The CD is Dead

Long live the CD. My kids know I’m not going to leave them much of an inheritance, but I AM going to leave them with a dynamite digital music collection. The only problem with this is that music is now truly digital and doesn’t mess around with hard copies any more. CD shops around the world are closing, consolidating to a few big centers that are desperately trying to find other items to purvey. I myself tend to purchase downloads form Amazon, particularly for stuff that is quirky. I recently bought large collections of T Rex radio appearances and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates studio output. These are sloppy, some of the tracks are poor audio quality, but the music is awesome and the download format costs half or less of what it would take to get it on CD. And the Johnny Kidd stuff isn’t even available at the moment on CD. So, I’m thinkin’ it’s time to get those last few visits to the Princeton Record Exchange in, as it may not be there much longer.


Fortunately, there is still some stuff that is worth obtaining in permanent form. When the Rolling Stones recorded in Jamaica, the Bahamas, and elsewhere in the Caribbean, they built up a big stock of relationships with local music scenes. Recently, Keith Richards compiled a big stack of tapes from time in Jamaica, and released a very cool album of pre-reggae spirituals and folk songs, sung by what seems to be a bar full of drunken locals, half of whom stopped by after church and half of whom came straight from the soccer pitch. 

Called Wingless Angels, Amazon offers the 2 disk collection at a good price. It is, in fact, priceless, and so worth buying in hard format. No family should be without!


This week, I managed to get all 4 weblogs up with new material. Goal is to keep it all going weekly for the foreseeable future. If you have time, please visit http://docviper.livejournal.com/, http://endoftheworldpartdeux.blogspot.com/, and http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/ . Thanks for stopping by!