Dylan
Grateful Dead
Elvis Presley
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Jimi Hendrix
CSN(Y)
Temptations
Beach Boys/Brian Wilson
James Brown
Supremes/Diana Ross & the Supremes/Diana Ross/Florence Ballard/Supremes&Four Tops/Supremes&Temptations/Diana&Marvin

I voted James Brown, because a lot of vinyl is still not reissued. And he recorded over 100 albums.

FELA KUTI !!

Hmm...of the artists listed, I collect Dylan, Elvis, the Stones and the Beatles. Of those four, the first three are "difficult" for various reasons (The Beatles aren't difficult to collect at all, especially with bootlegs all over the internet). Dylan has a handful of vinyl-only tracks, a larger list of unique, hard-to-find promo-only tracks, and a plethora of guest appearances on compilations, soundtracks, DVD's, and other people's albums. The Stones have a handful of 90's-era CD singles that are somewhat difficult, although not impossible, to track down; as with Dylan, the Stones have recently begun to release hugely overpriced deluxe editions. As for Elvis, the act of simply cataloging every last alternate take ever officially released over the years is daunting enough, never mind the cash involved in picking up all of these various editions.

Having said all of that, however, I have to vote for Hendrix. I just picked up that "Valleys Of Neptune" release, and in the process, went online and tried to make sense of his catalog. So much of his catalog has since gone out-of-print ("Lifelines", "Stages", "Live At Winterland"), and the sheer multitude of various mixes and edits on all of the assorted posthumous compilations is both staggering and profoundly confusing.

I would also point out that the Who should also be on the list, but for yet another reason: they have a few OOP MCA sets out there that would certainly appeal to completists--but the music on sets such as "Who's Last" and "Join Together" is of far lesser value than the price tag would indicate.

Gregory Isaacs has recorded over 150 albums, he is the King of Reggae - along with Bob Marley, of course. Reggae is the most difficult genre to collect, with so many small labels, and things don't stay in print for long. Well served by reissues, though. Some reissue labels try to make sense of the myriad releases on well thought out comps.

Those MCA OOP Who albums aren't that scarce, are they? Nor do I think they are too expensive, will have to check.

I once met a guy who boasted he owned over 600 Beach Boys/Brian Wilson CD's.

If anybody has a spare copy of the Canada-only 12" single of "Winning Ugly" let me know!

And those were just the compilations.

Diana Ross has been a bitch (to collect).

released by Always Faulty

Of your choices, i selected Grateful Dead due to QUANTITY.

I selected Elvis just because his is the catalog that has caused me the most confusion and grief. His catalog was badly organized during his lifetime and was confusing until Ernst Jorgensen and Roger Semon were able to get the series of 50s, 60s, and 70s box sets out there....even if the 70s box left off roughly 30 album tracks they could easily have included. Even if you have all that you still need to get Christmas collections, religious collections, movie soundtracks, live albums. Then the catalog gets remastered a few different times, so you end up buying much of this stuff several times. Then there are the various Legacy releases. Then the FTDs which contain alternate takes, deluxe versions of classic albums, soundboard concerts.

The entire catalog has recently been remastered by Vic Anesini of Sony and can be purchased in the form of a Franklin Mint Complete Studio Masters Collection. I would love to own the complete collection because I have a few of the Anesini masters on the FTD label and I think he did an incredible job. However, the makers of the Franklin set decided not to contain the actual studio albums...they decided to include all the masters on various "theme" cds.

I'm hoping there will be an official Sony box containing all the Anesini masters sometime this year....so I can buy all this again. ugh.

The Beach Boys and Dylan catalogs have been interesting for me as well but I haven't done that much digging through either of those beyond getting all the officially released albums and box sets.

Saint Etienne. A ton of fanclub-only discs, limited edition releases, b-sides, deluxe edition reissues, etc. etc. etc. ... and most of these UK-only releases to boot. A lot of this stuff has been released in the last three years when I simply could not afford to buy most of it. Damn.

You're driving yourself crazy, Zane. Just take the Jimbo approach and buy everything. You never hear about Jimbo stressing out.

Duke Ellington's way up there also. I currently have 318 DE TITLES (titles, Not discs; probably close to 1,000 discs with multi disc set) 22 comps he appears on, & a couple hundred more "Ellingtonia" cd's from folks like Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, Rex Stewart, etc; & there are a number of holes in my collection!

It seems like I AM buying everything. But hey, if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it.

My vote would go to Tangerine Dream.

Certainly not the most difficult, but if I were to every try becoming a Chet Baker completist I think I'd pull all my hair out... so many reissues, compilations, and imports combined with a serious lack of comprehensive discography info would make for a challenging enterprise.