What music have you REpurchased?

Cafe Society
1

So I’m planning on RE-buying a bunch of music I already have in multiple formats already.

New Beatles Remasters are coming out, on 9/9/09 (hey-- “Number Niiiiine” reference?). And I’ve gotten in some big discussions about whether they’re worth it. I have friends going for the whole shebang, and others who say what they’ve got is good enough. Now, I can’t imagine buying a box set, but I’ll probably buy some of the “new” discs. Hey, how can you argue with a superior band deserving some superior sound quality?

But it’s frustrating to be SPENDING MONEY FOR MUSIC I ALREADY PAID FOR multiple times, like I did when I bought the 45s (hey, we got some fun B-sides like “I’m Down”), and then the LPs, and upgraded from 8-tracks to cassettes, and switched from CDs to MP3s to 256 AACs*.

There are artists I’ve gladly done that with: Yardbirds, early Chicago (pre-Lounge Act), Bruce Cockburn, Poco, Kinks, Van Morrison, Bowie…

So what music have you bought over and over? You OK with that? Anything that in retrospect wasn’t worth it? (…like my Mediocre British Invasion phase)
*Hmm… but then I’ll have to REbuy them all again on CD-Xtreme (2011), Teal-Ray MicroDiscs (2012), MicroSonyApple iZuneSticks (2013), HyperDigital Anywhere Files (2014), Sub-Cutaneous Jawbone VibroPhiles (Mid-2014) and then Cerebral Implants (Late 2014). Man, I’d better start saving up.

2

I bought all but the last two or three Replacements albums when they were reissued even though I had about three of them already. With R.E.M. I have most of their albums because I burned copies I borrowed from a friend, but I lost his copy of Reckoning so I bought him another one and kept his when I found it, and I recently bought it again when it was reissued. There are a few albums I have on cd that I picked up used copies of on vinyl.

I bought an album by Magazine that I forget the title of, but then I found out there was a remastered version that was better so I bought it again.

I don’t mind rebuying them as long as the reissue is noticeably better. I’ll probably rebuy a lot of albums I have on cd when a better-sounding format become available.

I’m definitely planning on buying the Beatles box set, unless it’s more expensive than I can afford. I’m looking forward to rediscovering their music and I’ve decided a while back to not listen to any of their music until I buy the new versions.

3

I assume you are exaggerating for effect, but if not why in the love of all that is good and just would you buy MP3s when you have CDs? And even more egregiously why would you ever get an DRMed format like AAC when you have MP3s, even if it’s free!?! :dubious:

4

Guilty (but uncharacteristically unrepentant). And don’t worry about my sanity – I ripped MP3s from my CDs, figured that was As Good As I’d Ever Need Or Notice, but then REripped when I wanted better quality (though I’d sold or given away or lost some of the discs). And I ripped them as plain old NON-DRM AACs.

And a 256 bit rate AAC is pretty good-- I can’t tell the difference between that and FLAC.

So don’t be :dubious:… be :smiley:

5

I bought many of my albums as LPs and then as CDs. Off the top of my head:

Atom Heart Mother
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Abbey Road
Let it Bleed
Live at Leeds
Six Wives of Henry VIII
Soft Machine – Third
Elton John – 11/17/70
Elton John – Honkey Chateau
Bonzo Dog Band – Gorilla
Bonzo Dog Band – Urban Spaceman
Bonzo Dog Band – Tadpoles
Lambert, Hendrics, and Ross
Led Zeppelin

6

I’ve purchased pretty much every album by Prince and Sonic Youth (now there’s a pairing you don’t see every day) in multiple formats. I own most of Prince’s albums (through Grafitti Bridge) and 12-inch singles on vinyl, as well as on CD, and owned a smattering on cassette. I believe I have a couple of 8-tracks for novelty value. I have all of Sonic Youth’s albums through Experimental Jet Set on vinyl, had the albums from Sister through Dirty on cassette, and have most of the albums on CD, as well as the deluxe remastered versions of Daydream Nation, Goo, and Dirty.

An oddifty: I have Shakespear’s Sister’s album Hormonally Yours on cassette, CD, vinyl, and DCC (!).

7

From LP to CD:

Abbey Road
Sgt. Pepper
Magical Mystery Tour
Dark Side of the Moon
Wish You Were Here
Animals

From LP to Cassette:

Focus Live at the Rainbow

8

I have bought George Winston’s December CD many times ( I have given it away several times.)

