In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Bill Calahan, Apocalypse on CD.
First purchase of a 2022 release: Utada Hikaru, Bad MODE on CD.
Last purchase of a 2022 release: Steve Reich, Runner / Music for Ensemble and Orchestra on vinyl
Last purchase: M.I.A., Maya on vinyl.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
1
0
1
10-inch
0
1
0
1
12-inch
0
6
0
6
CD Single
0
0
1
1
CD
38
10
416
464
CD-R
0
0
0
0
Downloads
4
0
5
9
Vinyl
26
58
110
195
Total items bought
68
77
532
677
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1991
30
New!
1993
27
New!
1998
22
+4
1996
22
New!
2002
21
New!
1990
21
New!
1989
20
New!
2001
19
+3
2000
19
-6
1997
19
-6
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Glenn Gould
16
John Coltrane
10
Various Artists
9
Utada Hikaru
9
Makaino Kouji
8
Kraftwerk
8
Prince
8
Duran Duran
7
Tim McGraw
5
Wire
5
Cracker
5
Beyoncé
5
Notes
Glenn Gould tops the artist list because of a single purchase at the thrift shop.
Utada Hikaru and anime soundtrack composer Makaino Kouji both got major vinyl reissues in 2022.
I only get Tim McGraw albums to see if he’s wearing no shirt in the cover art.
This year is the first time the late 1980s don’t account for most of the top catalog years.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Cocco, Kuchinashi on CD.
First purchase of a 2021 release: Anton Reicha, Reicha Rediscovered (Ivan Ilić) on CD.
Last purchase of a 2021 release: Tokyo Jihen, Sougou on CD
Last purchase: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, F# A# ∞ on LP.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
1
1
2
12-inch
2
5
1
8
CD Single
0
0
0
0
CD
31
8
420
459
CD-R
0
0
0
0
Downloads
7
0
37
44
Vinyl
14
26
87
127
Total items bought
54
40
546
640
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1988
25
New!
2000
25
+7
1997
21
New!
1999
20
-3
1985
18
0
1987
18
New!
1998
18
-3
1980
17
New!
1994
17
New!
2001
17
-2
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Adam Neely
13
Various Artists
8
Tokyo Jihen
8
John Coltrane
7
Gustav Mahler
6
The Rolling Stones
6
Emmylou Harris
6
Robbie Williams
5
Dmitri Shostakovich
5
Notes
Adam Neely posts singles and EPs, so his recorded output is not as prolific as it may seem.
My policy with regard to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones is to avoid paying more than $3 for their CDs, which means I’m usually finding them at thrift stores. It’s actually surprisingly common to see mid-90s Beatles remasters show up for $1.
You would think an Emmylou Harris stan such as myself would have already bought every recording in sight. I’ve held out on the Profile compilations because I have other compilations that contain that music. I keep hoping to find Light in the Stable on CD at the thrift store.
Over the years, I’ve posited that 1987 and 2002 were significant years in music releases. I’m beginning to sense 1980 is also such a year, not just because I was old enough to bug my mom to buy stuff for me.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Gary Numan, The Pleasure Principle on vinyl.
First purchase of a 2020 release: … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, X: The Godless Void and Other Stories on CD.
Last purchase of a 2020 release: Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You on CD
Last purchase: XTC, Go 2 on CD.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
0
0
0
10-inch
0
1
0
1
12-inch
1
1
0
2
CD Single
0
0
0
0
CD
35
5
245
285
CD-R
1
0
0
1
Downloads
13
0
5
18
Vinyl
13
31
56
100
Total items bought
62
38
304
407
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1999
16
New!
2003
15
New!
2002
14
+9
1998
13
New!
1985
13
New!
2008
12
New!
1983
12
New!
2001
11
New!
2000
11
New!
1995
11
+1
1989
11
-6
1984
11
New!
