CD sales this year took a pretty dramatic hit, and it’s reaching a point where the bogeyman of online piracy can’t be entirely blamed. Customers have gotten smarter, and artists? I just get the sense everyone is so freaked out by the changes in the distribution model that artists are just phoning it in.
It was tough to find something to like in 2005. I’m getting that sense in 2007.
With the third quarter now done, I figure it’s time to update the Favorite Edition 2007 list. Still not much change from quarter to quarter, and I’m not fired up about the fall release schedule either.
Cocco’s limited edition single, "Dugong no Mieru Oka", will be reissued for general release on Nov. 21, according to an e-mail I received from CDJapan. Coupling tracks for the single include "Never ending journey (radio edit)", "Heaven’s Hell (Live at NHK ‘Natsu no Uta’)" and "Okashi to Musume (Radio Session at FM802)".
After I discovered John Zorn’s Naked City, I wanted to explore the works of its individual members. I assumed their own albums would sound like Naked City. That wasn’t the case with Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz. I bought a number of albums by both, and I have to admit I was kind of bored by them.
But then I stopped expecting Naked City and listened to them as individuals. Horvitz’s music grew on me to the point where I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a fanboy. His work is so varied, I could — and probably might — spend a few more podcasts exploring them. Pigpen most closely resembles Naked City, and V as in Victim is the band’s tightest album.