Records - January 2005
- The Beatles
Beatles For Sale (1964) - rating: 9
Let It Be (1970) - rating: 7- Paul Simon
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973) - rating: 7- Tony Bennett
The Essential Tony Bennett (2002) - rating: 8- Bing Crosby and Buddy Bregman
Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings (1956, reissued 2001) - rating: 6- Bill Evans
Conversations With Myself (1963, reissued 1997) - rating: 8- Frank Sinatra
My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra (1997) - rating: 9- Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
The Complete Duets (2001) - rating: 10- Marvin Gaye
Live! (1974) - rating: 6- Curtis Mayfield
Curtis (1970) - rating: 10- Dusty Springfield
Dusty in Memphis (1969, reissued 2002) - rating: 10- Dinah Washington
Back to the Blues (1963, reissued 1997) - rating: 8- Edith Piaf
L’Immortelle (1994) - rating: 8- Various artists, by Tony Rounce and Mick Patrick
Phil’s Spectre: A Wall of Soundalikes (2003) - rating: 9
Records are rated on a scale from one to ten, where ten is the best.
Note: All images were downloaded from AMG All Music Guide, except as follows: Beatles For Sale and Let It Be from Last.FM, Bing Crosby Sings… and Conversations With Myself from Verve Records, My Way… from Amazon UK, and The Complete Duets and Live! from Motown Records.
Blair Millen
Comment on February 2, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Wow, you’ve been listening to a lot of music this month!
Tell me Lars, are these albums new to you or are you reviewing your back catalogue? If they’re new, do you buy your albums brand new or second hand? I imagine most of them would be difficult to get hold of in that case. Just intrigued…
Lars
Comment on February 2, 2005 at 5:34 pm
There was a sale
Yeah, lots of music this month. I have been trying really hard to give all the records a fair treatment, but it is almost impossible once you exceed ten or so albums in a month. Incidentally, I think that the lower-than-usual average score reflects the fact that all of these purchases weren’t as well-researched or planned as they usually are. But I thought I had caught the sale on its last day, so I was in a hurry.
Anyway, no, all of these albums are not new to me.
Until a few years ago, I used to borrow a lot of records from friends and copy them to MiniDiscs. Unfortunately my MD player broke two years ago, and I decided I wasn’t going to fix it or buy a new one. This created an instant and quite massive back catalogue of records that I have listened to but never owned. Others are albums that I used to have on vinyl or cassette, which means I haven’t really listened to them since 1998 or thereabouts.
The "recatalogued" items this month are the two Beatles albums, Curtis, and Dusty in Memphis.
I buy both new and second hand, mostly new though. Most of the albums I buy are so old that they’re already "Nice Priced". Plus my local record store offers a good deal when you buy three at the same time. Most of the Verve titles, for instance, are set at this lower price. But lots of old albums have been reissued, so getting hold of them isn’t as difficult as it may seem. It’s just a different section of the record store. But the sale was mostly a chance to buy some of the otherwise ridiculously expensive regularly priced records, which includes all titles by The Beatles. New records weren’t on sale, but I wasn’t planning on buying one anyway. Actually, I think this was the first time I have seen a Beatles album on sale in Sweden. Don’t know why that is. The standard price for a CD in Sweden is around SEK170-200, which is around £13-15, or US$23-28.
Where and how do you buy your music?
Blair Millen
Comment on February 3, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Recently I’ve been buying music from Amazon or directly from record labels online; it’s such a handy (or should I say, too handy) way to listen to new music. If you’re impulsive like me and you’re one click away from ordering another album, then the albums keep getting ordered!
I’m subscribed to an amazing monthly CD produced by/for a nightclub/record label called Fabric: every month a different DJ mixes a selection of cutting-edge new music. I highly recommend it if you’re inclined towards dance music.
There’s a chain of music shops thoughout the UK called Fopp and I peruse my local on a regular basis. They too provide tempting offers of mid-priced new-ish CD’s and three for the price of two etc.
About 5 or so years ago there was an abundance of independent music shops in Glasgow which dealt with new and second-hand music; this was where I used to get most of my music but alas they’re all closed down now and only FOPP remains alongside Virgin and HMV.
I love music so much I occasionally wonder how I would manage if I couldn’t hear.
Lars
Comment on February 4, 2005 at 10:02 pm
I am probably lucky that I haven’t gotten into the habit of buying records online. Amazon has an awfully lot of titles available, but their postage and packaging usually makes it too expensive if it’s only one or two CDs. Not that the Swedish online stores offer any better deals.
The Fabric concept sounds great! I wonder if they do international orders. Yes, I love dance music, or at least I used to love it back in my rave and clubbing days. Now that I don’t go out that much, I often find myself wishing I could listen to it at home. But the truth is I don’t have anything to listen to. I have never gotten around to buying anything, mostly because I find it hard to know what I should buy. I guess I have just been too lazy.
Sadly, what you describe from Glasgow has been going on where I live too. And last week, Folk å Rock, the only really good record store chain that’s left, announced that they would let all their employees go due to declining sales. The owner claims this is directly tied to the increase in downloaded music. It probably is, but I say it is also tied to the price of CDs.
Anyway, it is good to know that there are people left who still buy actual records. I was starting to think I was the only one left.
George
Comment on February 13, 2005 at 3:43 pm
The Beatles Let it be album here displayed is one of my favourite because he is pure, fresh and let you imagine the studio atmosphere when the Beatles were recording.
More info on: Beatles Mania.