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Soundtracks
17
Jason Isbell
6
Various Artists
6
Robyn
5
downy
5
PJ Harvey
5
Philip Glass
4
envy
4
… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
4
Guided By Voices
4
U2
4
Notes
For the second year in a row, soundtracks make up a lot of my purchases from the past year, and like last year, they’re less about the score and more about the show.
Jason Isbell owns his own record label, so when SARS-CoV2 hit, he pivoted from live performance to releasing live recordings on Bandcamp.
The PJ Harvey vinyl reissue campaign has also drawn my attention to her works.
It looks like I’ve expanded beyond the late ’80s in my catalog purchases. It could also just be a symptom of limited purchasing opportunities due to SARS-CoV2.
Collectorz Music, the software I use to track my collection, added a count column to its interface, which has made compiling this entry so much faster.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Nakamori Akina, NEW AKINA Etranger on CD.
First purchase of a 2019 release: Soundtrack, The West Wing on CD.
Last purchase of a 2019 release: Kim Gordon, No Home Record on vinyl.
Last purchase: J. Cole, Born Sinner on CD.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
2
0
0
2
12-inch
2
2
2
6
CD Single
1
0
2
3
CD
38
10
599
647
CD-R
1
2
0
3
Downloads
0
0
0
0
Vinyl
19
32
192
243
Total items bought
64
46
795
905
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1986
32
+6
1993
31
-1
1990
30
+6
1987
29
+4
1989
28
-4
1988
25
-3
1997
25
New!
1983
24
New!
2009
22
New!
1991
21
+7
1995
21
New!
2002
21
-8
1994
20
+4
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Soundtracks
36
Robert Palmer
14
Olivier Messiaen
11
Everything But the Girl
8
Various Artists
8
Beck
6
Fleetwood Mac
6
Janet Jackson
6
John Coltrane
6
Johnny Cash
6
NUMBER GIRL
6
Ornette Coleman
6
Sly and the Family Stone
6
The Beatles
6
Notes
I’m surprised by the number of soundtracks I picked up this year, and I’ll admit many of those purchases were spurred by admiration for the film and not on the merits of the film score.
Robert Palmer is a seriously underrated singer. The market price for his albums puts him in the bargain bin, which allowed me to grab them without burning a hole in my pocket. He should be commanding more than he does.
Raiding the thrift shops these past three years has greatly expanded my collection, but now my listening is a lot shallower. If I play an album more than once, I like it a lot, or I can’t figure out if I ought to hate it.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Trio Bulgarka, The Forest Is Crying on vinyl.
First purchase of a 2018 release: Igor Stravinsky, Chant Funèbre / La Sacre Du Printemps on CD.
Last purchase of a 2018 release: James Ehnes, Howard, Kernis: Violin Concertos / Tovey: Stream of Limelight on CD
Last purchase: Yaz, You and Me Bothon vinyl.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
0
0
0
10-inch
1
0
1
2
12-inch
2
1
0
3
CD Single
0
0
0
0
CD
36
13
485
534
CD-R
0
0
0
0
Downloads
5
0
5
10
Vinyl
16
28
131
175
Total items bought
60
42
622
724
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1993
24
New!
1989
24
+5
1988
24
+1
1992
23
+1
2002
22
New!
1986
22
+3
1984
21
0
1987
20
-7
1990
19
+3
1985
19
New!
1982
19
New!
1998
18
+2
1991
18
New!
2001
17
New!
2004
17
New!
1994
16
New!
1996
16
-14
2003
15
New!
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Soundtracks
17
David Bowie
11
John Coltrane
10
Joni Mitchell
10
Soundtracks
9
Fugazi
7
Miles Davis
6
Fishbone
6
Brian Eno
6
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
6
The Pogues
6
Wilco
6
Kate Bush
6
Bruce Springsteen
6
Notes
We’re reaching a point where the collector CD market is going to get more ridiculous as brick-and-mortar stores rid their CD inventory in favor of vinyl.
