When CD got out of fashion many great albums became available almost for free. I am a vinyl fan, but I also like digital, and mp3 files are ok. However, what online usually misses is the album concept, the whole package, cover, liner notes, a well-planned album song order, even more pronounced on LP and MC, where the artist at best deeply taught through the running order as a process. What will start the album and side A, what ends A, what starts B, what ends B, and thus the album. What other cuts are to be placed where, in-between. The artist’s, and unfortunately often record company’s, vision of the album.
The physical album often includes a whole creative and artistic concept of the album, at best also interesting and useful information in liner notes, lyrics, pics, as well as a very thoughtfully planned and artistically impressive cover picture. And so on. An album can, and could, be a candy box for music lovers.
In our current times, mainstream is totally based on songs, and too frequently songs without a context, except perhaps obtaining a place in a themed playlist. I love playlists too, and constantly enjoy making themed playlists, many of them for this blog. Albums, however, is another story. It is really the advanced course now - with hits and deep cuts mixed and a specific context for each cut instead of a continuous flow of separate fast food dishes for brains. I like songs both in a context and independently mixed in playlists. But I do not like AI-selected playlists and AI-recommended playlists, that’s muzak for the masses. Too much fast food music that follow ”safe hit-making” concepts.
There was a moment in time when LP:s were slumped out almost for free, in great stock-clearance sales, when they went out of fashion. Well, actually, even then many people liked and loved vinyls, and wanted different formats simultaneously, but the record industry didn’t. The industry margins and profits for CD:s were just so extremely much higher. They were so cheap to produce compared to vinyls. So, the industry tried to kill the vinyl (market) for the benefit of cheap CD:s, and stopped releasing new vinyl albums. The smart consumers bought great albums, singles and (currently insanely high-priced) rarities for ridiculously low prices then. CD:s in turn have been slumped out since online became The Format, and simultaneously made industry production costs even lower. And now we have AI-made muzak for the mass-consuming herds, sorry, out there. Bringing production costs to an all-time-low for these. AI could become the industry that Tin Pan Alley once was, but without any human excellence, without any heart or brain or feeling. It is perhaps the ultimate braindead muzak, repackaging the same same muzak fodder for the masses. But, fair enough, if you like it, you like it. We all listen too what we want, and like what we like.
Luckily, great and creative music is still produced, and vinyl is back, slightly, a little more and more each year. Even MC:s have sort of a small renaissance now, as more people currently want and seek alternatives to shallow and AI-made products online. Still, the analogists (new word?) are a clear minority, but an informed and mindful subcultural minority.
While analogue is increasingly in again, CD:s are still not desired on second hand markets, except as fine and cheaper alternatives for lovingly curated box sets, that you would not want to by as online files, and often can’t afford to buy on vinyl. Some rarer first generation or limited CD releases can also be pricey. But except on this small corner of the CD-market, it’s a finders market out there. More often than not, second-hand CD:s cost almost nothing, or did, even though there is also a small motion towards higher pricetags here too. So, this may be the time to buy a few of those albums on CD that you couldn’t afford before, when they were new, or to take some chances and explore unknown musical territory, as it currently might only set you back an euro or two. Even in bad times like these, that can be affordable.
To inspire that search, here area few second-hand one euro CD finds I made:
Bettina Schelker: Durst. Sometimes you just get lucky. Paid one (1) euro in a Helsinki recordstore for the Durst album on CD by Bettina Schelker. The cover was worn, but the disc is almost mint. Tender and chilly guitar-based pop in German. Great start with first songs Durst and Lugner, setting a vibe that just continues until the sweet and ending Kuss mich. A mellow and relaxed Sunday morning album. Durst was the debut-album (from 1999) by Swiss singer-songwriter Schelker, from Basel. It is a nicely mellow and poppy debut, great at times even. My copy was also signed on the cover sheet by the whole band, with a greeting from Bettina. Always a nice bonus too. I will listen to this album more than once. Quite a few times, probably. A surprising and rewarding find in a crate for cheap CD:s.
MNW Music Network - Year 2002 Presentation (Various Artists). A promotion sampler CD of record label MNW:s artist-rooster in 2002. MNW is Swedish label Musiknätet Waxholm, which started as a progressive label, and still has many interesting artists on contract. A few years ago MNW released a wonderful box set of its first 50 years. 20+ CD:s of great and often, at least at the time, alternative music. Respect. This sampler in a cardboard record company sleeve was a very fine buy for 1€ from the same cheap CD’s crate where I found the Schelker CD. A year 2002 sampler from MNW with 20 cuts, 77 mins, for one euro? That’s a no-brainer. Didn’t take many minutes of listening to feel on the winning side. Already to know there is a cut by Masayah and one by K-Pist makes it worth one euro, and first song My Home Town (Radio Edit) by The Perishers settled it.
