Oh Man, Wonder If He'll Ever Know...

I've been distracted, quite happily, by the release of Mass Effect 3 for the past few days, but this is a music blog, not a gaming blog, so let me set that all in order here. It only makes sense, in a way, considering I spent most of that release day not playing that game but dealing with music.

Early in the day, Facebook led me to local (primarily used) record (all vinyl!) store Hunky Dory (they also sell glass, if you're into that sort of thing), and the probable need to abandon my plan to make music stores in the area something like a weekly feature, as the experience was so very positive and so thoroughly reinforced my view of the store that pausing on arbitrary and non-established bases seemed wrong.

What happened was this:
Owner Michael Bell posted one of his regular "Album of the Day" posts to announce new arrivals, and Tuesday it was The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy. I'd just been asking Brian at CD Alley about the CD reissues of all their albums, so it seemed almost fated. I asked quickly through Facebook for a price, got one almost instantly and went out to pick it up. Indeed, Hunky Dory has been good to me in this respect before: I'd made no planned purchases before, but when I go out on a spree and collect something like the New Order reissues, I am often somewhat knowingly overwhelming myself. What album do I start with? How do I get a "feel" for a band when I'm plowing through multiple albums and various b-sides¹ and errata? For some, the best approach is to pick up a compilation, like a generic Greatest Hits (which occasionally is part or even mostly miss), or even a quality one, or maybe a strange obscure one.