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Seems rather insane to me. At the very least get a month subscription to a service like Rhapsody. Can probably get a free month. Then spend the 30 days listening to everything and decide want you want. Who knows. You may end up keeping the service. I know for my family we love it.
My girlfriend had Rhapsody and we were not too happy with it. Seemed to be constant problems syncing things up, and I don't think the selection would be up to par for my purposes. I mean I understand the "try before you buy" idea that you're proposing, and I did listen to Amazon samples for almost all of these. A lot of people I know are pretty happy with Spotify.
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Still buying CDs....already over 100 new CDs purchased this year.
Nice!
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1. The God Machine were a criminally underappreciated band from the 90's. I loved them. They only had two albums because of their bass player's untimely passing. I recommend getting Scenes from the Second Storey first, and if you like it then try to track down their second one, which will be harder to find. The rest of your list I'm either totally unfamiliar with, or not enough to make comment worthwhile.
2. In my considerable experience, a purchase of the size you're talking about is almost definitely a bad idea for numerous reasons. Mainly that there's no way to give adequate listening time to so many albums in a reasonable period of time, so why not cut the big buy into four separate chunks, and space them out, buying more when you feel you need it? Also, with a physical music collection, which takes up space, when you build up a lot you realize how important quality control is. You don't want to end up with a bunch of stuff that you don't really listen to, or wish you'd bought in another format, or whatever. Slower is better. I also highly recommend using one of the numerous avenues available to listen to anything you're considering buying at least once or twice before you buy it. There's no reason not to in this day and age, and there's no reason not to as long as it doesn't make you support musicians less.
3. Yes, I still do buy CD's. Vinyl is my format of choice, but in many cases CD's are what I go with for various reasons. Large collections that would cost so much they'd never make it to a vinyl release, stuff that's way cheaper on CD, stuff that I tend to listen to more in situations where I wouldn't want to have to go flip a side..... there's a consistent amount of stuff that I go with redbook on.
Anyway, either way I'm glad to see there are still some younger people that do want to support music by paying for it.
I actually had The God Machine's first album, when I was younger. But I wasn't really in a place where I could appreciate it. Ended up selling it for pizza or beer money as I recall. Now I want it back. Both albums are readily available on Amazon right now.
I appreciate the note about quality control. Purging stuff is as important as discovering stuff. I'll consider splitting the order up into four chunks (which would help coincide with the future release dates of some stuff as well).
I definitely like to pay for music. But I'm not sure I'm really the younger person you're referring to -- I'm 38. During the Napster years (think April and May of 2001 when the big rush was on), I sampled a lot of stuff. I almost always ended up purchasing the CD version of stuff that I enjoyed. The MP3s are long gone but I am glad to own the CDs.
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1. Red text: The new Amplifier isn't as good as Octopus or their self-titled release, but still worth picking up, especially if you're getting it directly from the band's website. I like Dead Letter Circus and Karnivool, although they sound very, very similar. You might also try Deadsoul Tribe, along those same prog lines.
Green text: Of those, OSI is definitely enjoyable, as is their sister project Chroma Key. The rest are: who?
Blue: Baroness is up and down but on the whole is good Southern metal. Any Soundgarden before King Animal is good; Badmotorfinger is the classic and must-have. Devin Townsend as Ocean Machine's Biomech is his best, IMO. Huge soundstages, layers upon layers of down-tuned guitars and some good writing. The medieval motet inspired twist at the end of "Voices in the Fan" makes it my favorite song of his. I'd buy the CDs of whoever he got to sing that. The hall acoustics alone are amazing.
2. I placed a $1k order with Amazon last week. New for this purchase is a bunch of sludge and stoner metal. Got a bunch of Sleep, Electric Wizard and others like old Kyuss that I didn't have already. I love being surprised by stuff I took a chance on. I do this a few times a year.
3. See above. CDs still play when I lose my internet connection. Plus I want to rip everything to WAV for my server. I am a bit older, and love the sensory stimulation of having things I can touch or collect: books, CDs, whatever. I think that tactile sense stopped a bit with younger generations. Not a bad thing, necessarily, just more of an observation.
Amplifier: yep, I've heard that. Too laid back I've read. But still an automatic purchase for me. I have heard they are still at work on another album, more of a sequel to The Octopus.
I agree, DLC and Karnivool have a similar sound, at least comparing the last records. The new DLC is supposed to have a slightly more electronic edge and I have no idea where the new Karnivool will end up (I'm hoping it ends up with sprawling, multi-part, 10 minute songs with some real heaviness at times).
I've got The January Tree by Deadsoul Tribe. Actually, The Shadow Theory (on my list) is Devon Graves' new project.
Looking forward to OSI, not sure about Chroma Key.
Actually, I was going to get the newest Soundgarden. I've got everything else by them.
Thanks for the recommendation on Ocean Machine!
$1K, nice. I agree, I live for discovering gems without a lot of preconceived notions.
I enjoy CDs for the feeling of permanence and ownership, the collection / wall of music, the sound quality, the art / notes / lyric sheets, and because I usually stick with listening to albums in their entirety (as opposed to random cuts from my whole collection). I also like getting stuff in the mail. There's more to it than clicking 'download' and waiting five minutes for a set of files to appear.
Thanks everyone!
