Archives

Purchase log, 2023-11-28

[The Donnas - Get Skintight]

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
  • Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels, The Last Roundup: Life from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia, 3/16/73
  • INXS, Shabooh Shoobah Rarities
  • Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark Demos
  • Linkin Park, Lost Demos
  • Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS: The Secret Tracks

Catalog

CD
  • Alice in Chains, Sap
  • Huey Lewis and the News, Hard at Play
  • Tracey Thorn, Out of the Woods
Vinyl
  • Grace Jones, Island Life
  • Hüsker Dü, Metal Circus

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Justin Townes Earle, Yuma
  • Meat Puppets, Forbidden Places
  • The Donnas, Get Skintight
  • The Jesus Lizard, Blue

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Purchase log, 2023-02-14

[INXS - Shabooh Shoobah]

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

CD
  • Kelela, Raven

Catalog

CD
  • Arthur Honneger, Symphonie No. 1 / Pastorale D’été / Pacific 231 / Rugby / Mouvement Symphonique No. 3 (Charles Dutoit, Bavarian Radio Symphony)
  • Bruce Springsteen, The Promise
  • Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy Appendix
  • Q-Tip, The Renaissance
  • Queens of the Stone Age, … Like Clockwork
Vinyl
  • INXS, Shabooh Shoobah
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mother’s Milk

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Purchase log, 2022-11-01

[Barbara Lewis - Hello Stranger]

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
  • ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Planet Folks

Catalog

CD
  • Benny Andersson, Klinga Mina Klockor
  • Billy Joel, The Stranger
  • DJ Krush, Krush
  • Moby, Moby
  • Soundtrack, More Immortal Beloved
Vinyl
  • Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger
  • Heaven 17, Penthouse and Pavement
  • INXS, The Swing
  • TLC, Crazysexycool
  • Yano Akiko, Iroha no Konpeitou

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Death Cab for Cutie, The Photo Album (Deluxe Edition)

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Purchase log, 2021-01-26

[Soundtrack - Batman Original Score]

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
  • Alvin Singleton, Somehow We Can
  • Berlin, Pleasure Victim
  • INXS, Shabooh Shoobah
  • Pizzicato Five, Great White Wonder
  • Pizzicato Five, Remix Album: Happy End of You
  • Pizzicato Five, Sister Freedom Tapes
  • The Fixx, Reach the Beach
  • The Knack, Get the Knack
  • Virgil Thomsom, Complete Film Scores: The River / The Plow That Broke the Plains (Philharmonia Virtuosi, Richard Knapp)
Vinyl
  • Mandy Barnett, A Nashville Songbook
  • Sampha, Process

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Spice Girls, Forever
  • Soundtrack, Batman (Original Score)

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Purchase log, 2020-08-25

[Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra]

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
  • Benjamin Gibbard, Former Lives
  • Cocteau Twins, Garlands
  • Communards, Red
  • INXS, The Swing
  • Madness, Madness
  • Passengers, Original Soundtracks 1
  • Robyn, Robyn
  • Robyn, Body Talk, Vol. 2
  • Sinéad O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
  • Throwing Muses, Throwing Muses

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Guided By Voices, Alien Lanes
  • PJ Harvey, Rid of Me

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1985

[The Outfield - Play Deep]

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.

This list is the last of the original years covered in my previous survey. The Favorite 10 hasn’t changed, but the extended list has gotten longer.

  1. Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair
  2. Sting, The Dream of the Blue Turtles
  3. Arcadia, So Red the Rose
  4. ABC, How to Be a Zillionaire!
  5. 10,000 Manaics, The Wishing Chair
  6. Clannad, Macalla
  7. Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
  8. Soundtrack, Macross Song Collection
  9. Midnight Oil, Red Sails in the Sunset
  10. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Requiem

Other favorites from the year::

  • Camper Van Beethoven, Telephone Free Landslide Victory
  • Eurythmics, Be Yourself Tonight
  • Hiroshima, Another Place
  • The Pogues, Rum Sodomy and the Lash
  • Simple Minds, Once Upon a Time
  • Sade, Promise
  • Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising
  • The Replacements, Tim
  • The Outfield, Play Deep
  • INXS, Listen Like Thieves
  • Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force
  • The Power Station, The Power Station
  • The Family, The Family
  • Prince and the Revolution, Around the World in a Day

Younger Me would approve of most of this list.

