Today's iTunes Purchases: 12/6/05


Making sure my collections are complete

I'm a music collector. If I like an artist then I want just abut everything by that artist. I may even know that I don't like some of it, but it's all part of the artist's story. My CD collection is organized by genre, then by artist and then chronologically by artist. And I have been know to listen to an artist chronologically sometimes, just to follow their path as an artist.

So every single purchase this week was to fill in missing pieces in my collection of various artists.

A single:
Double whammy with the single Crazy as performed by Alanis Morissette. First because I am an Alanis fan, and second because I'm a huge Seal fan. This cover is a novelty piece. I mean, I'm glad this is her favorite song and all, but I wouldn't say the cover is earth-shattering or, in fact, even notable.She seems pretty laid back. At $.99 why not? But keep your expectations low-key.

An EP:
Being a Kate Bush fan means never having to say you're sorry. Even when you buy this somewhat random EP, Aspects of the Sensual World, which has some songs she'd written for movies and a couple of other random clips, along with an instrumental and the original album version of The Sensual World. Even though I have her comprehensive box set, This Woman's Work, I don't have a couple of these tunes, so I snapped this up. It's all Kate Bush, so it's all good.


And 3 albums:
Besides being a Seal fanatic and a Kate Bush fanatic, I am also a Stephen Sondheim fanatic. To those who say he doesn't write beautiful melodies? I say fuck all y'all! (And since we know from "INside the Actor's Studio" that "fuck" is Sondheim's favorite curse word, I'm sure he'll appreciate my sentiment.) He writes melodies that stab me right in the heart. And no one disputes he writes some of the cleverest lyrics ever. Erudite, complex, intelligent. But you might not know he also writes achingly simple and beautiful lyrics. Anyway, this past year they took one of his earliest musicas, " target="NewWindow">Saturday Night, and produced it for the very first time. Any Sondheim buff will recognize much of the music, as it was later incorporated into Follies, and also into various Sondheim evenings. It's definitely a younger, less wise Sondheim at work, not so much musically but lyrically...with many of the songs sung by the young of heart and unblemished of soul.

This week the entire XTC collection went up on iTunes, so took the opportunity to replace a couple of albums that I had on vinyl and never replaced with CDs, Skylarking and The Big Express. No easier way to relive your youth (in this case my college years) than to listen to the music you loved back then. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding are an odd and overly talented pair, and on Skylarking they have the equally odd and talented Todd Rundgren producing. Either the very thought of XTC and Todd Rundgren sets your heart all a-quiver, or you have a blank look on your face right now...in which case I can't help you. It's like a "location" joke...you had to be there.

Hey, I'm not too fond of Kate's single Eat the Music or Sondheim's very first score/lyrics effort A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, or even an XTC song here and there. But as a music collector, I still want those examples of their work in my possession. And no, I don't want to pay for the right to stream them when I feel like. I want to own them.

Posted: Thu - December 8, 2005 at 07:00 PM       EmailFeedback

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