Soooo...I fear that I may have purchased my last CD. This grieves me as i remember Jackson Browne's ode to his father which included the line, "make room for my 45's, along beside your 78's nothing survives... but the way we live our lives." Gosh, remember when Jackson Browne had anything interesting to say or observe, back before he beat up Daryl Hannah? That was a long time ago. I have a large CD collection but it is not an oppressively large collection. My music purchases have declined as I become more and more out of touch and irrelevant and buy more and more through iTunes. And there is at least one of the rubs. I am a fan of certain artists and I am a completist, almost obsessively regarding the artists I consider essential to my snobbish, boorish, elitist, disdainful and ultimately sad musical tastes.So when Neil Young releases a critical well reviewed CD and my stalwart if somewhat predictable icons the Old 97's both release CD's within days of one another I have to resist the urge to download and go out... to a store... with people... and buy the CD. This is even more complicated by the fact that due to my elitist disease i cannot go to Walmart or even Target and buy a CD but i have to support our local record stores... all two of them. I know there are more but stores like that one down on Cherokee are way too cool for me. I am after all, old. So I herded myself down to Euclid records (which is close) and found both CD's and... HOLY SHIT! Both CD's are $17.99... EACH! Are you shitting me?
I can buy either of the CD's on iTunes for $9.99. What do I lose? The packaging? The CD format has limited dramatically thevalue of packaging. Albums were works of art and love and contained a wealth of information written in a font size that was legible, even for old people. they were pretty. I will treasure my 300 albums more then I can ever cherish my 1000 or so Cd's. So I guess what I am saying is that I am going to sit on my completist fetish and... perhaps never buy another CD. God, that Kills me.So quickly, "Le Noise". It is worth the critical acclaim. It is Young playing alone with Daniel Lanois production which is sparse but rather then take the Rick Rubin approach of acoustic minimalism Lanois lets Young stretch out with electric guitar, effect and his laconic, atonal vocals and although I have only listened twice... this is a really good CD and easily a top 10 Neil CD. Nuff said.
The Old 97's Grand theatre CD... it is more ofthe same. if you love Rhett Miller and his pop sensibilities it is a must buy but as with almost all the band's CD's, no new ground is broken here. I love it but i am a fan. That is the only reason to buy it.
but if you buy them...buy them both on iTunes or even better, pick out the best tracks on each CD and just buy those. "The times, they are a changing". Or perhaps they have already changed.
1 comment:
And how do you know that Jackson Browne beat up Daryl Hannah? HE called the police and no charges were filed by either side. Even JFK Jr., to whom Hannah ranfor comfort, said that she was prone to exaggeration.
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