Archives

Purchase log, 2024-11-12

[Ray Chen - Player 1]

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
  • Ray Chen, Player 1

Catalog

CD
  • Heart, Little Queen
  • John Luther Adams, songbirdsongs
  • Linda Ronstadt, Live in Hollywood
  • Marshall Crenshaw, Live … My Truck Is My Home
  • Sting, The Bridge
  • Soundtrack, City of Angels (Original Cast Recording)
Vinyl
  • Arianna Grande, Eternal Sunshine
  • T’Pau, Bridge of Spies
  • Taylor Swift, evermore
  • Taylor Swift, folklore
  • The National, The First Two Pages of Frankenstein

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Purchase log, 2024-04-16

[Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter]

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
  • Beyoncé, Act II: Cowboy Carter

Catalog

CD
  • Anthrax, Among the Living
  • Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles
  • Dead or Alive, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
  • Doja Cat, Planet Her
  • Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway
  • Patrick Cowley, Afternooners
  • Sinéad O’Connor, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
Vinyl
  • Duran Duran, Do the Madison
  • Go West, Go West
  • Guided By Voices, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
  • Hoodoo Gurus, Blow Your Cool!
  • Jason Isbell, Southeastern (10th Anniversary Edition)
  • Marine Girls, Lazy Ways
  • Olivia Rodrigo, SOUR
  • Robert Görl, Night Full of Tension
  • The National, Trouble Will Find Me
  • Vagabon, Infinte Worlds
  • Vagabon, Sorry I Haven’t Called
  • Washed Out, Within and Without

Reissues

CD
  • Utada Hikaru, SCIENCE FICTION

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Purchase log, 2023-08-22

[R.E.M. - Accelerate]

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
  • Deer Tick, Divine Providence
  • Franz Josef Haydn, The London Symphonies (Sir Colin Davis, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)
  • Kenny Chesney, Be As You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair
  • Kenny Chesney, When the Sun Goes Down
  • Murder By Death, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The 6 Haydn Quartets (Melos Quartet)
Vinyl
  • MF Doom, MM..Food?
  • The National, High Violet

Reissues

Vinyl
  • R.E.M., Accelerate

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Purchase log, 2023-05-23

[The National - The First Two Pages of Frankenstein]

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
  • The National, The First Two Pages of Frankenstein

Catalog

CD
  • Broken Social Scene, Broken Social Scene
  • Earth, Wind & Fire, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1
  • Nena, Original Album Classics
  • Rosanne Cash, King’s Record Shop
  • Various Artists, Living In Oblivion, Vol. 5
Vinyl
  • Kylie Minogue, Kylie

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Purchase log, 2022-11-08

[Chris Isaak - San Francisco Days]

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
  • Luke Evans, A Song for You
  • Robin Holcomb, One Way or Another, Vol. 1
Vinyl
  • Taylor Swift, Midnights
  • UA, Are U Romantic?

Catalog

CD
  • 10cc, Original Soundtrack
  • Dismemberment Plan, Emergency & I
  • Grace Jones, Island Life
  • John Vanderslice, Life and Death of an American Fourtracker
  • Johnny Cash, American VI: Ain’t No Grave
  • Miami Sound Machine, Primitive Love
  • The National, High Violet
Vinyl
  • Madonna, Music

Reissues

Vinyl
  • Chris Isaak, San Francisco Days

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Purchase log picks, July 2021

[Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen a.k.a Two Wheels Good]

Kesha, Rainbow

This album has a lot of attitude, which it should given Kesha’s well-publicized legal battles. It’s fundamentally a pop album, with rock and country providing a gritty sheen.

ZZ Top, Afterburner

Eliminator has the bigger hits, but Afterburner is the better album.

Prefab Sprout, Two Wheels Good (a.k.a Steve McQueen)

Prefab Sprout is one of those bands about whom I knew without actually hearing their music. So it was nice to discover they fell somewhere between Yaz and ABC in their pursuit of a jazzy new wave sound.

TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

I didn’t get TV on the Radio at first. The few excerpts I heard seemed unfocused and tuneless. But I picked up their albums from thrift shop to see if I could eventually understand. By then, I had listened to more hip-hop and R&B and realized the band is Black af. A decade and a half ago, my rockist collection had little room for Black voices.

Aceyalone, All Balls Don’t Bounce

I confess to sacrilege — I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics on this album. The beats are too damn distracting.

The National, Trouble Will Find Me

The National is one of those bands I like, but I would not consider myself a fan. I would seem demographically suited to be one, given the rest of my collection, but I just haven’t been convinced enough to jump in two-footed. But I do like Boxer and this album.

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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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Purchase log, 2020-03-10

[The National - Boxer]

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
  • Björk, Selmasongs
  • Bill Frisell, The Intercontinentals
  • Herbie Hancock, Future Shock
  • Herbie Hancock, Head Hunters
  • Julieta Venegas, MTV Unplugged
  • Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift
  • Teresa Stratas, The Unknown Weill
  • XTC, Mummer
  • Soundtrack, The Book of Mormon (Original Broadway Cast)
Vinyl
  • Michael Kiwanuka, Home Again
  • The National, Boxer

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Favorite Edition Rewind: 2007

[The Dead Betties - Nightmare Sequence]

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 further we get from the present day, the more we’ll find retroactive changes to the Favorite Edition lists. The 2007 list sees a lot of shifting in the Favorite 10, and a number of retroactive additions.

  1. Explosions in the Sky, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
  2. UA, Golden green
  3. The Dead Betties, Nightmare Sequence
  4. Björk, Volta
  5. unkie, the Price of Fame
  6. Nico Muhly, Speaks Volumes
  7. Stephen Sondheim, Company (2006 Cast Recording)
  8. Once, Music from the Motion Picture
  9. Sasagawa Miwa, Mayoi Naku
  10. Tokyo Jihen, Goraku (Variety)

Other favorites from the year:

  • Synapse/Elliott Cole, The Oracle Hysterical
  • Tommy heavenly6, Heavy Starry Heavenly
  • Kawai Kenji, Seirei no Moribito
  • Office, A Night at the Ritz
  • M.I.A., Kala
  • The National, Boxer
  • Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
  • Jason Isbell, Sirens of the Ditch

The cast recording for 2006 production of Company gets a retroactive boost, missing the Favorite 10 the first time out. A PBS broadcast of the revival directed by John Doyle went a long way in raising its ranking.

I didn’t discover the Dead Betties till a year and some change after the release of Nightmare Sequence, and it would have shot up to the Favorite 10 had I known about it. The album doesn’t lose its punch more than a decade on.

Rufus Wainwright’s Release the Stars and Smashing Pumpkins’ Zeitgeist fall of the list entirely. I think those albums earned their place on the Favorite 10 because I was not paying attention to what was happening in 2007, if the expanded list is any indication.

I’m not sure I actually like The National, but I remember catching the band’s appearance on Live from the Artists Den and thinking Matt Berninger was a tall drink of water. Boxer is rather fine album, nonetheless.

I would not have picked up Band of Horses without Renée Fleming. I get them mixed up with the Band of Heathens and Band of Skulls.

I didn’t actually like Sirens of the Ditch the first time I listened to it. I was just starting to explore Jason Isbell’s work after hearing Southeastern, and I wanted everything to sound like it. I had no context about his work with Drive-By Truckers. Sirens of the Ditch is closer to his work with the Truckers than his more recent albums, and that understanding goes a long way to building appreciation for his solo debut.

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