The Housemartins: Now That’s What I Call Quite Good. The title says it all, really. Housemartins are good, excellent even, and this compilation includes their proudest single moments, as well as some great deeper cuts. Happy Hour, Build, Caravan Of Love, Think For A Minute, Five Get Over Excited and much more. Well-curated album with interesting, short comments about individual songs. Superb value for the price (1€), found in a fleamarket in Vaasa. I have had this album on vinyl since it was released, and it is nice to have it on CD too.
Tekla: Tekla. Svensk indiepop som jag främst kopplar samman med den utmärkta låten En Liten Svensk Stad, som också ingår här. Teklas bästa spår, tycker jag. En bitter, försmådd och svartsjuk upplevelse i och av småstaden. För mig är En Liten Svensk Stad också ett skri av längtan bort från småstaden. Och den kan jag bra förstå. Resten av albumet är också intressant och melankolin sitter i hela vägen. Mycket kvalitet för en euro. Tekla is value for money (1€ in a flea-market). En Liten Svensk Stad (A Small Swedish Town) is my favorite song with Tekla, and it is included here. A melancolic song, on a very melancolic album.
N.W.A. : Alwayz Into Somethin’ (CD-single). CD-singlar är ännu billigare än CD-album, och de kan vara intressanta, med bonusspår. Sällan hittar man N.W.A. i fyndkorgen för en euro. Har bara hänt mig med den här CD-singeln. Alwayz Into Somethin’ är välformulerad och dansant hiphop och singeln har dessutom två sköna och utmärkta bonusspår, Express Yourself och Something 2 Dance 2. Snyggt svart konvolut, dessutom. You seldom, if ever, find N.W.A. in a crate for bargain 1€ CD:s. This one I did find, surprisingly. A groovy ass-shaking single with two superb bonuses. Great find.
För Amnesty (Various Artists). Utgiven av Sveriges skivbolag med en artist-rooster som inte går av för hackor; Scocco, Plura, Lisa Nilsson, Dilba, LeMarc, Lundell, Kent, Robyn, Uno med flera. Och ett mycket angeläget stödprojekt, förstås, Amnesty International. Också inköpt för bara en euro på loppis, men Amnesty kan, ska, man gärna stöda på andra sätt. Hade nog köpt den om jag sett den som ny i skivbutik. Men nu, flera år efter utgivning, kom den emot för 1€ på loppis. Bra skiva som helhet. Själva stödspåret Tusen röster, med allstar-uppsättning, är angeläget och behjärtansvärt, men lyfter inte som låt så högt som man gärna skulle ha önskat. Bra, men inte outstanding. Albumet som helhet är intressant och bra, och extra plus att sångtexterna ingår.
For Amnesty, with much of the (then and partly now) Swedish rock and pop elite participating. It is an interesting and well-done album, that also includes song lyrics. Amnesty International is of course a great benefit cause, at least equally important today as when this was released. I could happily have bought this one new in a record shop and be satisfied. Years after being released it was now a very nice 1 € find in a bargain CD crate. The all-star theme song Tusen Röster (A Thousand Voices) is good, but perhaps not the super track one would have hoped for.
Broder Daniel: Broder Daniel. Först ut är underbara Underground, senare temasång för den superba generationsfilmen Fucking Åmål, om tristessen i att växa upp i en småstad långt från alla händelsers centrum. Redan här är albumet ett briljant fynd för 1 € på loppis. Sen kommer Work, också briljant, och så vidare. Legendariska Broder Daniel, där Håkan Hellström började sin karriär före solo-starten, men där Henrik Berggren alltid var fixstjärnan, har sitt egna, starka och unika, sound. Berggren skriver och sjunger rakt ut sitt hjärtas ångest och längtan i BD. ”Oh, We spend our time./Watching Days go by/We just watch them pass”, sjunger han i Life Is A Bubble. En stark låter heter Sorrow, en annan Confusion. Ja, det är mycket Weltschmerz och tonårs-angst här. Många kände igen sig i det. The Young and The Old är en fin och försonande akustisk avslutande ballad.
Håkan är inte med här, men det spelar ingen roll. Svensk pop och rock vann mest på att få både Håkan och Broder Daniel som artister, samtidigt. Båda är fantastiska, på olika sätt. Här är BD ännu, som de sjunger, underground, men det kom snart att förändras, inte minst via Fucking Åmål och med det legendariska live-framförandet av Shoreline i Sen Kväll med Luuk. Men det är senare. Det här självtitulerade albumet står på egna ben. Ett superbt fynd för 1€.
First cut is the superb Underground, a song that later was the famous theme song of celebrated growing-up movie Fucking Åmål, about the tristesse and boredom of growing up in a small town. Already this magic song makes the album a stunning bargain for 1 € in a flea market. But there are many other highlights here, on a wonderful melancolic Swedish pop album, that has Henrik Berggren’s teen-angst filled songs and sound center-stage. Here BD are still somewhat underground, but that soon changed.
So there you have it, 6 fine CD:s for 6 euro. Bought together on a flee market I most certainly would have got them all for a fiver. And that’s a lot of music, good music, for a very decent price.
All second-hand. And that’s sustainable too.
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