Are you a Sonic Youth completist?
 

Do you strive to own everything Sonic Youth have ever done? Did you pay $550 for that copy of 'Dirty', with the writing in Swedish? If there was an ultra-rare 'Satan is Boring' super-supermix that was ten seconds longer than the normal supermix, would you get on a plane to collect a copy?

Tell us about your colection, if you like. Or don't bother, it's up to you.

Everything released on CD (except SYR3), Sonic Death, some solo stuff, and lots of live shows. It was definitely compulsive (completist) buying, but I get like that with bands I really like (first Pink Floyd, then Beatles, Radiohead, Pavement, Tool, and SY).

I would consider myself a completist in as much as when I love a band, I want to hear everything they've done. And this goes for Sonic Youth.

But I don't want the anything that doesn't include new recordings. So I can happily live without the mis-pressings, ltd edition digipacks, picture discs etc. if they don't have any new music on.

i kinda buy what i can afford really, i'm not that interested in singles, i dont buy CD Singles at all, i think they are kinda a rip off, if i like a song by any band i'll just but the album that its on, i do have all the SYR and all that, thats kinda different.

I dunno.

Does owning 100+ SY and related items count as completist?

i want to be a completist, but i cant afford it.
i have all their main studio albums and a few of them on vinyl too, i have alot of their CD singles mostly from around the goo/dirty era, i have a few of their singles on vinyl too.

i dont have any of the SYR's or rare stuff like the silver sessions or made in usa, but i want them.

i have mostly all stuff they did downloaded except live vids etc, which im trying to find out how to save from youtube to my pc. i'm going to buy all the albums and stuff around, idk probably off ebay, or in record and tape traders, i cant seem to find all the albums in best buy cause they only have recent stuff. ;|

I buy what I can afford, no more or less is me.

I don't feel the need to own the same thing on multple formats, so I'm unlikely to double up on stuff, but I admit that if I were to see a nice old ltd edition of something, I'd consider it.

i've never been a completist with any band if you exclude getting near that point with The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground.I don't really see the point in owing everything a band has done and then not playing the thing because you don't want to ruin the package.Besides,my best friend back home has a record shop and such a huge record collection that his parents gave him the loft on top of their house to store them all.He owns every single thing that Current 93,Nurse with Wound and Death in June have ever put out(and that's saying something).I owe him for getting to know SY as i used to sell him porn and music magazines when i did a stint as a newsagent and in return he used to lend me tons of records.

I agree, wholeheartedy.

edit: how can a poll have twelve votes, but only have been viewed nine times ?!?!?

Isn't it 9 replies. The shy ones vote but don't say anything!

verging on completionist.... at times... and then it all seems absurd and i spend my money on records i haven't heard before... but i feel another completionist streak welling up inside me...

Jeezus H Christ on a bike. The First NWW album goes for extortionate amounts.

I think the only way to be a completist is if you get into a band early on in their career. I got every Placebo release from the first album period because it's easier to get ltd editions and such when no one knows the band. I have everything Urusei Yatsura did, but that's only 3 albums worth of multiple format. At this stage in the game, there's absolutely no way I could ever find a complete SY collection.

I have got all of the Blast First LP's, the Geffen CD's, The SYR series (mostly on CD, but when I find them all on LP I'll probably sell/ give them to someone on here) and a couple of 12"s, but nothing that important.

As if he would even let me touch it................

And our friendship is so good that i have been known to hunt for Yellow 6 coloured vynils around London for him.

I am a backcatalog kind of man, but I don't buy stuff I hardly like, and I like buying stuff cheap, so I just try to be patient and search the internet. Just this year I was able to buy the beautiful Nine Swimming Pools (the book) for 37$ (inc. shipment) whereas the past couple of years I've had numerous occasions of buying it for 450$.

Urusei Yatsura maaannn!I used to find their promos for such cheap prices that at one point i was buying singles and all.They had some good tunes but they didn't really do it for me.Yummy Fur sounded more exotic to me(even though they didn't in reality).At one point i had it in my mind that i was gonna buy only and exclusively scottish bands for the rest of my life.

I am in the limits of affordability and availability. In the stores of my country you can only get regular CD albums. and I don't consider purchasing rare items and CD singles via internet THAT exciting.

that means that I have all the regular albums on original CDs.
and that's about it.

If you want to sell anything on, I'm actually sad enough to own more than one copy of things... 3 copies of their first album on vinyl, because one day one of them will break.

Wasn't chappy chap out of Franz Ferdinand in the Yummy Fur? Or did I entirely imagine that?

There was a great golden age of Scottish pop - Arab Strap, Mogwai, Delgadoes, Yummy Fur, Urusei Yatsura, early Belle and Sebastian, the Pastels... Fuck me, do you remember Prolapse? No one ever remembers them, they were fucking ace. I remember Mick (who's a professional archaeologist, apparently) getting us drinks when we were lowly 14 year olds. They gave to me and signed a 7" for me with a load of strangeness. Excellent band, lovely (albeit incomprehensible) people.