert albums.

Wow, I have over 200 CDs just by this handful of artists. I probably have about that many more in soundtracks, collections, or albums by groups I just didn't want to buy more than one or two from (or in some cases, they don't even have more than one or two). And this doesn't even begin to cover classical albums, soundtracks, musicals, comedy albums, and so forth.

A favorite band? Yeah, right.