He would have gasped at the inclusion of Prince, considering the Sibling Rivalry Collection Race was at its height, and this kind of intrusion would be accompanied by a drubbing.

And he would groaned at the inclusion of The Outfield. Older Me would then advise him to wait 20 years before a real appreciation could begin.

I capped this survey at 1985 because my collection before that year wasn’t extensive enough for much punditry. Weekly visits to thrift shops in the last three years have allowed me to fill in enough gaps to keep going till 1978.

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1987

[Sonic Youth - Sister]

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 go on and on about how much I love 1987 that I should just shut up and let the list speak for itself. Unsurprisingly, the Favorite 10 hasn’t changed, saved one correction.

  1. U2, The Joshua Tree
  2. Sting, … Nothing Like the Sun
  3. 10,000 Maniacs, In My Tribe
  4. Sinéad O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
  5. Bulgarian State TV & Radio Women’s Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares
  6. John Adams, The Chairman Dances
  7. Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera
  8. Wendy & Lisa, Wendy & Lisa
  9. Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction
  10. R.E.M., Document

Other favorites from the year:

  • Kronos Quartet, White Man Sleeps
  • Depeche Mode, Music for the Masses
  • Dolly Parton / Linda Ronstadt / Emmylou Harris, Trio
  • The Art of Noise, In No Sense? Nonsense!
  • Swing Out Sister, It’s Better to Travel
  • Hiroshima, Go
  • The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come
  • Eurythmics, Savage
  • INXS, Kick
  • Sonic Youth, Sister
  • The Dukes of the Stratosphear, Psonic Psunspot
  • Dead Can Dance, Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
  • Icehouse, Man of Colours
  • In Tua Nua, Vaudeville
  • Johnny Hates Jazz, Turn Back the Clock

I originally listed the cast recording of Into the Woods in the Favorite 10, but I discovered it was actually released in 1988.

The extended list is shorter than the one for 1988, but I’ve actually added fewer titles from 1987 since the original list was compiled. I think I also like these albums more intensely because I had discovered them at the time, and they’ve made a lasting impression.

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My brother’s albums: INXS, Kick

[INXS - Kick]

At times, the Sibling Rivalry Collection Race waded into some murky waters.

The rule was simple: the first person to buy an album from an artist had a monopoly on that artist, and other siblings could not encroach on that monopoly.

The rule was very clear about albums. Singles, however, usually threw wrenches in jurisdictional claims.

Kick by INXS could have tuned into a civil lawsuit between my brother and me.

Back in 1985, INXS release Listen Like Thieves, which spawned the catchy single “What You Need”. I bought that single after watching the video numerous times on Betamax-recorded episodes of Friday Night Videos. I did not end up buying the album.

A TV appearance by INXS in 1987 premiered the band’s then-new single, “Need You Tonight.” My brother liked it. I thought it wasn’t as good as “What You Need”.

But he liked it enough to buy the album. Technically, that meant INXS became his jurisdiction.

And boy did that rankle my feathers, especially when it turned out the rest of the album was better than “Need You Tonight”. I felt that because I had already established a claim with “What You Need”, I ought to have had first dibs on Kick. My brother pointed out that I was ambivalent about “Need You Tonight”, which could be interpreted as relinquishing that claim.

(Don’t get me wrong about “Need You Tonight” — I eventually grew to like the song, mostly because “Mediate” segued right into it.)

Of course, bratty kids that we were, we didn’t want to share. I don’t remember now how I got my hands on a dubbed copy of the album. He may have relented to making a dub, or I may have borrowed it from a friend. I got my hands on it, despite the rule.

Kick would eventually become ubiquitous, and the radio exposure coupled with my own spins eventually made me grow tired of the album. “Never Tear Us Apart” wasn’t a great single, but it seemed to be the song played to death.

By the time I embarked on building out my own collection, Kick managed to get left behind. For a time, I owned a greatest hits compilation but that too got lost in a cash-strapped purge.

Oddly enough, Kick returned to my collection only after I used the streaming services to listen to its predecessor, Listen Like ThievesKick is definitely the stronger album, but Listen Like Thieves is no slouch. It was the much-needed warm-up before the breakout.

It’s probably been 19 years since I listened to Kick, and it was strange to discover how familiar it all felt. That pretty much meant I had really internalized the album, even though I hadn’t owned it till now.

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