Twice weekly visits to thrift stores account for the increase in my physical collection. It’s tough to beat a price point if $1 if you’re not too picky about condition, which I no longer am.
I picked up a lot of Joni Mitchell this year, but I can’t say I’ve grown attached to most of those acquisitions.
I’m starting to explore classic rock, more out of academic curiosity than actual appeal. I treat the Beatles like I treat Berlioz — as something I should know but not necessarily need to like.
I don’t know if or when I’ll listen to the Miles Davis albums I picked up this year. Something about Miles eludes me.
This site owes its existence to Russ Solomon, the founder of Tower Records who died on March 11 while watching the Oscars and drinking whiskey, according to reports.
I’ve already mentioned how Pulse magazine shaped my listening habits. The magazine also inspired me to become a music reviewer.
Jackson Griffith wrote columns for the magazine using a series of aliases. His writing style could be inscrutable and long-winded, but it was also humorous and, for avowed non-reader as myself back in high school, endlessly fascinating.
When I started writing reviews for the school paper, I tried — with little success — to emulate Griffith’s style. By the time I reached college, the greater lesson sank in: write like yourself, not that I had a clue who I was. The advent of the Internet allowed me to become my own publisher, and I’ve been subjecting you poor readers to these opinions for some 18 years now.
In college, I would receive promotional albums to review, but I could never get behind them. I could only write about items I bought with my own money, and back then, most of those items were bought at Tower Records. It was a lovely racket — Pulse spurred me to write about music, and Tower provided the product to do so.
I would read stories about how Walmart was the only place in town to buy music, which horrified me. Department store music sections were temples of mediocrity compared to the cornucopia found at Tower. I counted my lucky stars I could take the bus to a store that would stock albums by John Zorn, Joan Tower and In Tua Nua.
And while the Honolulu stores did their darnedest to have breadth and depth, Pulse hinted more was available that would never reach the islands. Early music e-commerce sites CD Now and Music Boulevard would chip away at Tower’s hold on my spending.
After I moved to Austin, my allegiance shifted to Waterloo Records and Amazon. I would later discover Tower didn’t have a monopoly on the idea of far ranging stock. Waterloo, Amoeba, Music Millennium, Silver Platters — the experience of Tower lives on.
So thank you, Russ Solomon, for connecting a precocious teen-ager to a lifetime of music fandom, financial ruin and obscure punditry.
In 2013, I was ready but reluctant to turn my music collection over to the digital services. My ripped library had been backed up to Google Play, and my waning interest in new releases meant my shelves filled slowly.
Then I got bit by the vinyl bug and doubled down on physical product.
It’s taken a few years, but I’m reminded now of a big drawback to ownership — space constraints.
In short, I’ve run out of shelf space, and I have little room to add more shelves.
So I’ve had to resort to a collection purge. The last time I did one was right before I moved to Seattle in 2012. Those posts about the ones that nearly got away? Well, I’m letting a few titles do exactly that.
Many of the purged discs are actually redundancies — old pressings of albums that have been remastered or expanded into deluxe editions.
But those thrift store bargains that led me to explore something unfamiliar? Some of them ended up as duds. And as cheaply as I acquired them, I can’t say letting them go is much sweet sorrow.
In the case of James Blake’s The Colour in Anything, which I bought when it was released, I should have stuck with my initial impression and left it on the store rack. (Metaphorically speaking — I ordered it from Amazon.)
When I made the decision to keep collecting — even when market forces would rather I rent — I told myself I’d keep the purges to a minimum. It’s hard not to second-guess myself when trying to decide how much I like an album occupying some much needed room. The ambivalent choices are the toughest.
But sometimes, spring cleaning is in order.
In trying to find some old files from college, I ran across some ancient spreadsheets which documented albums I had nearly forgotten I owned. I turned that info into a private list on Discogs.
In a fit of nostalgia, I tracked down some of those lost titles online — and reminded myself why many of them remain lost.
