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Purchase log, 2022-02-01

[Ray Chen - The Golden Age]

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
  • Carol Nethen, A View from the Bridge
  • Caroline Shaw and So Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
  • Daft Punk, Human After All
  • Frederic Chopin, Etudes (Maurizo Pollini)
  • Lianne La Havas, Lianne La Havas
  • Pizzicato Five, Five By Five
  • Ray Chen, The Golden Age
  • Seawind, Seawind
  • Sarah Kirkland Snider, Mass for the Endangered
  • Stevie Wonder, Music of My Mind
  • System of a Down, Hypnotize
  • The Smiths, The Peel Sessions
  • The White Stripes, Icky Thump
  • Tristan Perich, Drift Multiply
  • Vagabon, Vagabon
  • Yola, Walk Through Fire
  • Soundtrack, Top Gun

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Enya, “May It Be”
  • PJ Harvey, Let England Shake

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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, 2020-12-08

[Death Cab for Cutie - The Georgia EP]

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
  • Sam Hunt, SOUTHSIDE
Files
  • Death Cab for Cutie, The Georgia EP
  • Eponymous 4, Shinkyoku Moratorium Eigoban

Catalog

CD
  • Heart, Greatest Hits / Live
  • Pizzicato Five, Combinaison spaciale EP
  • The National, The National

Reissues

Box set
  • The Replacements, Pleased to Meet Me

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1994

[Soundtrack - Interview with a Vampire]

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.

The original list from 1994 didn’t even include an extended list. That’s how austere the selections from the year were.

  1. Talitha Mackenzie, Solas
  2. Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World
  3. Wayne Horvitz/Pigpen, V as in Victim
  4. Harry Connick, Jr., She
  5. Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
  6. Everything But the Girl, Amplified Heart
  7. Kronos Quartet, Night Prayers
  8. Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, Cheerful & Optimistic
  9. John Zorn/Masada, Alef
  10. Madonna, Bedtime Stories

Other favorites from the year:

  • Prince, The Black Album
  • Blur, Parklife
  • Pizzicato Five, Made in USA
  • Shudder to Think, Pony Express Record
  • Elliott Goldenthal, Interview with a Vampire

At the time of its limited release, I was actually very curious about The Black Album. Part of it was all the hype surrounding its initial aborted release, but I was still mostly ambivalent about Prince to pass on it. Its underdog status among Prince’s work makes me like it just a bit more.

A top 10 list I would have compiled in 1994 would have listed the Interview with a Vampire soundtrack. It’s actually a really good score. It’s too bad the movie sucked eggs. I watched twice — the first time to evaluate its faithfulness to the novel (somewhat), the second to evaluate it as a film (awful). The only thing that mars the soundtrack is the unfortunate cover of Sympathy for the Devil by Guns N’ Roses.

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 1997

[Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope]

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.

1998 and 1999 were probably the most productive years of the ’90s. 1997 slightly less so. That said, there isn’t much change from the original list, a few shuffles aside.

  1. Cocco, Bougainvillia
  2. Duran Duran, Medazzaland
  3. The Old ’97s, Too Far to Care
  4. Björk, Homogeneic
  5. 10,000 Maniacs, Love Among the Ruins
  6. Soundtrack, The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield
  7. Molotov, ¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas?
  8. Bill Frisell, Nashville
  9. Pizzicato Five, Happy End of the World
  10. Prodigy, Fat of the Land

Other favorites from the year:

  • Janet Jackson, The Velvet Rope
  • China Digs, Looking for George …
  • John Taylor, Feelings are Good and Other Lies
  • Jack Ingram, Livin’ and Dyin’
  • Kronos Quartet, Early Music (Lachrymæ Antiquæ)
  • 8 1/2 Souvenirs, Souvonica
  • Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out
  • Missy Elliott, Supa Dupa Fly
  • David Bowie, Earthling

I wouldn’t rediscover The Velvet Rope till 2014. I disliked its predecessor, janet., but I was also disappointed Janet didn’t switch up her theme. I’ve come to realize The Velvet Rope was the album I wished janet. would have been.

Earthling is the very first album by David Bowie I’ve ever owned. I actually liked it at the time, but I didn’t love it. So it got cut during a collection purge. My recent deep dive into the his work made me revisit Earthling, and as unlikely as an EDM Bowie album might sound, he makes it work.

Sleater-Kinney and Missy Eliott are retroactive additions to the list. I didn’t explore their works until recently.

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