So I Bought Some Stuff

Aztec Camera, "Pillar To Post" - Sometimes, in the process of performing your commercial duties, you make purchases that seem to have a little extra significance. This significance (or at least this particular manifestation of significance) doesn't really go past the walls of your skull, and doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with the actual music you bought; it tends to have more to do with the deviations in your consumption habits than the physical stuff you actually end up with (which would explain all the love for those goddamned interminable dumb-ass Lord of the Rings movies). Case in point: I picked up four CDs this week, including one (Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain) which may well end up being One Of Those Albums I Discovered This Year, and all I want to do is talk about their cases.

I am old enough to remember buying CDs (or having CDs bought for me) in those long, functionless cardboard jackets; consequently, I am therefore old enough to remember a few years later when the black plastic trays that hold the disc began to be cycled out in favor of clear plastic with an additional surface of cover art underneath it. Of all the useless shit I keep in my head to frame my own personal narrative, these two may just win and place. It's just that these two events let the genie of added value out of the bottle and set it loose in my head, and as a direct result I'm still being kicked to death by the music industry twenty dollars at a time to this day. The question isn't whether or not I'm getting the album I want anymore - sadly, more often than not it's a question of whether I'm making the best possible purchase. I'm sure this sounds like a remarkably stupid and juvenile way to go about spending your money on music, probably because it is; my only defense is that this is probably just what happens when you consciously remove and restore elements of stuff eleven-year-olds are used to buying.

I've always been fascinated by all the added-value stuff that I've managed to accrue over the years, even though I almost never actually use any of it - all those bonus discs packed with b-sides which didn't make the album for painfully obvious reasons! All those special features on DVDs! And of course, all that crazy packaging, because what better way to remind yourself that you've made a Satisfying Commercial Decision than to be reminded of it every time you interact with the object you bought! Yes, all that shit you stop paying attention to the instant you successfully incorporate something into your life. I actually like a bunch of the bonus tracks on ABC's 2004 deluxe edition of The Lexicon of Love, but it would be idiotically dishonest to pretend that I've ever had the kind of burning need for them that I routinely get for the album itself (and let's not even get into the hassle of slipping the plastic sleeve on and off without scratching the box). And yet I'd probably have punched you in the (metaphorical) face if you'd suggested that I buy the non-deluxe edition back when I was in the market for it in spite of the fact that the regular disc sounds perfectly fine and has a bonus track to its name for good measure - I mean, yeah I would have been saving myself twenty bucks, but...where's the slipcase?

It's worth pointing out, I think, that discovering The Lexicon of Love was one of the most seismic, least ironic events in my musical 2005; they may as well have kept it in cold storage for twenty years just to wait for me to get to it. But I wonder about the relationship between my near-religious fervor for the album and the choice I made to make sure I had the best (or at least best-fleshed-out) version available on the market - was I actually deciding that this was my favorite album since etc when I added twenty extra bucks to my Visa bill? I mean, I actively Do Not Want to be a snob: I want to like what I like because I like it, and I generally think people whose opinions come from a position of exclusivity, especially economic exclusivity, could probably benefit mightily from a bracing round of poisoning, but there's The Lexicon of Love staring me right in the face. And the Criterion Collection edition of Traffic. And the copy of NBA Live 2006 sitting right on top of a copy of NBA Live 2005. And so on.

It would be nice to say that I bought High Land, Hard Rain as a response to this kind of thinking, but it would be untrue; I would have almost certainly bought any edition offering so much as a single bell or whistle over the black-spined, bonus-track-devoid, aching-for-a-remaster disc nestled between Art Brut and the Bay City Rollers (yes, really) in my racks right now, especially when I sat down to listen to it and discovered I'd purchased an album that was set to be in my collection for a long, long time. So far I'm finding High Land, Hard Rain to be one of those albums that lets you mercifully skip over giant wads of boring shit you'd otherwise eventually feel some moral obligated to investigate (translation: THANK GOD, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ALL THOSE R.E.M. ALBUMS), but more to the point I'm finding it to be a genuinely enjoyable record packed to the gills with an infectious indie spirit way less concerned with making a unique sound than a fun one to listen to. And while I'm reasonably sure that I'd feel the same way even if I'd bought the ultra super secret edition that actually includes Roddy Frame to explain the lyrics, it's nice to just not have to worry about that kind of thing at all. Sometimes stuff is worth exactly as much as it costs; these are the moments when capitalism actually feels like it's working. (Click here to buy Hard Land, High Rain from Amazon.com)

Destroyer, "A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point" - My archetype for consuming Destroyer's forthcoming opus Rubies - already recieving a pretty substantial push from smart folx - is probably going to be Andrew Bird's 2005 The Mysterious Production of Eggs: it's hard not to admire the willful musical individualism at play on the album, but at the end of the day it's just not how I like to be bowled over by my pop music, or even my indie pop music. That being said, I love "Fake Palindromes" off Andrew Bird's record with a white-hot passion that survives to this day, and even if "A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point" doesn't hit those lofty heights, it's still definitely the kind of song that makes me want to pass some music around and attempt to poke holes in everyone's carefully monitored budgets. Mostly I've been flipping out over all that goddamned piano on this track, but I assure you that there's plenty of little shit to keep your ears busy for a while; the rest may not be this good (actually, my main complaint about the rest is that it goes all Blueberry Boat in its sudden right turns, like when "European Oils" suddenly becomes the kind of music they'd play on Cheers to segue between the bar and Diane's apartment, but of course I'm the only one who feels like that with regard to Blueberry Boat so here we are), but this is what it's like. Worth investigating, at the absolute least - fuck, I'm not even going nuts over this album and I'd still bet that I end up buying it at some point. (Click here to preorder Rubies from CDUniverse)