Help Me Spend My iTunes Money *UPDATE #2*

Well after much thinking, eating, sleeping, reading, and listening to dozens and dozens of thirty second clips of songs on iTunes, I think I have finally narrowed the list down to eight potential album purchases.  Thanks to the wonders of the wordpress upgrade in the new year, I can now post polls here too so with the inaugural poll on this site please vote for three of the eight albums available to choose from.  If you like fewer than eight you can pick fewer, but please don’t vote for more than 3.  Obviously, all these albums are available on iTunes if you want to hear bits and pieces of what you’re voting for.  Hopefully with your help I can have my new music melting my prefrontal cortex within a short amount of time.

Help Me Spend My iTunes Money *UPDATE*

Thankyou so much to all of you who have taken the time to give me your suggestions for what albums to get.  I’ve been listening through them on iTunes – the 30 second previews at least – and I’m giving some of them some thought.  They all seem like “good” picks, but I haven’t heard anything that really blows me away yet.  Maybe I’m just being too picky, but I’m really hoping to get something outstanding with this final $30.  Whiskeytown and Elliot Smith interest me, I’ve always enjoyed Oasis, I’m not a huge electronic music guy, I already have  Miles Davis/Diana Krall, and Ellis Paul sounds like quality listening, but it seems as though I have a lot of music that already sounds like most of that stuff.  I guess I’m hoping for something different and new that will shake me to my musical core.  Something that will break my heart all over again like when I heard Damien Rice for the first time 2 years ago, or blow me away with sheer power like DragonForce did to me a year ago.  I know it’s a lot to ask.  Maybe I’ve finally reached the point with 600ish albums now that there isn’t anything new and different out there, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for (thankyou Bono).  Is there nothing new under the sun?

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a new album, it could be something that is older that I haven’t heard before or the like.  Don’t feel like it needs to be cutting edge music, I’m just in the mood for a new musical experience is all.

Some albums that I had been considering previously (but am not totally sold on) are:

Alterbridge – Blackbird
As I Lay Dying – An Ocean Between Us
Ben Harper – (I don’t even know where to start there)
The Cab – Whisper War
Demon Hunter – Storm the Gates of Hell
Dragonforce – Ultra Beatdown
Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine
Lacuna Coil – Karmacode
Pete Yorn – Musicforthemorningafter
Regina Spektor – Soviet Kitsch
Ryan Adams – (there’s a lot to choose from here)
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
She & Him – Volume 1

Thoughts?

Help Me Spend My iTunes Money

I love me my music, and new music is one of the best gifts I can get.  Wonderfully, I have received $80 in iTunes gift cards over the past few months.  However, this also leaves me with somewhat of a quandry: What albums should I buy with said funds?  Thus far, I have spent about $50 of the $80, leaving me with . . . giving my math challenged friends time to do the calculations here . . . $30.  So this is where you come to my aid like a boom box carrying hipster in musical armor: If you could recommend only one album to me that I must own, what would it be?

I’m open to basically any genre (minus hip-hop and ska of course) so fire away with your suggestions.  It could be your favorite album or just one you think that I would thoroughly enjoy.  Once I have the three winning albums – that’s about what $30 will get you – selected I’ll post them here and let you know what I think of them.  Your assistance is greatly appreciated.