Cindy found an I-Tunes gift card at the bottom of some forgotten place. $15 worth. She doesn’t even have an I-Tunes account, or at least has long since forgotten it. She handed it over to me with the caveat that she wasn’t even sure I-Tunes was a thing anymore. Wasn’t it being replaced with something?
I didn’t even have I-Tunes installed on my computer.
So… I downloaded it, checked my records for my old login and viola, I was in. I added the $15 and lo and behold, I must have had some still left prior to that. I ended up with a rather odd sum of $19.46 in credit. Bonus!
Instinctively I went to the Bowie section.
I was struck by a few things looking at the I-Tunes offerings for David Bowie.
The first thing was that the album I had in mind to buy, “Nothing Has Changed (Deluxe Edition)” was $19.99. Are you kidding me. Bah. I am NOT buying another I-Tunes gift card to make up the difference.
The second thing I noticed, was that they have a lot of singles and EP’s. Who is buying “Loving The Alien (Extended Dance Mix) – EP” or the “Tonight (Vocal Dance Mix) – EP or the “Rebel Never Gets Old (Radio Mix) Single?
Third, holy box sets. I love me some David Bowie, but there are 6 collections here priced above $50. I have never really been tempted by the high dollar collections. Typically there is some live stuff, some weird remixes and if you are a serious collector, there is probably stuff you might want. I have been buying weird Bowie stuff for years and what I end up listening to is the standard studio stuff again and again.
Thirdly, there was the album “Christiane F. – Wir Kinder von Bahnhof Zoo Soundtrack”.
This was the album that made me realize that buying every David Bowie album that existed would be a life changing decision that I could never come back from. I am proud to say I was only a teen then, but could see the writing on the wall.
The music on this album (a compilation and a soundtrack) was a mind altering set of songs. I never heard of or saw the film, but I had this album in my hand on many many trips to the record store in the mall. Remember those days?
There were songs in this album that I didn’t have and I was intrigued, but never enough to actually buy it. The sheer presentation of this album, David in red with closed fist and the sad girl, gave this album a real atmosphere just holding it, like it was daring you, challenging you. It felt exotic. I had a few of these songs on “Heroes” though, so I always passed on it for a Bowie album that was net new material.
Eventually I discovered that I had all these songs and I never did end up buying it. It was when I first discovered that they could create collections of already released material. Shock!
Innocence lost.
I still don’t have this album on vinyl, though I probably should get it. These are some great songs, and I recommend the album, but even a non-over the top Bowie collector, someone who has all of the early albums, will have these songs.
The last thing I noticed, sigh, was all the Greatest Hits albums. These are redundancy itself. Sure I have “ChangesOne” on vinyl. That was a righteous album. It even had (at that time) an unreleased track. However, there are 9 collections here that are not box sets. Come on man. They don’t even have “Sound and Vision”.
So what do I spend my $19.46 on? There is a Tin Machine album I don’t have, but that seems trivial.
In the end, what did I buy?
“David Bowie – Glastonbury 2000”
That leaves me with $3.65.
What am I gonna do with that? Buy 2 songs? I think I’ll leave it as a surprise to my future self when someone finds another I-Tunes gift card.
Now I’m gonna go listen to some live Bowie.
The Aural Retentive 