So, every year a group of our friends gets together for a CD exchange party. We pick whatever album has been the most influential for us over the past year, buy a brand new copy of it and wrap it up for the party. Then we draw numbers to decide who gets to pick first. People who pick later can either choose to steal a CD that's already been opened, or they can pick a new one, still wrapped up, still a mystery. The system has its flaws; often people end up with CDs they don't particularly care for, and sometimes several people bring the same album. But for the most part it's a fun night, mostly just because we get to stand around and listen to and talk about music for hours, which, you know, I like.
Anyway, on Monday night, we made our annual pilgrimage to
Good Records in an attempt to find our most influential albums of the year in an actual store. It's always tough for me, because my first choices always seem to be albums by bands from other countries (like, say, Sweden), or else things I've downloaded from
Amie Street by independent artists from whom you would have to actually order a CD directly. Imports are expensive and I always procrastinate too much to have time to order a CD online. So we go to the store and hope for the best.
Last year, my top choice was a Swedish import, so that was out, but my next two choices were available, so it was a fairly easy task. This year? Not at ALL. I had a list of ten to twelve CDs I would consider taking. And Good Records had NONE of them. And that made me mad. And so I ended up picking something that I didn't love or even really listen to much at all, but which was the weirdest, most sonically offensive thing I'd heard all year, because at least it was interesting (
Crystal Castles, you win!). I knew that most likely only two or three people at this party would care for it even a
little bit (
maybe), and it didn't matter. I bought it anyway. And now I'm trying to decide which track to play for people--one that is
less strange that will make folks at least want to check it out? Or one that gives them the full effect of what they're in for?
Do you ever just want to cram challenging music down other peoples' throats?
I do.
And anyway, the whole point of these CD exchange parties is to be exposed to music you haven't really listened to before, right? Well...booyah. I have a feeling this one fits the bill perfectly then.
A couple of the less "sonically offensive" tracks from the
Cystal Castles album:
Crystal Castles - Air War mp3Crystal Castels - Crimewave mp3And last year's song--sweet, innocent little
Sea Wolf:
Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf mp3P.S. Just for the record, it might sound like I don't really like the Crystal castles album, but I do! It wasn't high on my list of my favorite albums from this year, but I actually do think it was the most interesting one I listened to. That's all.
A few months back, I added a new record player (a Crosley CR74-OA in cherry) to my Christmas wish list. I've pretty much always had a record player, except for a couple of years in college after my grandfather's old one died and I couldn't immediately find a replacement, and then again three years ago, when the one I finally found in college finally broke. At the time, we figured we wouldn't be replacing it anytime soon, because it was so hard to find record players that didn't have to be hooked up to an entire stereo system (which we did not have and did not want). And honestly, it just didn't seem like a priority. But I missed it. And so I was very excited when I found that you can get a really nice record player (that also plays CDs and tapes) for about $150 that does not have to be hooked up to anything. And that's what I got for Christmas this year, along with several albums that I love. It's the best Christmas gift I've gotten in years and years and years. 
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