Browsing CDs

I was out looking at CDs earlier today, and I noticed that, as the record companies are finally catching on to the idea that prices are too high and beginning to bring them down on (a few) newer bands, the prices of used CDs are going up. I saw used copies of most new releases at $9.99, and a few at $10.99 (including The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang--in God's name, why would that demand premium used prices?). A number of used CD shops have folded around Chicago in the past couple of years, and I wonder if Internet downloading and ordering online might be taking a bite. Specific songs and CDs aren't as difficult to come by as they once were, so maybe there's not the need for used CD stores that there once was. Are they squeezing a little bit more out of the customers they have?

By the way, if you're interested in finding A Bigger Bang without paying 11 bucks for a used copy, I also saw today that you can get it in specially marked packages of Effen vodka. I wouldn't've pegged the Stones for a vodka band, but I guess billionaire jetsetters have different tastes than--well, I guess they've been billionaire jetsetters for more than a generation by now, so maybe they can't remember being anything but a vodka band anymore.


One oddity I stumbled across in the used bins was the only CD by Woody Woodmansey's U-Boat. Unless you read liner notes of old albums, that name likely means nothing to you, but Mick "Woody" Woodmansey played drums with David Bowie when he was first making a name for himself. Some people call that band the Spiders from Mars, but I've never been comfortable with that--the Spiders were the fictional backing band for Ziggy Stardust, and although Bowie's band of that time is typically also called by that name, I think there should be a distinction. If nothing else, I don't want to have to decide whether Mick Ronson, Woody Woodmansey, or Trevor Bolder is actually the narrator of the song "Ziggy Stardust." I was tempted to pick up the CD as an oddity, but then I read the liner notes. These were written for the CD rerelease, but they were less than gushing over the band and their album. The notes called the songwriting "undistinguished" and the album itself "pleasant enough." If that's the over-the-top sell copy, I'm taking a pass. Come to think of it, I probably should've just been able to take a hint from the cover itself. In a band called Woody Woodmansey's U-Boat, you kind of expect Woody Woodmansey to be out front. But you'd be wrong. Woody's actually the one wearing the white puffy shirt and standing under the O.

UPDATE: I'd planned to put a scan in of the cover, but I'm having trouble with my graphics at the moment. If I solve the problem, I'll reload it later.

FURTHER UPDATE: Obviously, the graphics are working now.