Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Bands Nobody Wants
Posted by Humphrey Plugg on 16 July 2011 - 4:51pm.
I recently decided to clear out a few CDs using the Music Magpie website. To be honest, it's not great value (30p for a single CD, 72p for a double unless it happens to be particularly collectable), but what amazed me was that it refused to take 3 of mine - I assume on the grounds that they have no resale value whatsoever.
So step forward:
Travis, Lisa Stansfield and En Vogue. In the contemporary music world, you are completely worthless.
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You are joking?
Unless I am misunderstanding you you are 'selling' your old CDs for 30p ?!?!?!? Couldn't you drop them in to an RSPCA or caner research shop?
If he went into a charity shop...
...Humphrey would know that the most unwanted album of all time is Always and Forever by Eternal. Every charity shop has a copy.
The changing of the guard
For many years it was No Parlez by Paul Young, which wrestled the top spot from the Busy Making Progress compilation at some point in the late Nineties.
I thought
"Busy Making Progress" was some dodgy religious album from a band called Progress, made in the mid/late '70s.
I used to own a copy (never bought it so probably somebody surreptitiously dumped their copy on me while I wasn't paying attention). I played it once (only, ever) and it was shite. Even worse than "Deep Purple In Rock"(contentious!).
Onka's Big Moka
by Toploader (or Wanka's Big Faux Pas as I prefer to call it) must be a contender too, which I have already confessed to buying from a charidee shop in another thread.
I also confess to owning no less than two Travis CDs although I would sooner dispose of my Coldplay CDs first.
No Parlez
was definitely the front-runner, but Silk & Steel by Five Star was always on its heels.
Inexplicably, charity shops ALWAYS
have a copy or two of a Mark Owen CD single. Fact.
"Caner research shop"
A very noble cause
You are joking?
You've got a Travis CD?
I have 3 Travis tracks
in my mp3 library. "Why Does It Always Rain On Me" came recently via a mingle CD but is unlikely ever to be played again (sorry!)."Driftwood" is actually a bloody good song, well-performed. The other one is a live track "As You Are" from an ancient NME compilation and I have no idea (or particular desire to find out) what it sounds like. Travis have underwhelmed me every time I've heard/seen them on radio or TV (apart from that one song, above), so it doesn't surprise me they're now considered worthless, in a very real sense of the word.
Somewhere on the shelf
I have the first Travis album (Good Feeling). Which isn't bad at all; it didn't provide a clue to what they would become.
I own all 6 albums!
(A number of singles too.)
They made six albums?
I had no idea.
Yep
I've been meaning to get the Fran Healy solo album too.
Funky Divas
Great album that.
Those are actually pretty good prices
At the Record & Tape Exchange at Notting Hill I offered them my 7" mint copy of Heartbreak Hotel on a white label with ("pressing #1" stamped on it) and some handwriting on it that said, "this one's for you Mama, a-hu-hurr".
The guy behind the counter told me that there's "no real demand" for Elvis memorabilia and offered me an insulting 3 quid. I took it because I was gasping for a pint.
Indeed.
I know the owner of a second-hand record shop. He has great difficultly in shifting rock n roll releases, including several rare Elvis and Buddy Holly releases in excellent condition.
Demand for originals seems to be minimal, and many of the listed prices are simply too high.
He didn't
have a New Zealand accent, did he?
Your CDs may very well end up being
sold in one of the That's Entertainment chain of shops, for anything from 99p to £3.99.
I've posted this before but their pricing can be judged using the special David Bowie system
99p = Tonight, Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine
1.99 = Black Tie White Noise, Pin Ups, Earthling
3.99 = Hunky Dory, Low, Heroes etc.
Black Tie White Noise
a possible collector's item? From Wikipedia;
"However, until re-releases later in the 1990s, the album was extraordinarily rare after the fledgling Savage Records on which it had been released suddenly went bankrupt."
Guns and Roses - Spaghetti Incident
In the mid to late 90s I saw more copies of this in used bins that any other disc before, or since. I think they have all slowly been crushed into polymer dust and used in Chinese dairy products.
Maybe Because...
...You shouldn't have thought of throwing Lisa Stansfield out in the first place. :)It's great music, isn't it? Contemporary would mean to also let go of the Stones/Doors/Beatles/Pink Floyd...
Cheers,
Crystal
http://www.softbedbirkenstock.net
Cash Converters
is the place to find untold numbers of every Spice Girls and Hanson CD.
Maybe it's an East London thing.....
.....but the greatest hazard in the average charity shop round here aren't dodgy fire exits or aggressive old ladies behind the counter when you haven't got any change.
No, it's the tower of unwanted copies of 'Everything Must Go' by The Manic Street Preachers that virtually topple out of each charity shop door.
Also, if one was stupid enough so to do, whole back catalogues by U2, Madonna, Paul Weller, Oasis etc., can be purchased for less than £10.
I saw the first three Oasis CDs in mint condition last week for 75p, not each.....for all three!
Funny that people (erm.....not me) were prepared to pay big money for not very well made CDs in the 1980s and now can't wait to get rid of really rather well made CDs (sleeve notes, better mastering, bonus tracks) twenty five years later that are available at a fraction of the 1980s price.
Fopp are doing great reissues of back catalogue items (Nick Drake, John Mayall, John Martyn, Pentangle, Fairport Convention) at £3 a pop, Oxfam's going rate for such stuff is 99p and people can't wait to offload CDs that originally retailed for £15.99!
It's a buyer's market.....now's not the time to sell.
is this not the same phenomenon
as when may people got rid of their vinyl collections ?
however the CD may not enjoy a renaissance of a type enjoyed by vinyl
1. digital format being replaced by digital format
2. shitty covers that scuff crack and break
3. artwork and liner notes reduced to the point of illegibility- may as well look on a computer screen.
Tim Blake
I recently discovered that I own two copies of Tim Blake's New Jerusalem on CD - do I win a prize? Or just an extra-friendly hug from Tim?
every second hand gaff
in the realm has a number of rules that settle with time..or rather a list of works never again to be "bought in"...
top of the lists since 1997 are "be here now" and "urban hymns"..
within two days one up in aberdeen were sold back around forty of each..
i've seen the amount of stuff
getting shipped to magpie et al ...and it's scary...
but if they're paying 3.99 for "quality" bowie (or whoever) they will not last too long...
They're not paying 3.99
they're selling it for 3.99
Probably buying for £1 or less.