Friday, April 17, 2009

Friday Favorite: The Buyer's Remorse of a Music Lover

I can't believe I am dragging this little bit of embarrassment up again. I was working on another post for next week, and I was reminded of this gem from November 2006. Perhaps it will generate some new admissions from people who weren't reading my blog back in 2006.

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I think we all have those albums or songs in our music collections that you can't believe you bought or own {as sometimes you get music for other reasons).

Now I have two tragic faults when it comes to music... I can be swayed by price and I can't throw things away if they suck. So, here is just a few of the motley groaners amongst the hundreds of cds I own.

Jewel- Pieces of You: Yes, I own a Jewel CD *shame*. It was 5 bucks at a pawn shop, it was 1997, and I was a little young and naive... I know better now, but now the market is flooded with it, so I can't really get rid of it through commercial means, and I can't bear to just throw it out. It isn't bad, and I can honestly say I listened to it at most 3 times in the last 9 years, but seeing it on my shelf just doesn't give me any indie cred at all. In retrospect, it was perhaps one of the easiest things to pick on in my collection.

Alisha's Attic- Alisha Rules the World : Well, at least with this one I have an excuse. When I was in college I was an arts reviewer for the institution's paper and that was one of the CDs I had to review. The question is, why do I still have it. I mean, I should have gotten rid of it years ago. Now, in thinking of the album, I honestly couldn't remember a thing about it. I had to go to Youtube to actually refresh my memory about what the group sounded like. It was that long since I had experienced them.

The 20th Century Collection- The Best of ABBA: Now, no excuse can really justify this, though I will state that I had just gone through a breakup and "The Winner Takes it All" was a pretty accurate assessment of my feelings at the time. And it was 10 bucks at a drug store, so it was slightly cheaper than making homemade Prozac. But now... shudder. I can't believe I own it.

The entire Letters to Cleo discography
: Back in 1994, Letters to Cleo had a minor hit with the song Here and Now, and at the time, I got really into the band. Being the favorite band of the heroine of 10 Things I Hate About You was strike one, Kay Hanley was the stunt singer(I love that term though) for Rachael Leigh Cook in Josie and the Pussycats was strike 2. Then Generation O! was when they were out and I really started to question my earlier love for the band. There are still moments that I like them, but as I approach 30, I feel like I've grown up and past their work now. Sad but true.

Jan Hammer- Escape from Television: Buoyed by the success of Miami Vice, Jan Hammer, the man who wrote the music for that series decided to capitalize his newly-found fame and release an album of tracks from the series. While the tunes do work as incidental music for the show, as an album... it is brutal. Yes, the Miami Vice theme song and "Crockett's Theme" are quality stand alone pieces of music, but wow, as a whole it will burn your soul... and not in a good way. My only consolation is I bought it from a bin for 3 bucks at a boxing day sale, so at least I didn't burn my soul and my wallet at the same time.

So tell me, what cds do you own that you aren't too proud of. We're all friends here after all. I've shown you some of mine, now I want to see some of yours.

5 comments:

Greg said...

I've got the one Jewel did after that. And I bought it for full price. And I actually like it. Really sick, eh?

Peter Lynn said...

There's nothing wrong with ABBA. Benny and Bjorn are severely under-recognized as being among the greatest pop-music composers of the 20th century. Or are you merely ashamed that you own a bargain-basement compilation such as The 20th Century Collection?

Arjan said...

to be completely honest..there aren't any bought cd's that I'm really ashamed off.
I really need to sit down and listen to Public Enemy's It takes a nation of millions to hold us back..but I'm not ashamed of having it.

Maybe a copied cd of the 'Osdorp Posse' would come closest. It's a Dutch hiphop group which rapped about beating up busdrivers and whatnot. I got it from a friend who didn't like it..and I never really got up to throwing it away.

MC said...

Greg: Nothing saying you should be ashamed of that.

Peter: I had a friend who wrecked a lot of things, and I think the shame stems from my association of ABBA with him (he's the dude that wrecked Dr. Who too because he was a proselytizer for it.)

MC said...

Arjan: Well, that doesn't really count since you didn't actively seek it out or anything.