Titles I’ve welcomed back into my collection needed a change of context to let me know what I gave up. Other titles will never be that lucky.
All is not really lost, though. I still have more than enough room on the external hard drive for the rips of those departed albums to remain. And I still have my Google Play subscription.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
The first and last purchases of the year are determined by the date of order. Pre-ordered items not yet shipped have already been taken into account.
First purchase: Sleater-Kinney, One Beat (2014 reissue) on vinyl.
First purchase of a 2017 release: Renée Fleming, Distant Light on CD.
Last purchase of a 2017 release: Anne Dudley, Anne Dudley Plays the Art of Noise on CD
Last purchase: Wilco, Summerteeth on vinyl.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
0
0
0
12-inch
0
1
0
1
CD Single
0
0
2
2
CD
31
14
289
334
CD-R
0
0
1
1
Downloads
3
0
1
4
Vinyl
9
43
110
162
Total items bought
43
58
403
504
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
Year-over-year change
1987
22
+9
1988
21
0
1999
20
New!
1996
19
+6
1992
19
+1
2016
18
New!
1989
17
+2
1984
17
New!
1986
16
New!
1998
15
New!
1990
15
-7
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Clannad
8
Depeche Mode
8
David Bowie
6
Chris Isaak
6
Kronos Quartet
6
Midnight Oil
6
Perfume
6
Stevie Wonder
6
The Clash
5
John Coltrane
5
Dead Can Dance
5
Enya
5
Steve Reich
5
Bruce Springsteen
5
SUPERCAR
5
Aphex Twin
4
Miles Davis
4
Bill Evans
4
Charles Mingus
4
Outkast
4
The Streets
4
A Tribe Called Quest
4
Steve Winwood
4
Notes
The death on Pádraig Duggan in 2016 spurred me to bring a lot of Clannad titles back into my collection.
Cheap CDs from thrift shops account for some of the entries list, namely Chris Isaak and Steve Winwood.
If I grouped this list by title, David Bowie wouldn’t rank as highly. Pretty much, I bought different versions of Ziggy Stardust.
Midnight Oil and Depeche Mode concerts made me want to dig further into back catalog I hadn’t yet explored.
Long-time readers probably remember this site from 15(!) years ago as a resource for non-mainstream Japanese rock music. Had I launched it back in 1996, it might have been a resource for Celtic music.
Boy did I go through a Celtic music kick in the mid-90s.
A friend of mine from high school sowed the seeds for this fascination. Although I had learned about Clannad before he did, he convinced me the band’s folk era in the ’70s was far better than the pop band they turned out to be.
We both dug “Harry’s Game”, though.
In 1993, I took a political science class as part of my core requirements, and the instructor arranged for the class to get Internet accounts. The campus was two years away from providing Internet accounts to everyone, but till then, e-mail accounts were granted only to computer science majors and students in classes that required the Internet as part of its curriculum.
The accounts would have been deactivated at the end of the class, but I kept using mine. The web was still in its infancy, and I had yet learned how to create a page in HTML. But I did learn how to subscribe to mailing lists and to visit newsgroups.
Given my fascination with Clannad, I visited a group called rec.music.celtic. Within a week, I had recommendations for other artists similar to Clannad. Over the next three years, I would get my hands on albums by Capercaillie, Talitha Mackenzie, Altan, Boiled in Lead and Wolfstone.
I signed up for the postal mailing list of Green Linnet Records and soon afterward discovered Värttinä and the Klezmatics.
Of course, record stores in Honolulu didn’t actually stock albums by any of these artists. So how did I get my hands on them?
The first e-commerce site I ever used was not Amazon, or even its predecessors CDNow or Music Boulevard. It was CD Connection. And the service didn’t even have a website — it had a Telnet server.
That’s right — Telnet, not SSH. I bought music through a command-line interface!
That experience sold me on the potential of the Internet. I was a kid in Honolulu with little access to music outside of radio and MTV, but with the help of people from clear across the globe, I could indulge in an interest as esoteric as Celtic music.
