cd wow

Money, Money, Money!

I had an astounding set of news yesterday. I went to the Arriva Bus website yesterday: I don’t link it for good reason… Last year I paid £270 for my annual pass (which actually only covers September to June, the use of the word "annual" is a loose definition of the pass). Arriva have hiked the price of this pass to £450. I don’t think I should discuss this any further, as I make a point of trying not to use expletives on my website.

I have also spent a bit of money – £79.99 to be precise – on a new phone. My new Nokia 6300 for T-Mobile is on order at The Link, and I should receive it within five days. However, my recent experiences of retail websites haven’t been the best of late… Still remember to avoid CD Wow! and Woolworths! But I’m looking forward to a change from Orange, who really don’t seem fresh and enticing at the moment at all; and I think going back to Nokia from the wilderness of my Motorola V635 will be a rewarding pleasure.

And finally, the pièce de resistance if you will, my Newcastle United season ticket smart card came through today… all £482 worth. That beast will provide me in excess of 1,700 minutes of excruciating pain, unbounded glee and swirly scarf-waving. My student loan has certainly had a bit of a kicking this year!

...with no replies just yet.

Mercury Rising Further

Last year I wrote a piece on the Mercury Music Prize shortlist, criticising the price of music to obtain the albums to give a fair vote. That’s my problem. If I want to be able to judge these albums and pick my favourite, I want to listen to them all. I love music, and I can enjoy any genre, and if I am being led to the cutting edge of British music, then the Nationwide Mercury Prize seems a natural place to look for ideas.

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! ;) )

...with one reply so far.

Him Off The Telly

These last few weeks I have been driving my friends nuts talking about my liking for the hair and the t-shirt adorned by the kid in the BT advert. I am please to inform all that read this that I have managed to acquire my own copy of that t-shirt: it happens to be on sale at Topman. It wasn’t my original intention to get it, rather I expected that I would be unable to get one so I would settle for anything similar. The fact that it was the same was a bonus. It cost £12.60 (with student discount) from the Eldon Square branch, Newcastle.

My other purchase yesterday was a new electric shaver. My old one was a Christmas present from when I was 14, so being seven years old and cutting like a feather duster it was time for a new one. Boots are having a bit of a sale, so I obliged. I forked out £24.99 for a Remington R320. Tasty.

I also still do not have Dream Theater’s Systematic Chaos CD+DVD, largely down to the ineptitude of a certain company that won’t be named here.

I’ll name it here instead. If you want to purchase any solid music, don’t visit CD WOW.

...with no replies just yet.

Peruvian Skies

As I write this, I am watching Uruguay v Peru in the Copa America football tournament. It’s being held in Venezuela. At the moment, it’s nil-nil.

Peruvian Skies is a song by Dream Theater from the album Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. And here is my perfect opportunity to tell you about CD WOW. I recently attempted to purchase Dream Theater’s most recent release, Systematic Chaos from CD WOW. I placed my order a few days after its release on 4th June. It is still recorded as a pre-release on their website, and after some correspondence, the situation is that I’m not likely to get the album any time soon, and they have my money. So I shall avoid them in future…

I used them because the special edition of the album with DVD was cheapest with them at £10.99. I have noticed that the same album is at HMV for the same price.

...with 3 replies.