Only getting one artist for the rest of your life

This is a thought experiment prompted by a work discussion.

For the rest of your life you have to only enjoy {music, films, books} by one creative person, but you get all the eligible stuff. You get all their solo and collaborative work, but they have to be credited creatively on each one. This means my version of the question excludes ill-defined terms like Producer, but includes film composers (Williams, Zimmer), cinematographers (The Deaks, Gordon Willis) or technical people like Rob Bottin, Tom Savini or Ben Burtt.

Some examples:
1) Music: If you pick Paul McCartney you get all the Beatles output as well as the Frog Chorus
2) Films: If you pick Client Eastwood you get his acting and directorial output
3) Films: If you pick Sheb Wooley you get every movie which uses the Wilhelm Scream

So what do you do? My feeling is that you aim for variety rather than your strictly favourite stuff, pushing toward people who have had a long, varied career covering different kinds of things. My choices are:

1) Music: Beethoven or David Bowie
2) Films: Max Von Sydow or Robert Duvall
3) Books: Iain Banks

Pfewww...

Probably will have other names in mind within in hour, for now

1) David Bowie (along with his readings, audio books and all)
2) Sylvia Saint
3) Jack Vance

Stanley Kubrick
Robert Plant
Bruce Dickinson

That's a lot of good media.

J K Simmons. Oz, Spider-Man and Portal 2!

Brian Eno.

For an artistic artist, I'd choose myself. Create my own bad versions of The Last Supper, Saturn Devouring His Son, Garden of Earthly Death lights, Campbell Soup cans, etc..

Music film and books? Umm... book would be the writers of the Bible, because it's the ultimate written precursor to science fiction, horror, Steel Magnolias, and mythology. Movies, Sam Raimi or the Coen brothers. Music? Type O Negative, because I'm a weirdo.

I think I did this wrong.

Damon Albarn

Movies - anything with a John Williams song or score
Books - JK Rowling. Maybe I’ll finish one of her mysteries
Music - this is a hard one. Maybe Prince

I’d have to think a lot for me....but I can guarantee it’d be Prince for my husband for music. He’s watching a YouTube video of behind the scenes Prince stuff

Janelle Monae

Also, Clint Mansell - you get quite a few films plus Mass Effect 3 and the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror.

Concave wrote:

Also, Clint Mansell - you get quite a few films plus Mass Effect 3 and the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror.

But more importantly you get Pop Will Eat Itself.

This question feels like "if you could only have one sense, which one would it be", to which the correct answer is: "doesn't matter, it'd be fricking miserable whichever one you choose".

Only obvious I've for me is for music. Matthew Good.

Jonman wrote:

This question feels like "if you could only have one sense, which one would it be", to which the correct answer is: "doesn't matter, it'd be fricking miserable whichever one you choose".

Where’s the fun in that though?

I once posed the question, “If you were going to be eaten by an animal, what animal would you like to feed?”
It was kind of fun to consider.
You sound like my buzzkill spouse whose response was, “What kind of stupid question is that?!”

(I was deciding between sharks and tigers at the time.)

Books: Terry Pratchett
Music: Neil Cicerega
Television: Stephen Cannell

Movies: Tough one. If I pick Kevin Bacon can I get everyone who’s ever worked with someone who’s worked with someone who’s worked with someone who’s worked with someone who’s worked with someone who’s worked with him?

Jonman wrote:

This question feels like "if you could only have one sense, which one would it be", to which the correct answer is: "doesn't matter, it'd be fricking miserable whichever one you choose".

That's true to an extent. But the DudleySmith's question does have echoes of UK radio show, 'Desert Island Discs'.

In that show a notable person from the arts, sport, politics, music or science is asked to imagine that they've been cast away, to choose 8 pieces of music that mean something to them and to explain their choices (while being asked questions about their lives).

At the end of the programme, the cast-away is given a copy of a religious text, and then asked to choose one luxury item and one piece of music with which to spend their period time on the island. The show's run for more than 70 years, I believe...

But on topic... There are some people cheating here by choosing one artist from 3 fields. No. No. No. One artist. Period.

detroit20 wrote:

That's true to an extent. But the DudleySmith's question does have echoes of UK radio show, 'Desert Island Discs'.

Oh, I know. My Mum exclusively listened to Radio 4 when I was growing up (theme music to The Archers makes me shudder to this day). Desert Island Discs has always struck me as an insane proposition. Like "what repetitive soundtrack would you like to get suicidally depressed to?"

detroit20 wrote:

But on topic... There are some people cheating here by choosing one artist from 3 fields. No. No. No. One artist. Period.

The original poster set the example. I’m just following Dudley.

Bowie would be a pretty solid choice - music, and film.

Extremely strong contenders for the top spot - Jack White, and John Cleese.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
detroit20 wrote:

But on topic... There are some people cheating here by choosing one artist from 3 fields. No. No. No. One artist. Period.

The original poster set the example. I’m just following Dudley.

Reading comprehension fail by me.

* Sad Face *

Music I'd have to go with Mark Mothersbaugh - That gets you access to all of Devo (maybe questionable), plus his prodigious output since then - film, TV, and video games. Mainly a strategic choice going for volume, but there's a lot of good stuff there. And I know there's some stuff he's not credited with in that list. I could have sworn he did some music for Psych at some point, because I always comment to my wife when I see his name.

Books I'd be torn between Iain Banks and Steven King. King is good popcorn and has a huge catalog. Banks does sci fi so well it hurts, but he's passed now and his bibliography isn't very large. Tough choice.

TV/Movies I dunno. Ridley Scott, maybe. I could almost watch Blade Runner on a loop. Doesn't leave much else, though.

If we're going to try to get the most bang for our buck the below 3 are mine.

Books: R.A. Salvatore - He's wrote like 50 books, most of them about Drizzt Do'Urden and I love those books so much.
Music: Danger Mouse - He has produced and created LOADS of music plus I love his collab with James Mercer from the Shins.
Television: Dee Bradley Baker - Name a show with an animal sound and I'll point out that Dee probably did the voice of that thing.