Where do you go to buy in bulk, if you don’t mind me asking? Are you just buying a random selection and hoping to find a gem?
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Actually I was more referring to things in general outside of cds. Sorry to mislead. However, if cds were cheap enough I would take a chance on a couple and see. I’m not averse to random purchases.
Found my favourite preamp tubes that way. Threw them in as a “what the hell” kind of buy since I was acquiring other tubes and shipping was often times more than what I was buying anyway.
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Thank you for clarifying. I’ve contemplating buying CDs in bulk from eBay but I’m wary of this being like those garage/yard/car boot sales where people sell hundreds of ludicrously cheap CDs but have terrible taste in music. Or, alternatively, the same few CDs always end up being for sale (I have a suspicion that everyone on earth purchased a Lenny Kravitz CD in the 1990s).
To get back on topic, I use spotify for music discovery because it has the best selection for my tastes (beyond classical music, that is), but I wish they’d get a wiggle on and offer higher quality streaming. I suppose there’s little incentive since they have so many subscribers. Apple Music doesn’t appeal as I don’t want to lose track of what I own.
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I’m considering dropping tidal for Spotify family plan. Cheaper than MQA tidal and has an option to block explicit lyrics. TBH I’d really love to be able to access Qobuz but so far it’s not available for me yet.
It would be nice for Spotify to go HD but I’m not holding my breath.
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Yes, the family plan is appealing. I like the look of Qobuz, as well as the combined streaming and download store, but it could do with having a wider selection of music.
Where spotify wins for me is music discovery, especially for new releases. Of particular value for alternative rock/indie/electronic music are the playlists of radio stations, music websites, and record stores like BBC 6 Music 2020, Stereogum’s Favorite New Music, and Rough Trade Recommends, among others. I then go over to bandcamp for purchases! (FWIW, bandcamp also allows you to stream your purchases on tablets and smartphones, although I can’t comment on the quality as I’ve never used it).
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Radio Paradise gets my vote for music discovery. That and researching on ROON. With Radio Paradise, I don’t get to choose, except which stream I want. Their world stream is first rate, and even the Rock stream offers up the more than occasional surprise.
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I’m a listener rather than a collector, and try a “slew” of music every week. I usually don’t play more than 10% or 20% of the albums a second time. Most only earn 1-3 tracks of listening time; if I can predict the lyrics of the next verse – goodbye. If all the songs start in the same key with the same notes – goodbye. If the singer has a one or two note range…ugg. If the production involves too much modulation or V shaped brightness…sigh…
I’ve found that with artists I stick with through an entire album fall into (1) pick the best album and avoid the rest; this often involves the first release as the artists “had their entire life to write that set of songs”, or (2) I become a completionist because the artist was really good, really distinct, or evolved in an interesting fashion. Finally, many bands active in the Recording Industry Era (pre Napster) strategically released their best songs across multiple albums so they only require a Greatest Hits album.
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In the home ripping era (starting in the 1990s), I started seeing online album reviews that went as follows: “I had this CD but ripped it to MP3 and then sold all my CDs.” So, those used CDs might have been passed around a dozen times. When my wife donates household goods at thrift stores, I sometimes scan their used CDs. Years ago I picked up a lot of stuff for $1 or $2 each.
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I’m that way also. There are a few albums that are an “experience” in their whole but otherwise I seem to wind up making my own little “best of” playlists.
That’s one of the reasons for my cd-ripping project. I can create a best-of playlist of everything in one place.
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For some, that’s true. But for a few decades, there were many albums that tried to present at least an organic whole, if not a coherent story. For those, you really need the album, and not with tracks randomized.
Examples:
Jefferson Starship: Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, Baron Von Tollbooth
Who: Sell Out; Tommy, Quadrophenia
Pink Floyd: Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, More, Obscured by Clouds
Beatles: Yellow Submarine, Help, Hard Day’s Night, Sgt. Pepper
Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Rick Wakeman: Journey to the Center of the Earth
and as they say, “many more”
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Sounds like a great idea for a dedicated topic.
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I’m more of a listener than a collector, also. But if I like enough of an artists work to warrant buying 20% of it, which is usually spread throughout their history, usually the bulk of the rest of it is worth listening to, also.
That does, of course, depend on the nature of the music/genre or artist. And of course there are many cases where an album only has one or two worthwhile tracks on it. But those seem to be rarer for me with my general listening habits.
And by artist, I should probably have said “performer”, since that crosses not just singers or bands, but also composers, conductors and orchestras.
I find it interesting to see how a performer changes, grows (or gets stale/old/loses it) over time. Something relatively contemporary, like say “The Petshop Boys” starts off innovative, interesting, varied with albums that have far more good than bad on them. Then there was a long period where they were becoming less interesting/more formulaic, and more recently they’ve gotten some new stuff going that might even better their original work.
Some days I’m playing albums where everyone is a different performer. Some days its themed for a genre. Some days it might just be one artist. My mood tends to shift as a I listen, but rarely to the point where I want to be choosing random tracks (that’s more something that happens with new gear).
