It struck me that it might be interesting to publish why I bought each one and how I discovered each musician/band.
Diablo Swing Orchestra, "The Butcher's Ballroom"
Searching the web for "Wedding March" we discovered a song by this band. It isn't the Wedding March, but the samples we heard on Amazon.com of this band's CD were really cool. I took a punt and bought the album.
Dragonforce, "Inhuman Rampage"
I bought the new Megadeth CD a while back and it included a sample CD of RoadRunner records other artists. Included on that was one of Dragonforce's tracks. It was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I KNEW that their entire album would be similar and not as good as that song but I bought it anyway.
Brokenhead (Ben Ely), "Locarno"
Bought from Regurgitator's online shop when buying their new album. Ben Ely is their bass player, this is a dub album he did a while ago. I liked "Jump 2 Light Speed", his recent solo effort, so I though this would be good too. It is.
Pangaea, "Raggacore" EP
As above, only this is the EP done around the same time Regurgitator were taking off. Excellent except the production really lets it down.
Apocalyptica, "Worlds Collide"
Spotted in JB. I've always like Apocalyptica but their last album was a real disappointment. This one is much much better.
Enter Shikari, "Take To The Skies"
I saw the video (a lot) on Rage, decided it was pretty good and thought I'd take a punt on the album. It took two months to finally find it in stock. I was eternally irritated that a song receiving so much publicity on TV wasn't actually in stock in any stores I could find.
Regurgitator, "Love and Paranoia"
It's Gurge. I'd buy any old toilet they put out. For a while anyway. I used to say that about The Whitlams and Powderfinger...
Children Of Bodom, "Hate Crew Deathroll"
Discovered this band on Pandora before they started blocking Australian users. I loved their most recent album. The one two albums before that was OK but production let it down. This one is between the two.
Eagles of Death Metal, "Death by Sexy"
I liked that one Queens Of The Stone Age album and hoped this would be good. Wrong.
Skin, "Fake Chemical State"
Skunk Anansie were one of my favourite bands before they went away. Skin's first solo album really was rather dull. This is better but it's still lacking in the music department.
So...
So... of the 10 CDs listed above my purchase decisions were based on:
So what does that tell you?
It tells you I buy a lot of CDs out of trust. Something I don't think many people do anymore. Whether I do it or not depends entirely on my budget.
In hindsight, I wouldn't have bought probably three of those albums, and some of them I'd have bought only two or three tracks rather than the whole thing (except for the fact I much prefer CDs over digital downloads).
But I enjoy the risk.
It also tells you I didn't buy anything without having some idea of what it will be like before hand. Either through association with bands I already know, or through free advertising provided by an online service, TV or promo CD.
Katie also bought a few CDs, all as far as I can tell based on TV video programs (Rage, Video Hits) and radio.
I'm a dying breed. I simply can't imagine someone who grew up with internet music downloads buying the way I bought this month.
Could it happen in Australia?
Music industry has Aussie pirates in the crosshairs:
In Australia, Sabiene Heindl, general manager of MIPI, said the local music industry had not yet targeted individual downloaders. Instead, MIPI has been petitioning internet service providers (ISPs) to send warning notices and disconnect the internet connections of users who have been identified as illegal downloaders.[...]
"We would hope that the ISPs and the record companies could come up with an alternative solution," said MIPI general manager Sabiene Heindl.
"That said, if that solution cannot be reached, and at this stage it's because of the ISPs refusing to play ball, then we may have no alternative other than to take legal action [against individuals]."
So yeah, sorta, probably not...
LawFont.com thinks it very unlikely, offering many good reasons, mostly based in the differences in our laws, but also a few opinions on how the courts are likely to act.
Amusingly our government spent years recently attempting to "fix" copyright law to make it less vague but those fixes don't seem to help solidify this situation in any way.
The basic premise of the satire was that Tim Freedman writes about Newtown a lot. Not actually true, although the crux of the joke (I thought) was that Tim writes about himself a lot.
While watching it I thought it was quite telling that most of the parody music was from Eternal Nightcap, despite The Whitlams releasing three albums since.
But my favourite part is that Tim gets awfully personal in his reply:
There has been one female cast member of The Chaser. It was the very first series, and the actress was an ex-girlfriend of mine. Recently I was sharing a drink with her in London. Apparently she did not make it to the second series after a romance with one Chris Taylor turned pear-shaped. Could it be that as I was still seeing her on a purely social level during the first series that I had unwittingly become embroiled in a matter of the heart? Was a score being settled? I'm not sure.
Small world...
A Whitlams best of (probably entitled "Hamburgers, Gough, Eternal Nightcap Plus That Pokies Song") will be released next year.