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.
It was my birthday last week, so I spent it in London, getting more study scores than records. A few of these titles were bought with birthday cash beforehand.
New releases
CD
Dead Can Dance, Dionysus
Catalog
CD
Beat Furrer, Aria / Solo / Gaspra
Beat Furrer, Stimmen / Face De La Chaleur / Quartett / Dort Ist Das Me
Carlo Gesualdo, O Dolce Mio Tesoro
Everything But the Girl, Eden (Deluxe Edition)
Everything But the Girl, Love Not Money (Deluxe Edition)
Icicle Works, 5 Albums
Perfume, JPN
Robert Palmer, 5 Classic Albums
The Human League, Dare
Utada Hikaru, “Face My Fears”
Yaz, Three Pieces
Vinyl
10,000 Maniacs, Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings
April entries are usually written in March, but I’ve a strange flu for most of the month that culminated into an infection that left me in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Virginia.
That’s right, I got sick on a trip.
So there will be no new entries for the month of April. I hope to find time later in the month to prep entries for May.
August 26, 2016 for the CD. I would have bought the cassette version around the time of its original release.
What is the memory you most associate with this title?
My bus commute from home to the University of Hawaii. It usually took the length of the album to finish.
What was happening in your life when it was released?
I would have been taking summer classes at UH at the time. I actually deferred my entry to college from fall 1990 to winter 1991 because I was burned out by my senior year in high school. My mom also had gone through heart surgery, so she needed help to recuperate. The summer session of 1991 was my way to catch up.
What was happening in your life when you bought it?
I had bought Toni Childs’ debut album and liked it enough to get this second album, probably right when it was released in 1991. I didn’t like it enough to get it on CD till I spotted it at Lifelong Thrift Store, where I bought it for $0.10 during the monthly CD sale.
I wanted to go college on the Mainland like my friends, but my parents couldn’t afford it. I got over my disappointment fast enough when I started my music classes. I also started my first job that year, working at the circulation desk of the A/V center in the undergraduate library. In short, I was taking those first few steps into adulthood.
I would later discover how much in tuition my parents were paying — let’s say, significantly less than the years of Catholic private school leading up to it — and I’ve been thankful ever since for never acquiring student debt.
What do you think of it now?
It took me a few spins to warm up to House of Hope, but Union is definitely the better album.
The music on House of Hope takes a darker turn, and when I rediscovered the album in 2016, the contrast with Union struck me.
I even questioned how I had grown to like the album in the first place. However much I liked taking more responsibility for my life in 1991, it was under a cloud of heartbreak. One of those friends who went to the Mainland for college was the first person with whom I fell in love.
I’m sure I was in a more receptive state of mind for an album that dark.
I bought this album back in high school, before I had any inkling of how to listen to jazz. I didn’t understand it and sold it for cash. Now that I’ve had rudimentary schooling in jazz, I picked it up again at the library book sale. I get it now.
Johnny Cash, American Recordings
I remember the accolades heaped upon this album at the time of its release, but I hadn’t gotten into country music yet. So I had no interest in Johnny Cash. Now that I know more about his life and music, I see what all the fuss was about.
Justice, Cross
This album was listed in the book 1,000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I found a copy of it at the thrift store. I liked it enough.
PJ Harvey, Rid of Me
To Bring You My Love gets the highest praise among PJ Harvey’s albums, but I couldn’t get into it. I much prefer Rid of Me.
Pop Will Eat Itself, This Is the Day … This Is the Hour … This Is This!
This album got good reviews in all the magazines I read as a teenager, but I hesitated on getting it. I would eventually find a ratty vinyl copy selling for cheap decades later. Teenaged self should have been the one to take that plunge.
Sly and the Family Stone, Stand!
Too many tracks on this album have been licensed to sell products, but somehow, that doesn’t seem to diminish them. Or maybe we’re just more chill about music licensing these days.
Tom Tom Club, Tom Tom Club
I totally forgot that “Wordy Rappinghood” was a Tom Tom Club track. I dug that track so much as a kid, I annoyed everyone around me by singing it.
Weezer, Weezer (Teal Album)
The meticulousness this covers album takes in reproducing the originals is ridiculous and admirable.
Before 2002, I tried to be a cheerleader for everything I heard and liked. It was a philosophy I carried with me from 1992, when an editor at the Hunter College student newspaper told me it’s not cool to trash unknown artists. Why kick underdogs when they’re down?
That changed a decade later when I worked at Waterloo Records. During my shifts, I was subjected to music I would never willingly listen to and, in many cases, would never wish to hear again.
I come across as incredibly cranky in my 2005 review of Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled debut album. It’s because I stopped being a cheerleader. I no longer cared if you were an underdog — if you play music that raises my ire, I would not spare it from you.
Franz Ferdinand had initially raised that ire, but the album’s songs were too catchy to stay angry for long. At the same time, the acclaim showered on it rang hollow for me. It was good, certainly, but prize-winning?
My ambivalence shows in the review. I try hard to justify to myself why I ultimately liked the album, but I also resisted following the hive mind of critical thought at the time.
It’s little surprise the album would exit my collection in exchange for cash. I have, however, missed listening to “Michael”, and it was that sense of nostalgia that allowed me to welcome it back into the fold.
Time hasn’t really softened my opinion of it, however. If anything, it makes my ambivalence even clearer. It’s a good album, and a generation of music fans will consider it a cultural flash point. I can’t count myself among that number.
Rewind takes a look at past Musicwhore.org reviews to see how they hold up today. The albums featured on Rewind were part of my collection, then sold for cash only to be reacquired later.
![[Icicle Works - Five Albums]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/TheIcicleWorks5Albums2208924_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Killing Joke - Killing Joke]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/KillingJokeKillingJoke1192591_f.jpg)
![[Duran Duran - As the Lights Go Down]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DuranDuranAstheLightsGoDown-296x300.jpg)
![[The Drums - Brutalism]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the-drums-brutalism-300x300.jpg)
![[Molotov - ¿Donde jugaran las niñas?]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MolotovDondeJugaranLasNi10564_f.jpg)
![[Toni Childs - House of Hope]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ToniChildsHouseofHope139929_f-300x299.jpg)
![[Branford Marsalis Quartet - Crazy People Music]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BranfordMarsalisCrazyPeop206790_f.jpg)
![[Justice - Cross]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/JusticeCross2007207312_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FranzFerdinandFranzFerdin29946GOW1_f-300x300.jpg)