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New music mania

I am a consumer at heart. A cheap consumer, but a consumer none the less. I love buying books and shoes and bags. Clothes go in waves, usually the summer months are big because I'm a huge fan of garage sales. This has been the case for many years. Don't believe me? Ask my mom about my childhood bookshelf or obsession with my red patent leather shoes.

One thing I've never been a huge buyer of is music. Now I'm not talking stealing music instead. I was more interested in listening to the radio than really owning a lot. And what I did own I listened to rabidly for months at a time, as I've discussed before. That's still true to an extent. I still pop in an album and listen on repeat. In fact that's exactly what I'm in the middle of doing this week. It's a new music week for me at Casa de Becky. For not being a huge music buyer in the past, I'm finding myself doing a lot of music purchasing in the last few months, this last week especially. I bought 6 new Glee songs via iTunes last week. Dave's (Blue Skies) new album arrived via Royal Mail yesterday. I'll be getting the new Death Cab album from Target tonight (cheaper than iTunes by about $2. And I'll be pre-ordering Chameleon Circuit's Still Got Legs on Saturday.

I'm still sort of in the same mode of listening to the albums continuously. I previewed Death Cab's album on NPR by listening to it straight through twice. Dave's album is streaming on Bandcamp. I was going to be so good and wait til in arrived in hardcopy to listen to it, but I caved yesterday. Next thing I knew I'd listened to it all the way through twice. (It's already on my ipod and phone. And you can add at least 2 more full album listens to that total, and counting...) But I think this obsessive music listening habit is waning a little. The first thing I did once the album was in my iTunes was add it to the requisite playlists. It's the first time in a while I've actually listened to an album all the way through. I think my roadtrip playlist project has started to change my music listening habits. My buying habits too. I'd never really just purchased single songs before. Each playlist has some dominant theme. (Yes, one is still just Dave and Alan originals...sue me.) Upbeat, singable, calm, indie, best of, etc.

I know this isn't groundbreaking for most of you. Most of you are normal and do this already I'm sure. It's just weird for me to pull albums apart like that. I like to honor the artistic intent of compiling an album that way, but also embracing a controlled randomness enforced by a playlist on shuffle.

Ok enough rambling for today. You'll probably be getting more on Dave's new album this week. Because I can't not. You know it's my job to be a Blue Skies evangelist.

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