I had a pile of books that were gathering dust and on our errands the other day I stopped in and put the bag on the counter. Cindy had run to another store and I pursued the vinyl. Of course I found a few.

In another episode of synchronicity I ran across a vinyl copy of Super Blues (which I didn’t buy since it was $14.98). I was literally just thinking about this album a few days before. It’s a good one, with Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters and Little Walter all performing together. I had this one and another combo performer album that included Howlin’ Wolf. I was surprised to see it here, which indicates that The Frugal Muse is expanding their record section a little. This album was in a double pile that was leaning up against the CD rack. They went from on little section to 2 sections and now extra piles. Nice.

I did get tempted by another $9.98 album which I did buy.

“Prince – Prince”

This is his second. The one where he is riding the horse naked on the back cover. Bold move. When this album came out he was touring and OPENING for Rick James, just to put things in perspective.

Prince came to me however the way he did to most, via “Little Red Corvette” on the radio. I really did not like it that much. I thought it was ridiculous, AND, they played it to death. To this day, that is pretty low on my favorite Prince tracks list.

One day I ended up at someone’s house and they were going to play the movie Purple Rain. I was not excited by any means, and even as a Prince fan now, I still am not a fan of most of the movie, BUT… the last part of the movie, where he is playing the show at the club blew me away. He is no actor, but the guy can JAM on that guitar.

I was mesmerized by that part of the movie. I thought Prince was kind of a joke before that moment, but I soon realized he was actually a fantastic performer. I bought the soundtrack to Purple Rain and it was a fixture in my car tape deck.

I bought “Prince – 1999” and loved it, and started going backwards in time, getting “Prince – Dirty Mind” and “Prince – Controversy” and “Prince – Prince”.  They were not as packed with top notch stuff, but had moments of brilliance.

When “Prince – Around The World In A Day” came out I bought it on CD. It was the first CD I had that didn’t come in a plastic case. It was a digi-pak or something like that. It was the final stroke in what would become my official, I’ll say it out loud, Prince fan phase.

I had “The Black Album” when it was still just a bootleg, and I bought “The Scandalous Sex Suite” EP which included Kim Basinger. I was in deep man. I have every official release and a host of bootlegs shows and I saw him live in Milwaukee.

I digress.

My other purchase was a decision that I thought I made a good choice on, let’s see if you agree.

“Neil Young – Decade”

Price on this triple album was $1.98. What?! Well, there was a reason.

Yep, one of the 3 LP’s was missing.

I mulled it over and it seemed to me, that at that price, I was getting 2 Neil Young greatest hits albums for a buck a piece. All the packaging was there.

I think my decision was sound (no pun intended) and even though I am a complete-ist, this seemed like a good buy. Knowing full well that if I was downloading this, or copying it from a friend that if I knew an entire disc from a 3 disc set was missing I would pass on it. This was vinyl though.

Anyway, the joke was on me, because when I played it the other night it is scratched through half the songs on both records. Not even my best skip removing techniques could make the albums worth listening to. At $1.98 I am not going to drive back and demand a refund, I gambled and lost.

This only adds to the on and off luck I have had with Neil Young.

They will make nice record clocks however.