Looking at the music of Dutch rock band Focus, started in the late sixties by Thijs van Leer (b /31/03/48) with Jan Akkerman (b 24/12/46). Van Leer still performs and records under the name today (official site here). Akkerman's site here.

.

.

20240314

200 Tracks and rising

According to our records, Focus have by now released 200 official recordings. That number is slightly misleading in that three tracks have been released twice - Clair-Obscur, Winnie and Victoria (shorter and longer versions).
So the exact number is 197.
There are
44 live tracks
We include four live albums (Rainbow, BBC, America and Rio) leaving 153 distinct studio tracks.
So 153 studio tracks.
20 or so re-recorded tracks
Sometimes tracks have been re-recorded, the obvious examples being the 9 tracks on Golden Oldies and 11 of the 12 tracks on Completely Focussed but also Birds come fly over and Eddy with different vocalists and two versions of Who's calling, leaving 130.
So about 130 fairly unique studio tracks.
First period - 49
There are 49 tracks from the first period, the Akkerman period - In and out (7) House of the King (1) Moving Waves (5) Focus 3 (9) Hamburger Concerto (6) and Mother Focus (12) plus the "Left overs album" Ship of Memories which featured 9 tracks.
That leaves 81.
Second period - 16
There are 16 tracks in what we might call the middle period, namely the albums Focus con Proby (9) and the album that Akkerman and van Leer did together in 1985 Focus.
That leaves 65.
Third period - 65
Those 65 are from the most recent period and include 10 on Focus 8, 5 on an obscure album dubbed 8.5/Old skin, 12 on Focus 9, 10 on Focus X, 11 on Focus 11, the track Focus 12 and 16 tracks unique to the album Focus Family album.
This third period number now rises to 75 with the release of the ten tracks on Focus 12 in 2024.

No comments: