See these CDs? Reason to return to the record store

In the last three years, like many others, I estimate that my CD buying activity has reduced by 90%, in terms of number of albums purchased, or even more in terms of money spent. I download the vast majority of my music from iTunes, or as part of a subscription for eMusic, which happens to have much of my type of music. So far this year, I have purchased U2's 'No line on the Horizon' (because of a sort of tradition, because it looked nice, and because they threw in a poster I am around 25 years too old to put on my wall, plus access to a film I am unlikely to ever watch - yes, marketing guys, I am that stupid), Leonard Cohen's 'Live in London' (also looked kind of cool and was an impulse purchase in hard copy, as it were) and Grant Lee Buffalo's compilation 'Storm Hymnal' (simply because I couldn't find it to download anywhere, and because one evening I took a sudden hankering after a few songs - especially 'Mockingbird' and 'Happiness' - from 'Mighty Joe Moon' which I hadn't even thought of, let alone listened to, for 15 years.



Anyway, my point in this post is that record companies have an easy way to make me buy more CDs, and that is to combine good recession-proof value with extra qualities that simply can't be downloaded. The best case of this I have probably ever seen is the new edition of Radiohead's 'The bends'. This comes in a small CD-sized card box, which contains

- the Bends CD (original, not remastered I think)
- the original CD booklet
- a CD with 21 B-sides and acoustic and BBC session versions of some of the songs on the CD
- a 90-minute DVD with several live performances (including Top of the Pops - bet they didn't get invited back after 'Kid A'!) plus original videos for the singles
- 5 postcards with the single covers, which look really nice, although I have no idea what to do with them (maybe keep them for my wall along with my U2 poster if I suddenly start living backwards, like Brad Pitt in 'Benjamin Button')

And it was €16.99! That is savage value, and enough for me to buy the whole package despite not being that big a Radiohead fan, although I always had a soft spot for 'The Bends' (especialy the title track, 'Black star' and 'Sulk'). There is a great video for 'Sulk' here:



and a nice live version of 'Black star' at:



They lost me a bit with with 'OK Computer' (except the wonderful 'No surprises') and then evaded me forever more when they disappeared up their own backsides with subsequent albums, which I really don't think anyone could possibly describe themselves as having a soft spot for (except perhaps Cylons? - just catching up with the fuss about Battlestar Galactica!).

Bacically, I was impressed by this package and this value, and if there were more like it out there, I would certainly buy them.