I sat here this morning, getting some selections together for Otis whom I exchange music with and I discovered that the last set of selections I gave him (4 selections only) had 1 that he already had (Various Artists – Saturday Morning’s Greatest Hits), and 1 that I had ALREADY given him (The Kissers – On A Monday Night). What a fail! I swear I am going to build that spreadsheet database for us Otis.

So, I set out to create a 5 star selection to make up for it.

For this mega offering I ended up purchasing 2 MP3 albums from Amazon.

These were 2 selections that I had discovered through listening to an album recommended to me from my daughter Abbey. She recommended Billy Eilish. I looked for the album cover to post here, but found this instead.

Height? Really? Is that the sort of info that fans are looking for? Interesting. If you predicted that with a name like Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell she might be not your average artist, you win.

Well, I listened to it and I liked it. Sort of a weird stripped down Lorde meets Soccer Mommy with some danceable techno thrown in kind of vibe. FYI that is not the selection for Otis, but from there I “related artists” hopped to a whole other place and stumbled onto a few things I know/hope he will like.

I have of course Spotify to thank for this.

In about 2 hours in front of my computer clicking stuff in Spotify I found about 10 albums that are currently changing my life. It got me thinking about how it used to be when you couldn’t listen to an album, unless one of your friends had it, until you bought it and brought it home and put it on the turntable.

This is where I point out why I weep for my past experiences.

I can recall MORE than once when I would go out and buy and album on the basis of one song and get it home, tear it open and play it and think to myself… what the hell man? What IS this crap?! Like if you bought Jane’s Addiction because you loved “Jane Says” and then discovered that they weren’t a mellow pop calypso band.

You had to have a bit of a gambler’s spirit back in the day. You might hear a few tracks on the radio, but there was no album pre-release streaming, no Spotify, no music blogs, no sampling tracks (even though short snipets) on Amazon, or any streaming services that are so popular now.

I think perhaps that is why people USED to be SO devoted to bands and would buy everything that they released. You had to be invested to buy without knowing what you may be buying. It’s so easy to just buy the tracks you want these days. I get that, and have done it myself. I’m not gonna buy the whole album Sir Mix-A-Lot album when I just want “Baby Got Back” for a mix. You used to have to buy the 45 (if it even WAS released as a single) or borrow the album from someone to record that particular track.

CD’s really changed things, eh?

It feels good to have been alive during this time of change and can relate to the history of how things have evolved. Sometimes you don’t really understand or see it for what it is until the moment has passed and you are looking back years later. I feel like I am watching it transform and grow before my eyes.

I laughed out loud at myself while looking for something on my own blog and came across a post that linked out to Grooveshark. Yeah, it doesn’t work anymore. Oh man. So 2000’s. Anyway…

I made a list of the albums to check out as I bounced around on my Spotify rabbit hole run and then spent the morning listening to the whole album of each. Some had great songs, but had some dogs too. I noted them for adding to a personal Spotify playlist and moved on.

I ended up with 5 selections (and one supplemental album) that I think will make up for dismal offering of our last exchange. The fear though is that by picking albums I really think he will like, it’s possible that he already has them.

The conundrum is real!

Hope I picked winners.