It’s a weekness

This last year (2012), as part of my household’s austerity measures, I determined to limit myself to purchasing only one CD a week. I had a nasty habit of buying CDs in spurts, by the dozen, so this seemed like a reasonable way of both limiting my purchases and spreading said purchases over time. Although I did succeed in doing both of these things, it didn’t work out quite the way I had planned. I’d reasoned that there were only so many new releases I tended to buy, so I could use the ‘dry’ weeks to bolster my back-catalog collection. Instead, I managed to find something new to buy almost every week, and I didn’t actually buy anything on my ‘must pick up sometime’ list. Almost all of the CDs I bought were released in 2012, and those that weren’t I only heard for the first time in 2012 (such as Ghost Tropics by Songs: Ohia, which was originally released in 2000). There have been a few purchases from artists that I’ll pretty much buy anything by (Dylan, The Decemberists), but the vast majority of them (all but 9) were by artists that I previously didn’t own anything by.

The upside of this is that I’ve picked up a lot of great, new music this year. Some, like Animal Joy by Shearwater, Broken Side of Time by Alberta Cross, and Ownerless by Everest, will be on heavy rotation for years to come, and the rest, I’m always happy to hear in my (currently) 13,989-song shuffle. It’s also pretty varied – I think I’ve run the whole gamut of genres from Alt to Indie!

Where do I hear about most of this stuff? Unfortunately, apart from one hipster friend (you know who you are) I’ve not really had anyone to swap sounds with, so generally it’s down to whatever I hear on Sirius XMU satellite radio, or 3WK.com. For years I’ve had a general philosophy of buying complete albums, even if I’ve only heard one track (or the ‘single’, back in the day) from them. I figure that there is bound to be something else on the album that I might like. That hasn’t always been the case (I could do without everything but Three Interlocking Screens from Lorelei‘s Enterprising Sidewalks) but more times than not it’s led me to some other great music that I wouldn’t have otherwise heard. So generally, if I hear a track I like on the radio, I’ll pop on over to Amazon and order the full CD.

And yes, I still buy CDs. All of these purchases were physical releases, save two or three that were only available for download. Why? I just like the tangibility of physical releases. And I like having a backup. I like the option of being able to lend CDs to friends, or slip them into my home stereo’s CD player, or play them in the car, or use them as coasters, or whatever else I want to do with them. I regret offloading most of my vinyl years ago, and I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Plus, there’s still something exciting about receiving a CD and putting it on – especially if you’ve been waiting a couple of days for it to be delivered. That’s why I still burn mix-CDs for friends, instead of just emailing them MP3s. Also, using Amazon Prime’s free 2-day shipping (and if I place the order early enough in the day sometimes it’s even next day), means that on delivery day, a white van pulls up outside, and a guy jumps out and literally runs up to the door and thrusts the CD into my hand – which is about as thrilling as music buying can get, these days!

I was thinking of abandoning this grand experiment in 2013, but really it’s just been far too pleasurable to give up. So as we slide into 2013, I look forward to another 52 CDs worth of great music. Besides which, this way I get the smug self-satisfaction of knowing that I’m not entirely out of touch just yet. Nine of these purchases made Pitchfork’s best of 2012, and six of them were on Rolling Stone’s list. So I’m still ‘with it’, right? Right? At least until they change what ‘it’ is again…

Those purchases in full:

1. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below
2. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
3. Mwahaha – Mwahaha
4. The Twilight Singers – Live in New York
5. We Were Promised Jetpacks – In The Pit of the Stomach
6. The Decemberists – We All Raise Our Voices To The Air
7. Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory
8. Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
9. Shearwater – Animal Joy
10. Can – tago Mago (40th Anniversary Edition)
11. The Twilight Sad – No one can Ever Know
12. Yellow Ostrich – Strange Land
13. Band of Skulls – Sweet Sour
14. Bear In Heaven – I Love You It’s Cool
15. Nada Surf – The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy
16. School of Seven Bells – Ghostory
17. The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar
18. Foals – True Life Forever
19. The Men – Open Your Heart
20. Richard Hawley – Standing at the Sky’s Edge
21. A Shoreline Dream – Losing Them All To This Time
22. Alberta Cross – The Broken Side of Time
23. Lower Dens – Nootropics
24. Miike Snow – Happy To You
25. Silversun Pickups – Neck Of The Woods
26. Songs: Ohia – Ghost Tropic
27. DIIV – Oshin
28. Conduits – Conduits
29. Japandroids – Celebration Rock
30. Everest – Ownerless
31. 2:54 – 2:54
32. Ty Segall – Slaughterhouse
33. A Place To Bury Strangers – Worship
34. Yeasayer – Fragrant World
35. Bob Dylan – Tempest
36. Echo Lake – Wild Peace
37. The Pines – Dark So Gold
38. Grizzly Bear – Shields
39. Cat Power – Sun
40. Cloud Nothing – Nocturne
41. Menomena – Moms
42. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
43. Divine Fits – A Thing Called Divine Fits
44. The Orwells – Remember When
45. Lorelei – Enterprising Sidewalks
46. Woods – Bend Beyond
47. Toy – Toy
48. Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People EP
49. METZ – METZ
50. Chromatics – Kill for Love
51. Tamaryn – Tender New Signs
52. Swans – The Seer