I do have playlists … lots of them … some mood-driven, some style-driven, some genre-driven. They just don’t see much as much use, beyond background/non-critical listening, as my album based listening does. And often, if I’m passively listening, I’ll let Roon Radio (etc.) go find new stuff.
For my favorite works, I tend to pick up many, sometimes all, variations (I have a dozen or so sets of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, by different conductors, in different venues with varied orchestra, probably 45 variations of Beethoven’s 6th, and so on).
I don’t buy it just to have it. Though being realistic, at this point, if I just hit “play” on my primary library, and listened for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would take about 10 years before to go through it all.
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Absolute agreement here. Those are now relatively rare, but you can find them if you dig into the hundreds of monthly releases. There are also non-themed albums packed with solid content in the old days (e.g., many Beatles and Led Zeppelin releases and many today).
Moving into later decades, one-off cohesive albums include (from memory):
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Big Country (1983), everything just hangs together in their debut folky-rocky album.
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The Pogues Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash (1985) as inventing Irish Acoustic Folk Punk.
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XTC’s Skylarking (1986), as hands-down the best release from XTC. It was mixed by Todd Rundgren in a superior fashion, to the eternal dismay and petty anger of band leader Andy Partridge.
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The Stone Roses (1989) as inventing both Shoegaze and Britpop in one fell swoop. The production was incredibly nuanced.
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Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses (1993) for inventing the NYC DIY Gothic Hard Rock genre.
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Milla Jovovich (the Resident Evil actress) The Divine Comedy (1994), as turning eastern European folk into something cohesive and contemporary.
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Calexico The Black Light (1998) as creating a US-Mexico border pop hybrid genre.
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The Mars Volta Deloused in the Comatorium (2003) for communicating to the world what it’s like to be a heroin addict.
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A Perfect Circle, Thirteenth Step (2003) as the side band of Tool’s lead singer. This one resembles Tool to a large degree and returns to themes in itself. It sticks with me.
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Gorillaz Demon Days (2005) as popularizing the contemporary “guest performer” format.
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Vampire Weekend (2008) for its upscale private college theme.
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Fleet Foxes (2008) as a near perfect folk rock album, except for the hokey “red fur” spoken lines at the very start.
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The XX XX (2009) as spoken intimacy from start to finish.
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Destroyer Kaputt (2011) as the stream-of-consciousness dreams of the singer (with mild, gentle music).
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Richard Hawley Standing at the Sky’s Edge (2012) for a weirdly themed folk, hard rock, environmental, spacey album that all hangs together.
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Flying Lotus Until the Quiet Comes (2012) for its half-album-length blur of psychedelics and trippy mixing.
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Lana Del Rey Born to Die (2012) as inventing the female Morrissey genre. “She wouldn’t go THERE?” Yes, she went there…
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La Femme Psycho Tropical Berlin (2013) for creating a weird psycho french pop genre all their own.
Etc.
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And let’s not forget Jazz albums like Brubeck’s Time Out and Time Further Out. Comedy music like all of the Bonzo Dog band albums and spoke word like Firesign Theater’s “I Think We’re all Bozos on This Bus.”
Perhaps I’m daring @TylersEclectic to split and create that new topic @NickZ mentioned.
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Yes, this could be a new thread: “Music Best Heard in Album Format”…etc.
Yes, that or plain fade away is common. I call it ‘creative middle age.’ There are clear ups and downs, and some never recover or only periodically recover. This included Sinatra, Elvis, Neil Young (2x or 3x), Elton John, Tony Bennett (maybe 3x or 4x) and many more. Joy Division somehow transformed itself into New Order, and went from being a prime dark/goth band to a world-changing synth and dance band.
After a while I do reach a saturation point with almost any artist, and then tend to rely on one album or just my favorite songs.
No one can keep up with the numerous new releases these days. We are falling farther behind 24/7/365! What to do?!?
I personally cannot listen to classical, jazz, or heavy metal when I work (i.e., most of my listening hours). They are extremely disruptive because of the large or sudden changes to volume and tempo. Piano okay, string quartets okay, acoustic guitar okay. No vocals for heavy brain work, but vocals of known songs are fine for lighter mental work.
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If I’m working, I like ambient or ambient house. Brian Eno, Orb. Stuff like that. Little fluffy clouds.
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mmhm, I’m with you! I’ve a growing collection of Field Recordings I enjoy when working. Music that when recorded correctly doesn’t sound like music? Sounds like I’m in a field, which in my younger days is where I’d write and draw so I find I’m more productive “out in nature” or listening to something that’s astonishingly close to how that experience sounds
What this topic is missing is my venture into “local streaming” or hosting a ton of stuff in my Google Drive and listening to it… streamed to my cellular phones! As much as I love Qobuz it doesn’t always have EVERYTHING I want and I don’t always like downloading EVERYTHING to my cell phones. So I went the 2TB route with Drive and that’s been working nicely
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Field recordings of Birdsong and just general nature are for me the most relaxing sounds in existence. I’m not a collector of them but whenever I hear any its just great. Infact I’m off to search for some on the net. I used to have some downloads from Amazon Music. I don’t know where they are now. Anyhow, thanks for reminding me of these lovely sounds.
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