The judges have drawn up a shortlist of twelve albums of which I expect they feel are at the forefront of British music. As such, I am a little interested in them. Last year, I tried to find the cheapest CD prices on the Internet and post them here. For the lot, it would have cost £91.62 at the time, which isn’t bad for twelve albums, but still more than I was willing to pay. This year, I am going to try to find the cheapest legitimate means possible to obtain the music. It is a little fairer that way, I feel.

Amy Winehouse » Back to Black

£6.99 BangCd (CD)

Arctic Monkeys » Favourite Worst Nightmare

£6.99 BangCd (CD)

Basquiat Strings » Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford

£8.97 Amazon (CD)

Bat For Lashes » Fur and Gold

£7.99 HMV (CD), iTunes (Download)

Dizzee Rascal » Maths + English

£7.99 BangCd, Play.com (CD); iTunes (Download)

Fionn Regan » The End Of History

£7.99 Play.com (CD), iTunes (Download)

Jamie T » Panic Prevention

£6.99 BangCd (CD)

Klaxons » Myths of the Near Future

£6.99 BangCd (CD)

Maps » We Can Create

£7.99 HMV (CD), iTunes (Download)

New Young Pony Club » Fantastic Playroom

£6.98 Amazon (CD)

The View » Hats Off to the Buskers

£7.97 Amazon (CD)

The Young Knives » Voices of Animals and Men

£7.99 iTunes (Download)

This comes to £91.83 – a whole 21p more than last year (that’s inflation for ya!). But this exercise wasn’t in vain: I learnt a few lessons. Bands shouldn’t come up with their album names. Downloads aren’t cheaper. Amazon has terrible addressing. You can save a few pence by shopping around (often literally). But most of all, music ain’t cheap. So if you think you love music, like me, listen to crap stuff that was out two years ago that you can often find in service station bargain bins. It’s cheaper.

As a note, the shops I used for the comparison are: Amazon, BangCd, HMV, iTunes and Play.com. These are sites I have used before. I didn’t use Woolworths or CD WOW! because I would expect that you, like myself, would rather listen to the music some time before the winner is announced, and in any case before next year’s nominations are announced. I didn’t include Napster because I couldn’t be bothered to download it. I didn’t use any other shops because after checking those five I really couldn’t be asked to check any more. Please feel free to update me if prices change or if you find them cheaper. Then I can ignore you and make rude gestures in front of my computer screen towards your comments. (Joking, of course! )

I wanted to get some Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. I’ve had their Greatest Hits album for a few years now, and I had always enjoyed their music. With any band I take a liking to, it is usually because I have bought their greatest hits albums or bought one of their albums on the cheap. I then like what I hear then proceed to buy all their albums. It happened with Queen, The Police, Dream Theater… and now RHCP.

I went into HMV today, looking at their newest album Stadium Arcadium. On finding it, I saw three different prices for the same album, those being £9.95, £13 and £15. I found the first price the most enticing, though not enough for me to complete the purchase. I did however notice that some of the other albums were on offer: two for £10. I selected By The Way and Californication – both albums I know fairly well but had not extended myself to buy. When it came to buying it, I also thought (cheekily) that I should try to use my student card. 10% off, £9 to pay, thank you very much!

I was also looking for some new earphones. Weiran had alerted me to a company called Sennheiser. They make the Sennheiser CX300, which fit inside the ear. Most places sell for just less than £40 for this pair of earphones. However, I noticed that Play.com sell them for £29.99 for the white pair, and £27.99 for the black pair. The silver ones are still around £40. Encouraged by my find, I continued to shop around. I strayed onto Amazon – which isn’t something I normally do – and spotted all three for under £18, so I got the silver one for £17.84 including delivery.

Shop around bargain hunters!

1. I persuaded Mum yesterday that we should get up early to go to the MetroCentre before everyone else gets there. This involves getting up early.
2. I persuaded Mum that it would be a good idea to get a breakfast from Wetherspoon’s – it was very good, and only £1.99. To that end, Mum also got toast. So I ended up with two bacon, egg, two tomato, two mushroom, beans, sausage and two hash brown, with two toast. It may not sound much, but I don’t usually eat a lot in the mornings, so I was stuffed.
3. I chose a BLT sandwich for tea.
4. I selected the MetroCentre as a place to go – a lot of clothes shops (see yesterday’s post).

Oh, and another thing that’s annoyed me today was that I was searching for Football Manager 2006 for PC. I found it in several places for £19.99. I then went to Gamestation, expecting to find it cheaper – or the same price at least… £34.99 – I’m going home. I have now found it on Amazon.co.uk for £16.99 delivered. And there’s your shopping tip for today.