Amazon $5 MP3 Sale

Having grown up in the age where buying CDs (and even cassettes for a while) was the norm, I am still adjusting slightly to the concept of buying music digitally, but have nonetheless fully embraced it. The instant gratification and ease of buying your music online is a wonderful thing. Sure the appreciation of artwork and the packaging of recorded music has diminished greatly, but in my opinion the benefits of digital music far outweigh the need for the packaging as part of the overall experience of purchasing music. For one, digital music takes up far less space in our homes (and arguably reduces our carbon footprints), hard to find, out of print albums are now readily available again and the once popular hidden track on CDs (ie. the track hidden after 30 minutes of silence at the end of the album) is now more or less eliminated (for the life of me I have no idea how that trend got so popular...insanely annoying, especially considering that the waiting and/or fast forwarding more often than not wound up not being worth the effort). That being said, the one thing I do still truly enjoy about the experience of buying music in the physical format is the trip to the record store. The joy of digging through the racks to find albums to purchase is something I still try to do at least a couple times of year. Crazy to think that in my lifetime that record stores could completely disappear.

Anyway, back to digital music. I much prefer Amazon to iTunes. Amazon's selection isn't quite as extensive as iTunes, but they are catching up very quickly and I very rarely turn to iTunes to get something that isn't available on Amazon. iTunes also recently started charging sales tax (not sure if this is just a NJ/NY thing) which in one fell swoop permanently soured me on purchasing from them in the future. Not only are they charging sales tax, but they are more expensive than Amazon on everyday prices for the most part. And perhaps most importanly, Amazon is and always has been DRM free which is a HUGE plus in my book.

Every month Amazon has a $5 MP3 sale. It used to be 50 albums, but recently they have bumped it up to 100. I don't necessarily pick up something every month and I am often frustrated to see something I purchased for a higher price recently all of the sudden on sale for $5, but it is still a great deal nonetheless.

Each month, I'm going to try to highlight releases that I think are worth picking up as there is almost always a few albums available that I think are solid. So, here we go:

Albums I'm Thinking About Dropping $5 On:

• Dead Kennedys - Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death
• Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
• The 13th Floor Elevators - Going Up - The Very Best Of
• Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas - Songs To No One
• Dntel - Life Is Full Of Possibilities
• Tia Carrera - The Quintessential (not the actress)

Albums I Own and Think Are Worth Your $5:

• Spoon - Transference
• The Postal Service - Give Up
• Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
• Coldplay - X&Y
• A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
• R.E.M. - Document
• The Buzzocks - Singles Going Steady
• Cracker - Kerosene Hat
• Husker Du - New Day Rising
• Patterson Hood - Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)
• Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster
• The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
• Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire
• The Pharcyde - Labcabincalifornia
• The Lawrence Arms - Ghost Stories