Trade

I have been in a financial crunch since graduation. As a result, the flow of new music into my collection has slowed considerably. I still have means of acquiring some new music, though. My prepaid subscription to Emusic provides eight or nine new albums near the end of each month. Also, I have been trading in CD's at Hoodlums for store credit.

Today I picked up the new albums by Hot Chip, Lansing-Dreiden, and Thursday. One of my favorite hoodlums rang me up. "Thursday?" she inquired. "That's a little outside of your usual pattern."

The truth is that I rarely listen to any portion of an album before acquiring it. In fact, I frequently buy albums without having heard anything by the artist. This custom seems odd to people who want to be reasonably sure they are going to like an album before investing their time in it, let alone their money. But I don't go into it completely blind. I use my intuition.

For example, in the case of Thursday, I got a sense from several reviews (mostly good, but some lukewarm) that I would like it. In other cases, it was the band's connection with a label or artist I like (Matmos), striking album art (Múm), an interesting name (Devendra Banhart), hearing the name several times in a short period from different sources (J Dilla), or a recommendation from a dead friend in a dream (The Avalanches).

This method usually works pretty well. More often than not, I like what I hear and my horizons are broadened a little. Frequently, I love it.