Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Song of the Day: 'Remember (Walking in the Sand)' by Shangri-Las


  I've written about my musical OCD before, but really hadn't had a major flare-up until over the weekend, which involved the Shangri-Las, among others. Like most fans of the coolest girl group ever, I have a few compilation CDs, containing all of the girls' best-known songs. But as I went to listen to one on Saturday, I was suddenly overcome by the urge to have everything -- in order -- which included recreating the band's first two albums -- the non-compilation "Leader of the Pack" and "Shangri-Las '65!" -- and subsequent singles, ripping and buying each track and sequencing them in iTunes until all was right in the world again. While "re-creating" old albums in iTunes that were never issued on CD makes some sense, I had never owned these Shangri-Las albums in the first place, which had even me wondering: Why am I doing this? Why go to all of this trouble when you have the songs and can listen to them just fine as is? (See also: "Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica.") 


From there, it started to unnerve me that Bow Wow Wow's "Your Cassette Pet" and "See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over, Go Ape Crazy" were never issued on CD, so I went on a hours-long binge trying to get those together -- which also included ripping songs from YouTube that were not on any of my Bow Wow Wow compilations CDs or for sale on iTunes.  


The infamous cover, which was later used in the U.S. for the EP called "The Last of the Mohicans."


The U.S. cover of "See Jungle ..." 

As I went to grab the artwork for the "See Jungle" album -- the U.S. artwork, like I had in '81 -- I learned that Cherry Red had actually reissued "See Jungle" as a 2-disc collection a couple years ago, which led to some ambivalent feelings. The old me wanted to instantly buy it. (Those liner notes were calling!) Then the new me said, "Do you really need another CD [or book, or DVD] in this cramped apartment when you already have it electronically?" -- and I held off. I was proud of myself for showing a little restraint, but it made me kind of sad too. Because as much as I hate bringing more clutter into my home, I couldn't help but think to myself, "If I'm not buying this, who is?" -- and I felt like I was turning my back on an old friend.


2 comments:

Henry Holland said...

I feel your pain.

I own about 9000 CD's, neatly stacked and alphabetized on two walls in my apartment. I keep them for a simple reason: computers crash, iPods go dead (twice).

As Jim Morrison once sang "Music is your only friend".

Peter Maria said...

I am on a similar jag with The Flirts, because as Henry mentioned my iPod died.