Who has the record for Most songs recorded by one single artist?

Answer 1

I can't offer a definite answer but I can offer a few suggestions. As far as Classical Music is concerned, I think it is generally accepted that Georg Telemann has the largest surviving catalogue. I don't know the total running time for all of them but as J.S. Bach's total works take up 160+ CDs at an hour or more in length each, it can be assumed that Telemann's works would require more than a long weekend to get through. Simon Sechter has the greatest number of works credited to him but many are extremely short. Again, I have no idea as to the total running time. The thing counting against these composers is that a large amount of the work is unrecorded. Every single thing that Bach and Mozart have written has been recorded, re-recorded and recorded again - sometimes in ultra-groovy Moog versions. Keep those in mind for my next birthday! Their discography is huge - that's assuming you're counting just one version of each composition. Unfortunately for Mr Telemann and Mr Sechter, they are not held in the same esteem and therefore a lot of compositions are unrecorded and therefore may not contribute to an actual 'discography'. I think you have to work by slightly different rules with classical composers. Ennio Morricone has an enviable output to his name. Unlike Telemann, just about all of it still survives. And he is still producing more. I also question how much of his output is actually commercially available as well. Any CD of his score for a film is only going to include the pieces that constitute something approaching an actual song or at least a substantial piece of music. The actual film scores would contain many short pieces of incidental music that would never make a CD. Do these pieces actually count in any consideration of his 'discography'. I also imagine much of Ennio Morricone's film (and TV) work has not actually been released on CD. Can I give a straight answer here? No way! Why would I do that? That's just silly. Another possibility is Merzbow. The are 300+ albums to the Merzbow name. Again, I don't know the total running time of his works. The one CD I have is 50 minutes. If you took that as average for the complete works, you'd require more than 10 days listening without a single break to get through it. I think most people would have trouble getting through one CD of Merzbow. My final suggestion for the largest discography would be R. Stevie Moore. Extremely prolific. He's released massive amounts of music that he has recorded from the 60's till 2008 or so - and then he announced his retirement. But still released more regardless. He has offered literally hundreds of CDs through his website and the majority of them are doubles. The thing counting against Mr Moore being the proud owner of the largest discography is the amount of repitition in the catalogue. Also, do live albums count if all they contain is further versions of previously released work? Many of Mr Moore's albums also contain a number of skits and satirical pieces that are not actually music. Would these count towards the total timing of his complete works? What about his spoken word pieces? So many questions and far be it from me to provide answers. As I've stated a number of times, I haven't got any sort of timing on the total works for these artists - and they're just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Who really expects the WikiAnswers to be 100% correct anyway?

Answer 2

Elvis Presley