9

I wore out my copies of Dark Side of the Moon and *The Joshua Tree *(not so much from play but just repeated handling), so I’ve bought them twice. I lent out my copy of Razor’s Edge (as well as Cowboy Bebop Disk 1) and got both of them back unplayable, so they were a repurchase, as well.

I had David Lange’s Return of the Comet on tape years ago, but then had my tape collection stolen. I recently repurchased it as a (used) CD, but then iTunes also started carrying it, so I bought it a third time from them (a Monty Python joke about castles, fires, and swamps comes to mind)

10

Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and Styx’s Paradise Theater.

How odd you should mention them… I heard Crazy Love on the radio this morning, and remembered that I used to have it on an old K-Tel album that had some other good stuff on it, and how I’d buy that album again if I could find it on CD. (I can’t).

11

I have students (college, hipster) that put together mix CDs to match old “Only available through this amAYzing TV offer*” albums, like … [reverb] Monsters of Rock [/reverb].

And if you need Poco (hey, don’t laugh, Richie Furay, Rusty Young and Paul Cotton got bluesy-folk-rock chops) there are some good compilations out there, like** The Forgotten Trail**, and one of the highest energy live albums ever, Deliverin’.

*“But, wait, if I tried to buy all these albums separately, they’d cost me hundreds of dollars…” John Sebastian or other cash-flow-challenged host: “That’s right, DeeDee… but K-Tel has taken the drudgery out of compiling the ultimate music collection. One you’ll be proud to own for years to come!”

12

Very little. Maybe eight or nine albums. I have around 600 vinyl albums left, and maybe 200 cds.

I think I’ve only bought 3 or 4 mp3 songs.

13

I had a few Weird Al cassettes, and some dubbed copies of other Weird Al cassettes a friend had made me, but after I got a CD player I eventually wound up buying every album as a CD.

14

I gave up with The Fall: a few dozen singles, EPs, LPs and live things on vinyl, about a dozen albums bought again on CD and another dozen or so bits and bobs bought only CD. Eventually I just downloaded the whole fucking discography from a torrent site. Sorry Mark, I’ll buy a T-shirt next time I see you live.

15

My Aim Is True by Elvis Costello. I bought the CD. Then they re-released it with bonus tracks so I bought it again. Then they re-released it in a deluxe two-disc version so I bought it again. Plus I already had it on album. I probably have it on an old cassette or maybe an eight-track somewhere too.

16

I’ve pretty much re-bought my music twice. Went from hundreds of albums on 8 track, to vinyl, and then to CD.

I never did 45s much, although I had a few. Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Paul & Mary, Kingston Trio, stuff like that. Maybe a couple of dozen. Also some small amount of stuff on a small reel-to-reel my folks gave me.

But tape cartridges were much more convenient, and the first time I built up a music collection of any size it was 8 track. I had about 150 at the height of my collection. Although admittedly, I didn’t buy a lot of them. I sort of, ah, inherited them.

Then I caught the audiophile bug and went for vinyl and expensive equipment. I think I duplicated everything I had on tape, but I may have missed a couple. And added many more.

Then I went to CD. Same story, duplicated most of what I had on vinyl. I did miss some here, maybe as many as 30 or 40. But I bought many more.

Where I had probably a couple of hundred and change albums on vinyl, it’s more like 400 on CD.

As far as the content, it’s mostly old rock, blues, and soul, but little bits of everything. Pink Floyd (I wore out two copies and bought at least one limited edition pressing on vinyl before going to CD), Moody Blues, Beatles, Neil Diamond, Doors, Doobies, Elvis, various classical pieces, Queen, Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Lightfoot, Grateful Dead, Guess Who, Harry Chapin, Harry Nilsson, Joplin, Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Joe Cocker, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Keb Mo’, Aretha, etc., etc., etc.

I never bought commercial cassettes because they were almost universally horrible quality, but I did buy high quality blanks by the hundreds and recorded my own. But since I didn’t actually re-buy any music I don’t count that any more than I do ripping my CDs now. Also had a semi-pro reel-to-reel for a while, and used it to record my vinyl. But the inconvenience of the format and the non-portability made good quality cassettes more appealing, even though the quality was less.

I don’t buy much downloaded music, I still almost always get CDs and rip them for convenience. Although for the occasional high quality listening session, CDs still beat even the best MP3 or other compressed format. Not by much, and only in tiny ways for the most part, but still.

17

I bought Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits CD a second time, but that was only because my original disc got destroyed by rain.