Thrift Store Soundtracks.

  I am a huge fan of thrift stores. I love to look at the CD selections they have to offer. However, the one independent thrift store in town has a good selection of soundtrack CD's lately. On the other hand The Salvation Army has been lacking of any good CD's or a decent selection of them for about a good month or so now which sucks.
  Now at the beginning of the year, the last record store in my town closed up abruptly which doesn't leave anywhere in town to buy new CD's except Walmart which sells edited CD's. I'm in a rut since I will probably have to resort to buying CD's on Amazon now or go out of town to buy new music. Thankfully one thrift store has been good to me when it comes to finding CD's.
  I am a huge film score aficionado. My score CD collection overshadows my pop/rock CD collection. I have over 159 hours of film scores in my library. It's insane. Film score aficionado's are an astute type of collector, they prefer physical copies of scores over digital copies. I'm one of them in that demographic. Now onto the thrift store finds.
  As of recently it seems that the independent thrift store has been getting an unusual amount of soundtracks donated to them. The best part about that is that they were mostly film scores which is right up my alley. Now this thrift store charges $0.50 plus tax for a CD. You can't argue with that price. So when I look at the CD's I always check for the dreaded scratches that CD collectors hate. Fortunately I don't buy them if they looked like someone played frisbee with them.
  Now the past few times I've visited this thrift store in the past month or so, I've walked out of there with a bunch of score albums. My most recent purchase was the best one yet in my opinion. About a week or so ago I had to drop off something at my great aunt's house. She lives across the street from this thrift store. So I decided to do a speed run in there. I looked at the hats, and made a beeline to the CD's. I looked through the CD's and I had spotted some score soundtracks. Jackpot. I had bought at least 5 of them, I bought a Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Don Davis, Harry Gregson-Williams, and Carlo Siliotto.
  The one that took the cake was The Punisher score by Carlo Siliotto. Why is this soundtrack so important and unusual? Well for those of you who don't know your soundtrack record labels, it was a La La Land Records release. Why is this unusual? You never expect to find an out of print La La Land Records soundtrack at a thrift store ever. Never in a million years would I ever expect to find a one of their CD's at a thrift store. For $0.50 you can't go wrong with that. Now I didn't know it was a La La Land Records soundtrack until I got into the car and looked at the spine of the CD case and saw their name of my favorite record label there. I almost had a stroke on the spot when I discovered it was one of their soundtracks. The Punisher wasn't one of their limited editions of a few thousand copies to my knowledge.
  Some of my other soundtrack hauls have included, Backdraft, Matchstick Men, and Black Hawk Down all by Hans Zimmer, I also found all 3 Lord of the Rings scores by Howard Shore and Attack of The Clones by John Williams. I hate the Star Wars prequels but I love John Williams. His scores for the prequels were better than the movies.
  Whoever keeps donating these score CD's is my hero. They are the real MVP here. They share the same passion for film music as I do. If it wasn't for me these score CD's would have been sitting at that thrift store for a long time. I gave them a good home on my soundtrack shelf.

Video Game Soundtacks Rant

  Do you know what really grinds my gears? It's the fact that 99.9% of the classic Sega Genesis soundtrack CD's were only sold in Japan only and only available in the USA via expensive import. I don't want to pay $50 and up for freaking CD. No way In Heck am I ever going to pay that. What really grinds my gears is that us Americans who love 16 bit era music from Sega Genesis games get left out by the Japanese by not releasing this good music in the United States. Well I think 16 bit era music was the best and beats today's music for video games by a longshot. I love the game Columns for the Sega Genesis, it had really relaxing music that isn't too distracting and keeps you focused on the puzzle game. The composer was Tokuhiko Uwabo a genius as I may add. He composed perfect music for Columns, especially the most well known piece, Clotho. The soundtrack for columns was released on CD in Japan alongside the music for Columns II The Voyage Through Time which was an Japan Exclusive arcade cabinet game featuring music by another composer.  While Columns II had shared the majority of the soundtrack, Columns on the other hand had music that was too short, especially Atropos and Lathesis which should have been extended. Now you can get this soundtrack by piracy which I don't condone whatsover, or you can download them from a video game music site which they are in .vgz files which cannot be played in Windows Media Player. Or You can spend the $50+ for the CD.
  There should be a record label that is willing to put these classic video game scores out on CD in the United States. There is a huge market for them in the USA. I'm not the only one who wants them on CD. This will stop piracy and everybody wins. Hey They can also make them available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon.com for those who prefer to download them. But I prefer a CD that way I will always have it in case something happens to my Laptop since my I need new speakers for my CD Player.

Today's Thrift Store Find

  After lunch today, I walked to the Salvation Army Thrift Store to look around. I happened to be checking out the CDs that were there and came across these 2 classic 1990s albums for $1.99 each. It just so happened that I recently found out what the title of this one song from the 1990s was the other day on the Music Choice 90s channel. It was Be My Lover by La Bouche. The disc has a minor scratch on it, not a problem since my speakers for my CD player are all static and choppy sound, I just ripped it to my Laptop.

