My love for music is well-documented here, so I’ll spare the warm up and just get to the point: Every Friday, Amazon MP3 releases 5 albums for 5 bucks each, and the sale lasts through the weekend.
Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s crap, but today, it is awesome. They grabbed 5 albums from their list of 100 greatest debut albums of all time. I own all of these already, but in case you needed to fill some glaring holes in your collection, I present to you, for five dollars each:
Birth of the Cool – Miles Davis
I write a column for Amazon’s End User Blog, but Amazon is a giant company and I have no idea who picked these, from an already-impressive list. I wish I knew who did it, so I could give that person a high five.
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Any person who has never heard any of these bands (and especially these albums) should take that opportunity. Man… I can remember the first time I was introduced to Miles Davis and The Velvet Underground, turned my music world upside down.
This was a tough one. I bought “Boy,” though, just to offset all the people who are planning to buy whatever new U2 album is being released that will surely be as inferior as their last decade’s output.
And if you earned a commission from it, even better, Wil. Thanks.
They should have made it the Friday six and added “…and justice for all.” Then your iTunes could start respecting you.
I’d love to take advantage of this kick ass Friday, but I’ve been legally bound not to use credit cards ever again.
http://www.twitter.com/thebeaky
I don’t think iTunes will ever respect me.
Dammit. My laptop hard drive is already full. Plus, I blew out my RAM on my desktop. Nooooo!!! Luckily, I already have U2 and Led Zepplin.
They should have done all U2 like Boy, October, Unforgettable Fire, etc.
Or maybe all Jazz: Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, etc.
The idea is a good one anyway.
BTW – Didn’t Seinfeld make fun of the high five when Putty started using it all the time?
Wil, that’s because your iTunes has A.I. Is it running on a computer made by Cyberdyne Systems, by any chance?
Thanks for the heads-up!
I already have Boy, but now Led Zeppelin I and Birth of the Cool are mine as well.
That’s awesome! I had no idea they were doing this. Thanks! We already have Boy (and I have to argue about the last decade of U2, I love it all in different ways, but I digress . . .), but I don’t have the others.
Did I ever mention that my old friend (the late) Al McKibbon played bass on “Birth Of The Cool?”
Al played with just about everybody and had 1,001 amazing stories to tell, but you really had to dig to get them. He never mentioned to me that he played on that record, and I just happened to discover it while reading the liner notes as I was listening to the disc one day. I called Al immediately.
I said, “Al, you know I’m a huge Miles Davis fan, yet you never mentioned that you played on Birth Of The Cool.”
Very nonchalant, Al replied, “Oh yeah, man. I played those sessions.”
“You’ve got a million great stories, but it’s like pulling teeth to get them out of you,” I complained.
Al said, “Well, you know, man. I just don’t want to be boring.”
Al McKibbon was a lot of things, but never boring.
Holy shit, Burns.
Led Zeppelin I changed my life I would say. In sixth grade my uncle gave me a set of cassette tapes, yeah I said cassette tapes, normal bias even. They included: Pink Floyd – Wish you were here, Van Halen – Van Halen, Led Zeppelin I & II, AC/DC – Back In Black and The Beatles – Abby Road. My uncle was a bad ass to me back then. Those were the albums I started out my music listening career with and I have thanked him many times for that kick start.
Some of my favorite albums I remember buying on my own were: Guns-N-Roses – Appetite For Destruction, Alice in Chains – Facelift, Def Leppard – Pyromania and Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet. Yeah the Bon Jovi and Def Leppard might be pretty lame today, but back in 1983 and 1986 they were pretty damn awesome. It’s like trying to convince someone you didn’t like Thriller when it came out, yeah right, we all did, just admit it and move on.
I remember listening to Slippery When Wet while reading The Watchman series. Ah the memories.
Michael
Nice list except for U2. They invented bad music. Boring music. Music for late-40s guys to listen to while driving badly in their BMWs. If U2 was a character in Top Gun they’d be Slider. If Bono was a type of cookie he’d be an ass cookie with tasty ego chunky bits.
I don’t like U2.
I wish that amazon.ca sold mp3’s. Or maybe even, get this, amazon.com sold mp3’s to Canadians! That would be great too.