CD Purchases

Now that I’ve been using MP3s for nearly a decade, I can appreciate the allure of assembling playlists of favorite tunes, listening to your entire collection on random, or organizing playlists according to genre or mood. However, I think people who decide to rip their top few songs off a CD and sell it might regret it later. If you like a band enough to buy a CD or see them live, then what’s wrong with listening to a whole album? Just because some songs on an album aren’t the big singles or favorites doesn’t mean they don’t serve a useful purpose in providing context for the rest of the songs. I might never single out “Beside You” and “Ballerina” to play separately, but I couldn’t imagine listening to Astral Weeks without them. When you’re at a show, would you interrupt a band and say, “Excuse me, could you skip that song? I deleted it from my Itunes, and I’d prefer never to hear it again, thank you very much.” I wouldn’t put it past some people, but if it’s a band you actually like and respect, you wouldn’t, for fear of sounding like a complete tool.

I have a pretty big collection, and I do very little skimming, because I bought most of the albums knowing I could enjoy listening to the whole thing. I’ve talked many times about how it still makes sense to to keep CDs as the most reliable storage, since hard drives still have nearly 100% failure rate. But eventually CDs will go away. But just because the format changes, I still don’t think the album will go extinct. It’s true that plenty of people believe the single will reign once again. There always have been people who are content with the radio or owning just a few songs of their favorite artists. But there will also always be fans who want to hear what their favorite artists can accomplish in 30-60 minutes, and hear them evolve over time. Some artists hit one idea and nail it only once or a few times. Others have many worthy ideas and songs. Most albums aren’t “all killer and no filler,” but there are plenty from each year that I feel are worth hearing in their entirety usually at least 30-60.

Another advantage of buying physical CDs, in addition to the cover art and liner notes, is that it’s a physical experience that more easily becomes attached to memory. I look at a lot of CDs on my case and I can remember where and when I bought it, and sometimes even what was going on in my life at that time. Just behind the sense of smell, hearing music can trigger memories like nothing else. The experience of getting it, putting in the player (or on the turntable for vinyl fans), keeping it out for a while and re-playing before eventually filing it away, is something I would miss. I have a quarter million MP3 songs and no stories jump out at me when I sift through them. They’re all ultimately disposable, as the most of the ones I like the best I have on CD. Music is too important, if not sacred, to me to be disposable. It should be proudly displayed on my shelves. The day I sell the CDs or put them away in storage will be the day I can keep them all stored safely with lossless codecs, and be able to display any and all cover art and liner notes on my 120” paper thin laser screen.

Above I list the album, where I bought it and when.

4/11/08 - White Denim
I saw these guys a few weeks ago. For a couple of songs they sounded a little twee, with the guitar sounding particularly dinky. However they soon got revved up and blew me away with "Heart From All Of Us," my new favorite song, probably because its spiralling solos remind me of Television. Overall their trash-blues sound brings back fond memories of Royal Trux shows, with a teeny bit of Meat Puppets in there too. I bought this CD afterwards, which included no packaging or tracklist. It took me a bit of research online to find the tracklist. It's confusing, because they had a tour-only 9-song EP called Workout Holiday last year. Apparently the songs were re-recorded, with two new songs added, and also called Workout Holiday which is what I have. Confusingly, they also plan an official album this year called Exposion, on vinyl and digital only. If it's a whole new batch of songs, I'm excited.

4/6/08 - Guadalcanal Diary, Kraftwerk, R.E.M.
On a rare warm early April day I biked 15 miles to Hyde Park with some friends to visit the store that was started by former employees of 2nd Hand Tunes. It does have a nice neighborhoody music geek feel to it. The selection was a nice range of new and used rock, soul, and a lot of vinyl of interest for the person in our group who’s a DJ. A friend taped Reckoning for me back in 1985, and I figured it was finally time to buy it, 23 years later. Guadalcanal Diary were contemporaries of R.E.M. who I used to listen to on KUNI as a teenager. It was fun to finally hear the full album on Rhino’s special limited edition reissue. Kraftwerk’s Autubahn was always a prohibitively expensive import, but Hyde Park Records had it for cheap.