  The second CD I found was This Fire by Paula Cole. another artist who had a few 1990s hits. I also recently found out what that song title is that Family Guy parodied for the Quahog Creek theme song, titled I Don't Want To Wait. So I only spent $4.24 due to Pennsylvania's 6% sales tax. So the Salvation Army isn't that expensive after all.

Barmes & Noble is Overpriced

  Yesterday I went into Barnes & Noble with my mom. She went to look at books for her library wish list and I went to look at CDs and DVDs. While looking at the score soundtracks, I happened to notice that Barnes & Noble's prices are no worse than FYE's prices.
  Why would their prices on CDs and DVDs be so expensive? I asked myself the same question. They are a large retailer, and they have great buying power, so they must have the power to sell CDs and DVDs at little markup. For instance their Blu-Ray prices are out of control. I saw the Blu-Ray for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory there once and they wanted $34.99 for it. I don't know if they still want that for it. But I know I can get it cheaper on Amazon.com. I just checked the price on Amazon.com and found some third party sellers selling it for $16.95.
  Paying $20 for a single disc soundtrack is outrageous. I would never pay that kind of money for a damn soundtrack unless it was a limited edition of lets say 2,000 copies. I know the CD/DVD section of Barnes & Noble is minuscule compared to the rest of the store that sells books. There are some advantages to Barnes & Noble over stores like Walmart. I'll compare and contrast Barnes & Noble and Walmart. Barnes & Noble sells hard to find DVDs and soundtracks, and sells Parental Advisory CDs. Walmart on the other hand sells censored CDs and almost no score soundtracks, and doesn't carry British TV shows and Movies, Documentaries, and most TV shows on DVD unless you go to Walmart.com because they sell more items that are not sold in the store. Also Walmart tends to be a lot cheaper. I rarely buy CDs or DVDs at Barnes & Noble because of their prices, I do however buy books, like the Imponderables series, which are Question and Answer books. So Buy online if you don't like to get ripped off.

Why I Still Buy CDs

A Lady Gaga CD

  When was the last time you bought a CD. Seriously think about it. The answer for many of us is probably never if you got an iPod. Well I can tell you this, I still buy CDs all the time. I am buying the deluxe edition of Born This Way on Monday.
   Many people don't buy CDs anymore because they have an iPod or some type of MP3 player. The reason why I still buy CDs is partially the fact that I don't have an iPod. Why don't I have one? I don't have one due to the fact that I DESPISE Apple products. I think that they are overrated and are another thing to get broken inside of my pocket.
   The second reason I still buy CDs is the fact that I prefer a physical copy over a digital one. Why you ask? Well a physical copy of an album is always there, It can't be deleted or destroyed if something happens to your iPod or MP3 player.
    My third reason I still buy CDs is because I want to support the record store, which is a dying trend. The FYE in the Laurel Mall closed down in January 2011. I tend to support the local independent record stores over the big box ones. I rarely get to go out of town to shop at another FYE which is 28 miles from my house and with the price of gas it would be a waste if I didn't come back with a CD.
     Finally I still buy CDs because I am old school. I don't care about iPods or iPhones or Zunes or iTunes. All I care about is having a physical copy of an album. By the way did you know that Rhianna's new album Loud has a parental advisory label and that you can't buy the physical copy of Loud with the parental advisory label? You can only get the uncensored version digitally. I believe that this is giving people who buy CDs the middle finger.

5 Things That Keep Me Up at Night

Sometimes I just can't fall asleep at night. I can think of many good reasons to what keeps me up. Here are the pesky things that keep me up.
1. Waiting for 5-23-2011 to Come. Why May 23rd 2011 you ask? Well I will tell you why. Lady Gaga's new Album Born This Way is coming out and I can't wait any longer to buy the deluxe edition CD. I have never been so exited in my life for a CD to come out. Yes I still buy CDs., Why you ask? The answer to that is coming in another blog post
2. Funny Internet Memes. One meme that makes me laugh hysterically is none other than Ya Dun Goof'd. No matter how hard I try to go through my day without saying Ya dun goof'd is impossible to not say it. I sometimes laugh myself to sleep saying ya dun goof'd.
3. Playing with my Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. This is another hobby of mine that keeps me up sometimes. I will be playing with my Matchbox Super Convoy International LoneStar, and my Ford C900 along with other cars and trucks, doing various test drives. I make up my own scenarios with the cars, whether it's a Austin FX4 taxi competing against a Checker Marathon taxi or, dropping a Ford Pinto on it's rear to make a fake explosion they still keep me up at night.
4. Staring at random things in my room. I have various decor in my bedroom. For instance when I have trouble falling asleep, I tend to stare at my one of my Lady Gaga posters for 20 minutes before falling asleep.
5. My CDs. Sometimes I will be playing my CDs before I go to sleep. Sometimes I get a little bit revved up and they make me resist going to sleep. Maybe playing Lady Gaga before going to bed is a bad idea. I think I should play one of my score soundtracks instead.