Own a classic score just because you "have to"?

Answer: no.

I used to buy scores because I felt I had to many years back, I do admit. Nowadays I only buy what I absolutely positively know for sure I will enjoy... and I rarely purchase CDs anymore. (Partly because I can't afford to, and partly because I d******d them. Otherwise I'd love to keep on collecting them.)

Sort of off topic here: I've very much got into the habit of making my own versions of albums since I now only listen to music on my computer. It used to be CDs in a Cd player many years ago, and so bad albums remained as bad albums. But now, if an album is too long, or isn't in the best order for the best listen, or even doesn't have some great cues missing from the complete score (if you can find it), then these days it's so easy to create your own version better suited to you! I love it, and I enjoy making those playlists.

Off the top of my head:

1. THE CLASSICS THAT I LOVE TO LISTEN TO: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Ben-Hur, Conan, Jaws, Braveheart, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, El Cid, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Magnificent Seven. (Ones that I never feel the need to make my own versions of. They're classics for a reason!)

2. THE 50% CLASSICS: Dances With Wolves (a great score, but I have to really really be in the mood for it), Doctor Zhivago (I LOVE the themes, perhaps not the whole thing though). Most of Herrmann's classics; proper classics in every sense of the word, but I generally only listen to Herrmann's music in suite form. Ooh, and Blade Runner; interesting in the film, but I can't bear to listen to it outside the film.

3. THE CLASSICS THAT I DON'T LIKE: The old Bond scores, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly... well, just about anything by Barry and Morricone in fact.

That's true, which is why one tends to do these things as one is starting out, exploring stuff.

I've bought a number of classics that I never listen to but it was all pretty much pre-internet age.

I'm already turning to chalk mate.

It's hard to comment as the dynamics have been so consistenetly different for me, and I think -like Timmer- the fact that I started WAY pre-internet certainly helped me find my own ground.

I started with what I liked from what I heard from movies and then took out of the library.
That amounted to maybe 50-60 scores over the years (mind that in The Netherlands film music resources were just about non-existent! I frequently had to travel to Amsterdam to visit some of the more obscure record shops!).

Then over time and with the dvent of internet, I found recommendations: people listening to the same scores I did, and waxing lyrically about composers or scores I'd never heard of before. So I started looking into those.

I've bought the odd dud now and again: based on recommendation and status held high by people I hold in esteem, and which turned out not to match my taste at all. That happens, of course.
But simply buying music "because it's a classic" doesn't appeal to me. That very much seems like collecting for collecting's sake, which is something that I have never understood.

We were fortunate to have record shops who would allow you to listen before you bought. That allowed you to explore the album past the compilation stage and decide if you wanted to get the score.
Thomas

Now we're fortunate to hear the album in your own home before buying. It's called The Internet!

There are other ways, Tom. I don't listen to clips either.

It may be nostalgia but I'm with Tom, there was something fantastic about going into a record store and getting the assistant to play something for you, for want of a better word(s) there was a soul, a warmth to it......not something you get with the ice cold internet.

yikes

I'm like Martijn, being too self-conscious to go into a record store and ask to listen to a film score! I'd mostly get my listen from watching the film and then buying the score.

As for buying "classics" for the sake of them being of such a status I do occasionally purchase said titles. But I believe that my tastes are so varied that I can usually find something worthy in most of these purchases. One title that does stick in my mind is Rosenman's The Cobweb. A score I had not heard of before it was released by FSM, a score that was very difficult to enjoy from the clips available. But it's place in the history of film scoring was enough to sway me to a purchase. It's not a score I listen to often and I don't have any tracks on my favourites playlists but I do sometimes listen to the odd track when I'm looking for some examples of 12-tone music. (And it may turn out to be a good title for a mystery clip game.

As far as I've heard it was the first film score to use consequently this technique, yes.

Shire's Pelham is an amazing work, because it's hugely listenable (and a hoot in the AMAZING, just amazing, movie, I actually should watch this one again) while retaining some atonality in the melodic writing. It's dissonant thematically, but harmonically very good and the use of the jazz/blues sound makes it such a great work.

Kinda interesting topic still, this. I've listened to and sold/deleted many "classic" scores throughout the years because they didn't work as a listening experience.