From today’s perspective, I took a big risk handing my credit card number over an insecure protocol such as Telnet. Back then, the Internet hadn’t yet been made available to the nation at large. It was still the domain of universities and governments. Net etiquette was easier to enforce, and users really invested into the egalitarian potential of the Internet.
But using the Internet as a source of music discovery is something I learned early on, and it eventually led to the launch of Musicwhore.org as a resource for Japanese music when I saw a niche being underserved.
In the past, I would try to write about every album I encountered. These days, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I’ll only post an entry if something sparks a memory.
As these statistics demonstrate, I’m leaving a lot out of this blog.
First and last purchases of the year
First purchase: Glenn Gould, Bach: The Goldberg Variations (1955) on vinyl.
First purchase of a 2016 release: Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 4 on CD.
Last purchase of a 2016 release: Meredith Monk, On Behalf of Permanence on CD.
Last purchase: George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 on CD.
Purchases by format
Format
New release
Reissue
Catalog
Total
7-inch
0
2
0
2
12-inch
0
1
0
1
CD
34
4
116
154
Downloads
3
2
1
6
Vinyl
4
33
71
108
Total items bought
41
42
188
271
Definitions
New release
Initial release within the calendar year.
Reissue
Originally released prior to the calendar year but reissued within the calendar year.
Catalog
Initial release prior to the calendar year.
Top catalog release years
Year
Number of items purchased
1988
16
1985
15
1990
13
2015
12
1992
12
1991
12
1989
11
2002
10
1996
10
1987
9
Top artists
Single titles purchased in multiple formats are counted individually.
Artist
Number of items purchased
Prince
10
Madonna
8
Sting
7
Sonic Youth
6
Depeche Mode
5
Meredith Monk
5
Sleater-Kinney
5
Clannad
4
Idlewild
4
INXS
4
NUMBER GIRL
4
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
4
Tracy Chapman
3
Glenn Gould
3
Ty Herndon
3
Kronos Quartet
3
George Michael
3
Dolly Parton / Linda Ronstadt / Emmylou Harris
3
The Sugarcubes
3
Notes
These number pretty much bear out that I’m pretty much out of touch with anything new happening. Catalog purchases took up 70% of my purchases in 2016.
The death of Prince sent me on a mission to catch up with his work.
The news of a new album from Sting gave me a chance to reconsider his work from the late ’90s onward. Cheap CDs from the Lifelong AIDS Alliance Thrift Shop allowed me to save on Internet bandwidth.
Madonna’s presence in my collection grew due to a combination of a vinyl reissue campaign and some lucky purchases from Lifelong AIDS Alliance Thrift Shop.
In fact, encountering the Lifelong Thrift Shop stall during Gay Pride had an outsize influence on my purchases. From street level, the shop looked like it sold only vintage clothes. I didn’t realize the lower level had a room of CDs and vinyl.
![[Steve Reich - Runner / Music for Ensemble and Orchestra]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SteveReichRunner.jpg)
![[Tokyo Jihen - Sougou]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/TokyoJihenSougou.jpg)
![[Bruce Springsteen - Letter to You]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BruceSpringsteenLetterto2588442VL4_f.jpg)
![[Kim Gordon - No Home Record]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/KimGordonNoHomeRecord-300x300.jpg)
![[Igor Stravinsky - Funeral Song]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/IgorStravinskyChantFunebre-300x300.jpg)
![[Tower Records: No Music, No Life]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/tower-records-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
![[James Blake - The Colour in Anything]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/james-blake-the-colour-in-anything-300x300.jpg)
![[Renée Fleming - Distant Light]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/renee-fleming-distant-light-300x300.jpg)
![[Clannad - Clannad 2]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ClannadClannad2197416105_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Glenn Gould - Bach: Goldberg Variations]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/JohannSebastianBachTheGo143903_f-296x300.jpeg)