Alright, so I haven't really got all these postings where I plead for gifts my my adoring public done in time for anyone to have presents sent to me in time for Christmas. But since I'm not a Christian anyway, and loathe everything about Christmas except for the part where people buy me stuff, it doesn't really matter if you get it to me before or after the holiday. The spirit of giving to me can last all season long...
I love music. I love buying music. But there are only so many dollars I can commit to buying music that hard choices have to be made when at the record store.
The band most responsible for making me a music fan to begin with is U2. Prior to discovering their music on my own in my very early teens, I didn't think I liked music very much. Unlike a lot of kids in my generation, I didn't have parents who turned me on to Bob Dylan and The Beatles or an older sibling who opened my eyes to The Ramones or The Clash. No, my mom listened to shit like Air Supply and my brother had records from the likes of Kiss, Kansas and Foreigner.
My dad did give me my very first album. It was Bobby Vinton's Greatest Hits. I'm pretty sure that the first albums my mother ever bought for me were the two Disco Duck records.
So yea, I pretty much thought music wasn't my thing. But then I heard U2 and I turned into a lifelong music geek. Just finding that one great band made me realize there was great music out there and I went looking for it. They profoundly changed my life. And while I have been pretty disappointed with their output for the last decade or so, (hitting their most horrible low point with 1997's Pop) I will always feel grateful to them for their earlier work. It's those early albums that got the re-release treatment in the last year or so.
Last year was the 20th anniversary of The Joshua Tree, which made me feel really old since I can remember going to the Turtles Records and Tapes nearest my house in Stone Mountain to buy it on the day in came out like it was yesterday. So they put out a few different editions of a remastered version of the album. The best one is a 2-CD/DVD set that comes in at over 50 bucks.
Earlier this year they released new, remastered versions of their first three albums - Boy, October and War - each one with an extra disc full of bonus tracks. And then they also put out a new version of their live album Under A Blood Red Sky, packaging together the album and the DVD for the first time.
Together, they are like a box set of my high school years.
Like I said, I have a limited music-buying budget and hard decisions have to be made. It is really hard to justify throwing down more than 30 bucks (or more than 50 for Joshua Tree) for albums you already own, even if they do sound a whole lot better and are loaded with extras, when you can get two brand new albums that you don't already own for that same price.
But man, I really want these bad.
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3 comments:
You still have 3 of my old records, but since they are now pretty much obsolete,unless I go to my Dad's, who has 2 record players and a collection of over3000 records.(I'm not shitting you),I have no use for them, They were Synchronicity, Pipes of Peace, and the other I totally forgot. Sell them, burn them, give them away, whatever. Hope you had a good Holiday! I did! Got the digital camera I wanted! Plus posted some of my artwork on my myspace profile.
P.S. I wish my husband wasn't into so much country music! I can only handle a little, even though I'm distant kin to Conway Twitty (Harold Jenkins), my grandmother's cousin. We LOVE the Star Wars saga. I guess you weren't crazy about episodes 1,2,& 3.
YOU feel old? Last tour I saw them on was The Unforgettable Fire tour in 1984!! Jaysus...
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