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Purchase log, 2023-03-07

[Robert Palmer - The Island Records Years]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

New releases

Vinyl
  • Kelela, Raven

Catalog

CD
  • Deana Carter, Did I Shave My Legs for This?
  • Kamasi Washington, Heaven and Earth
  • Ministry, In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up (Live)
  • Ofra Haza, Ofra Haza
  • Robbie Williams, Intensive Care
  • Sugar, Besides
  • The Delgados, Hate
  • The Walkmen, Bows + Arrows
  • Wolfmother, Wolfmother
Vinyl
  • Massive Attack, Blue Lines

Reissues

CD
  • Robert Palmer, The Island Records Years

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Purchase log, 2022-07-05

[Ofra Haza - Desert Wind]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

Catalog

CD
  • Charlie Sexton, Pictures for Pleasure
  • The Jesus and Mary Chain, Honey’s Dead
  • The Killers, Hot Fuss (Limited Edition)
Vinyl
  • Billie Eilish, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
  • Cracker, Kerosene Hat
  • Godley and Creme, The History Mix, Volume 1
  • Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
  • Ofra Haza, Desert Wind

Reissues

Vinyl
  • The Linda Lindas, The Linda Lindas

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Purchase log, 2019-07-23

[Washed Out - Within and Without]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

Catalog

CD
  • Aaliyah, Aaliyah
  • AC/DC, Highway to Hell
  • Anderson.Paak, Ventura
  • Earl Sweatshirt, Doris
  • Hunx and His Punx, Too Young to Be in Love
  • Krzysztov Pendercki, Matrix 5
  • Ofra Haza, Kirya
  • Rick Springfield, Original Album Classics
  • Rupert Holmes, Partner in Crime
  • Swing Out Sister, Kaleidoscope World
  • The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night
  • Washed Out, Within and Without
Vinyl
  • Beaux Arts Trio, Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 / Ives: Piano Trio (1911)
  • Charles Mingus, Mingus Mingus Minugs Mingus Mingus

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Purchase log, 2018-12-25

[Ofra Haza - Fifty Gates of Wisdom: Yemenite Songs]

I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.

Catalog

CD
  • Damien Rice, O
  • Orlande de Lassus, Requiem for Four Voices
  • The Pointer Sisters, Greatest Hits
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Last 5 Symphonies
Vinyl
  • Ofra Haza, Fifty Gates of Wisdom: Yemenite Songs
  • The Blow Monkeys, Animal Magic

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1988

[The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues]

A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.

I had discovered so much music in 1987 that at the time, I thought 1988 was a dud by comparison. Over the years, I’ve discovered that is not the case. The Favorite 10 doesn’t change from the original list, but look at that expanded list.

  1. In Tua Nua, The Long Acre
  2. Midnight Oil, Diesel and Dust
  3. Kronos Quartet, Winter Was Hard
  4. The Sugarcubes, Life’s Too Good
  5. Enya, Watermark
  6. Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman
  7. Living Colour, Vivid
  8. Duran Duran, Big Thing
  9. Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
  10. The Dead Milkmen, Beelzebubba

Other favorites from the year:

  • Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods
  • John Adams, Nixon in China
  • Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Savvy Show Stoppers
  • Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
  • Sarah McLachlan, Touch
  • Erasure, The Innocents
  • Sade, Stronger Than Pride
  • The Pogues, If I Should Fall from Grace with God
  • The Waterboys, Fisherman’s Blues
  • The Godfathers, Birth, School, Work, Death
  • Camouflage, Voices & Images
  • Ambitious Lovers, Greed
  • Iron Path, Iron Path
  • Toni Childs, Union
  • R.E.M., Green
  • Throwing Muses, House Tornado
  • Pixies, Surfer Rosa
  • N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton
  • Information Society, Information Society
  • Ofra Haza, Shaday
  • The Smiths, Rank
  • Lucinda Williams, Lucinda Williams

I guess I really limited the expanded list 10 years ago so I wouldn’t have to do so much writing. The Pogues, the Waterboys, the Godfathers, Ambitious Lovers, Ofra Haza, the Smiths and Lucinda Williams would not have appeared on that list — I’ve discovered those albums only in the last 6 years.

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Vinyl find: Ofra Haza, Shaday

[Ofra Haza - Shaday]

Like Ambitious Lovers before it,  Ofra Haza’s Shaday was an album I intended to buy when it was released in 1988, but it never managed to leap ahead of other priorities.

At the time, critical consensus about Haza seemed mixed. Some writers weren’t too keen on the commercial direction her international albums were taking, while the listening public buoyed them to the top of the world music charts.

I picked up on that ambivalence. I had my hands full getting into college rock and modern classical music. Shaday sounded like something that fit into my burgeoning interests, but without a way to preview it, I couldn’t be sure. So my curiosity was diverted and wasn’t rekindled until I ran across a cheap copy on vinyl 27 years later.

The precocious but unschooled teenager I was probably would have dug the novelty of an Israeli pop album for a spell, then moved on to something more fashionable. As an adult, I find the primitiveness of the analog synthesizers comforting, especially that robotic bass so emblematic of the late ’80s.

But I’ve also had a chance to be exposed to other international pop music in the time since I first encountered Shaday, and I’d say the album is on par with what Molotov or Värttinä do when mixing American popular music with their home culture. A clueless gringo such as myself can latch onto the backbeat while a local can appreciate the music’s core.

I don’t need to know a lick of Hebrew to appreciate Haza’s voice, and like the best J-pop artists, she throws in a few English phrases as punctuation.

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