4/22/08 - Cut Copy
This Australian band's debut Bright Like Neon Love was one of my favorites in 2004. Ther's certainly no shortage of bands that try to mix new wave pop, dance music and rock. What keeps Cut Copy from sounding dated and overly kitschy are the subtly textured details ornamenting each song, and the strength of their songwriting. There are many moments that reclaim New Order's mid-eighties mojo, something New Order themselves would sell their souls to be able to regain. Switching from a French house producer to DFA 's Tim Goldsworthy, the sound is slightly more bold and direct, and they manage to top their amazing debut

4/23/08 - Heptones
For years I’ve enjoyed their earliest singles and the Lee Perry produced Party Time. Night Food has been criticized for being too slick. It is more polished compared to the Lee Perry productions, but not next to the Bob Marley albums at the time. Some of their best early songs were re-recorded in these sessions, making it nearly is great as the more celebrated Party Time. Gorgeous harmonies and perfect music to back it. I’ve played this album a dozen times the first week and still craved more.

4/27/08 - Free
For many years all I had was their Molten Gold compilation, which sounded like crap. It wasn’t until I started a piece on forgotten British bands that I downloaded the remastered versions and realized that I had to own all six of their studio albums, plus the live one. I think I might prefer their entire body of work over the likes of Led Zeppelin. More...

4/29/08 - Boris
I can't believe it's already been three years since Pink first shook my furniture and prostrate. It's nice to hear them continue to tackle actual song structures now and then, with "My Neighbor Satan" sounding like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine. The styles are all over the place, with a Buffalo-falling-down-the-stairs Melvins soundalike, to some warp speed punk.

5/4/08 - Marianne Faithfull
I managed to miss out on this classic album because when I was younger I didn’t think I’d be interested in hearing a weathered, haggard female voice sing about pain and suffering. I don’t know why not, as I enjoyed Nico, and knew that a woman’s voice didn’t have to be pretty to be a powerful instrument. I liked her collaborative later works Before The Poison (04) and Kissin Time (02), and was reminded of Broken English while reading liner notes from the recent Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story. It was one of the albums that inspired Grace Jones to record there. I can’t believe I missed out on this album for so long. While the band doesn’t include Sly & Robbie, they still do a brilliant job of fusing post-punk, disco and reggae into an original, sinuous art rock blend. Her voice sounds perfect in this context, and easily surpasses the contemporary work of a similarly croaky contemporary, Lou Reed’s The Blue Mask.

5/6/08 - Hawkwind
I’ve been a fan of Hawkwind for over 20 years, yet I never heard this album until I downloaded it a few months ago. It’s before Lemmy joined the band, along with other key personnel from the classic lineup. While there’s very little of the hard driving, synth-laced quality of their later work, it’s still pretty great. The elongated jams are more akin to the early, trippy recordings of Amon Duul and contemporary era Pink Floyd. No stand-out tunes, but overall pleasantly weird.

5/8/08 - Tim Buckley
If there's any doubt as to which period was Tim Buckley's best, this settles it. Neither the early or late periods. I was excited to hear an early version of "Song To The Siren." It was discomforting to finally hear it, as his voice sounded weak and overly mannered compared to the emotive final version from 1972. The other songs were done much better on his classic Happy/Sad and Blue Afternoon albums from 1969. The 1973 sessions predate the Sefronia album. They may be a slight improvement on the overproduced disaster, but not by much. The band sounds like they're in over their heads with the awkward white funk, which was done much better on 1972's Greetings From L.A..

5/12/08 - Lisa Germano
I saw some high praise of Geek The Girl on Listology and picked it up for $2.99. I completely ignored this artist in the 90s because she failed to register as someone I'd care to hear. In a way I'm not wrong, as her overly mannered style wouldn't have appealed to me then. However some of her songs compare favorably to PJ Harvey circa Is This Desire?. Definitely some powerfully harrowing lyrics. She was a hired hand with Mellencamp and some others, and started making her own albums well into her 30s. I'm not blown away like I was with the Marianne Faithfull, but it might be a keeper.

5/13/08 - Can
I previously had all the Can reissues I wanted up through Saw Delight except for Landed, which I found for a nice used price. It's one of their underrated albums where they supposedly took a sharp decline. It may not be as glorious as the preceding album, Soon Over Babaluma, but it takes some of its elements and gets more playful, adding funk rhythms, and a more aggressive sound. The improved remastered sound helps make revisiting this album a treat.

5/17/08 - Amoeba!
I can't believe it's been nearly three years since my last trip to San Francisco. As always, Amoeba didn't disappoint, and I left with an armful of goodies. I haven't heard all of them yet as I was there for a wedding and of course spent most of the time running around (literally in Bay to Breakers race). I'm currently listening to the self-titled fourth album by Guru Guru. I'm glad I got it, though it certainly doesn't "hold it's own on the shelf next to Funhouse, Tago Mago and Kraftwerk's first three albums" as Allmusic claimed. "Der Elektrolurch" is the centerpiece during which Mani Neumeier would don an "electronic amphibian" mask on stage. That and "The Story Of Life" sort of merits the Hawkwind comparisons, but the first three tracks definitely are more comic than cosmic.

