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Why I'm Buying CDs Again
Three recent top finds.
The Bees: U.K. indie band pollinates North America.
I've started to buy music again. Perhaps this shouldn't be as noteworthy as I think it is, but considering the music industry is in a free fall, my personal attempt to save it might give execs something to cheer about. As you know, music execs are avid Tyee readers.
Over the past four months, I've probably bought around 20 CDs, a number easily representing my same purchasing patterns from the last half decade. As I am ostensibly supposed to give music suggestions in this column, please find forthwith a sampling of my recent purchases.
Dean & Britta -- 'Back Numbers'
The Sound Opinions team considered this record one of the best albums of 2007, to date, and, while I'm not sure I agree with that assessment, it is a very enjoyable listening experience. While I know that damns it with faint Coldplay praise, it is a perfect record to put on while one is preparing a meal of sautéed baby bok choy and clams.
Standout Track: "You Turned My Head Around." It shimmers with Spector-esque production and a chorus so joyful you'll want to fall in love to it.
Peter Bjorn and John -- 'Writer's Block'
I know, I know -- everyone knows this album. They were on Gray's Anatomy! They whistle! While undoubtedly the indie summer hit of this year, "Young Folks" is not the standout track. In my mind that goes to...
Standout Track: "Paris 2004." "Monday morning/We have to fly back home again/While I'm sleeping/You paint a ring on my finger with your black marker-pen." Maybe it's because I am in love, or maybe it's the Cassis talking, but when Peter (or Bjorn or John) told Sound Opinions (seeing a theme here?) that this was his partner's favourite song, well, how can one avoid dreaming all day of Paris in the springtime?
The Bees (also: A Band of Bees) -- 'Octopus'
First of all, why couldn't I buy this album anywhere in Canada? (I don't consider HMV "in Canada." I know that makes no sense. Leave me alone.) What I meant to say is, why is this album $24.99? How many people are going to spend a quarter of a c-note, an entire quarter, on an album with 10 songs? I'll tell you how many -- one. And whomever that person is who went outside of Canada to HMV and bought this album before I could get back to the store -- shame on you. Shame, shame, shame.
Standout Track: "Listening Man." Let's say you don't have a computer and don't know anyone who does. And let's say you don't have a library card, or a dollar to spend at an Internet café, or the wherewithal to go into a store with Internet and "test-drive" one of their laptops. If that's the case, then I suppose you might not have seen the amazingly endearing, albeit possibly misogynistic, video for "Listening Man." But for everyone else -- if you haven't seen it, shame. Shame, shame, shame. Watch it now.
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Gus
4 years ago
Why?
So why is it you're buying CDs again? Surely there has been great music worthy of purchase in the last half decade.
You mentioned cost. This is something I don't get. In a dying industry, is there any good reason any CD is over ten bucks? Think of all the chances you'd take on artists if CDs were no more than ten bucks. That would jumpstart buying, I think and get people used to going back in the record stores. Then, slowly they could begin to raise prices again, within reason. But it's not expensive to make CDs. Stupid greed is killing the industry.
jonny
4 years ago
Buying music
As a comedian said to John Stewart the other night when he asked about buying music, " Dude your so old"
jfm
4 years ago
CD's? call me a ludite but
CD's? call me a ludite but all the new music i buy and have been for the last 8yrs has been Vinyl Lps! They still make em, there better than ever,natural sound is analog and if I want to listen to them in my car or camping I burn it.And only the cool artists press wax.
thomas
4 years ago
I'm buying CDs again mostly
I'm buying CDs again mostly because my iPod crashed, taking with it about 12 gigs of music. Yes - backing up is necessary in this day and age. But I realized that I liked looking at that 10 year old copy of OK Computer, and remembering where I was and how I felt. Basically, it's for nostalgia. As for their cost, better minds than mine have explained the hows and whys of music pricing, from organizational structures to supporting smaller artists to shareholders and propping up failing video game divisions. The music industry juggernaut is simply too big not to charge those amounts.
Buy Merge artists - you can't go wrong.