I have work by Klaus Schulze in early Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, but have never heard his solo electronic stuff until his first album Irrlicht. It starts out with some spooky organ and then evolves glacially. I listened to it going to bed and it was captivating. I'll have to explore more of his albums. Probably a good thing I don't live in the same city as Amoeba. I've had copies of the Amon Duul albums, but wanted the updated remasters. Some of my favorite Krautrock.

5/25/08 - Michael Rother
My recent Krautrock purchases led me to browse some discussions on iLX and noted a mention of some lovely reissues of Michael Rother's solo work on Water. Perhaps because they were hard to find before, his solo stuff was under the radar, despite his impressive resume with early Kraftwerk, Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster and Eno. I'm trying to decide if the glowing review of this album on Allmusic is hyperbole. It's a continuation of his work in Harmonia, but perhaps not quite as perfect and captivating. He's definitely the more smooth, ambient side of Neu, but also more melodic and emotional than Klaus Dinger's work in La Dusseldorf. I think I'm just going to accept that all this damn stuff is essential, ha ha.

5/27/08 - Robert Calvert, Michael Rother
Robert Calvert was a poet and sometimes member of Hawkwind. His second solo album included members of Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, and author Michael Moorcock. It was also the first full production job by Brian Eno. I can hear the influence of Eno's first two albums in the crisp sound and jumble of styles. It's a concept album about what would have happened if Viking culture dominated the development of the Americas. It may not be a lost classic, but it's certainly a treasure.

I also traded in my old early 90s copies of Harmonia and Cluster's Zuckerzeit for new remasters. Speaking of Eno, you can hear Harmonia's influence all over Another Green World. Bowie was also obsessed with Harmonia, which had a big influence on Low and Heroes. Michael Rother turned Bowie down to work with him, and instead followed his muse with his solo albums. He's sometimes accused of being too new-agey, but people who say that haven't listened to his first two, especially Sterntatler, very closely. They simply continue his muse from his Neu and Harmonia work and create more subtly emotional music that could serve well as a soundtrack, propelled by Can's Jaki Leibzeit's steady drumming.

6/9/08 - Radiodread
It's the first time I'd been in Roscoe Village in a year so I had to buy something from good old Mark at Hard Boiled records. I remember seeing the Easy Star All-Stars' 2003 album Dub Side Of The Moon and thinking it was too cheesy. But after hearing their amazing arrangements of Radiohead's OK Computer, now I wanna hear it. With guests like Horace Andy, Sugar Minott, Toots, and The Meditations, in some ways, this is better for repeated listenings than the original.

6/10/08 - Them, Allman Brothers Band, Electric Wizard
I've been reading a biography of Van Morrison, and realized I don't have any Them in my collection. The stuff is kind of hard to find, but I was lucky enough to get a remastered import of their 1965 debut used for under $10 at Reckless. It's over $40 on Amazon! It's as raw and bluesy as I remember, just as great as the early Stones albums, sometimes better, with a few songs that are new to me. Missing the singles like "Here Comes The Night" but includes the raver "Mystic Eyes" and of course "Gloria."

I've been meaning to get Allman Brothers for a long time, ever since I was told Wishbone Ash were the British neo-prog equivalent of them. So far doesn't do much for me. I used to have their live album and sold it, so we'll see if I can get into them second time around.

I'd never gotten around to buying Dopethrone the first time around so the remastered reissue came out just the right time. Mmm, rumbling bass heavy doom metal at its finest.

9/23/08 - TV On The Radio - Dear Science, 08
TV On The Radio's second album, Return To Cookie Mountain (2006) divided its audience. Some were disappointed, others think they'll never top it. It was an oppressive wall of sound that accomplished exactly what it set out to do. It was a dark, prickly, heavy album that took me two months to properly absorb, and still holds up two years later. Dear Science, is just as complexly layered, but more immediate. The melodies are sweeter, and there's more air between the layers, making instruments and vocals more discernable. I see it less as flaws in David Sitek's production, but rather the band's evolution. On the first couple listens it was obviously catchier, funkier, even sexier. Polished but still rough where it counts. My third listen on headphones is what floored me. After finishing it I felt wobbly with catharsis, like I'd spent a day traveling in an unfamiliar country with a lover, having deep conversations, getting drunk, arguing, and ending the night at 3 a.m., exhausted from intense make-up sex. The feeling wasn't diminished after my 20th listen. Continue...