Searching

This is less about a single song and more about an album, and as the title would suggest, the search for said album. With the advent of iPods and digital music stores where nearly every song and album one would want is available with a few keystrokes, the act of actually going out and looking for music has become sadly antiquated. This story is about the meeting of past and present, and the joy of holding the fruits of a long search for that one special album.

I first heard the song "Hey Jealousy" in January of this year, when a colleague of mine at school gave me several hundred songs, among them some tracks by the Gin Blossoms. It might have been because I was going through a breakup at the time, or perhaps because I was in a period where I was drawn to 90s music, but I latched onto the song almost immediately, playing it several times in a single day, hardly ever daring to unconsciously press the skip button on it. But for some time that was the extent of my relationship with the Gin Blossoms; like so many of their fans now 'I just like that one song...'.

It wasn't till I was reviewing a deluxe edition of another album and briefly referenced the special edition of the Gin Blossoms' New Miserable Experience that I would consider it again. A fellow blogger left me a comment, saying that I had it all wrong, and this special edition of New Miserable Experience was a great recording worthy of every possible listen, and if I were to truly appreciate the band I needed to hear this collection. And so my search began.

So, with a healthy amount of iTunes credit saved for a rainy day, I did the new traditional thing to do and went to buy the two discs digitally. But alas, iTunes didn't have the rights to the whole collection, and thus marked the item as a "Partial Album". Not only would buying the album via iTunes mean I was missing the full collection, but it would also cost significantly more than I had to spare. So if I was going to have this album, I would need to work a bit harder. And of course none of the traditional big-box stores had the album. That would make the story too easy. No I would certainly need to dig deeper than that. Searches of my local used record shop came up empty, save for the old original release of the album. But no, the mission before me was quite clear; I needed to hear the Deluxe Edition.

My next step was to the seedier parts of the world; Amazon's used CD store and the dreaded eBay. Dealers on Amazon wanted a staggering 60 bucks to part with their copies (I didn't know this at the time, but the Deluxe Edition had been out of print for a number of years). I was flabbergasted, but it made clear just how valuable my quarry was. eBay was a bit more forgiving, but the item was more difficult to find. I spent two weeks searching under every binary rock, in every HTML-driven hole, often trying to contact buyers listing the item, only to find a glitch on the site meant I'd be looking at the wrong item. Finally I thought I found my prize, shelled out 15 bucks to bypass the auction, and waited patiently...only to find that I had been inadvertently gipped; again, a glitch meant that I paid 15 bucks for a single disc worth a quarter of that. I shipped the item back and never did get the refund promised (Buyer beware the username Akratzert). Several weeks passed and I had all but abandoned my hunt, knowing that it would probably be some time before success would come, and that my efforts were better spent elsewhere.

Until another few weeks passed, nearly two months after the search began, when a casual search yielded a used copy at a non-offensive price (with my bank account balance in freefall, it would have been difficult to find any price reasonable, let alone a bargain). Without hesitation my mouse pointer dove on the purchase button, claiming the mythical disc lest some other collector try to snatch it away or the item magically fade away. Within a week I came home and found a package sitting at my desk. Upon tearing the package opened, I found my two month long hunt at an end. Both discs were there and playable, the only damage some wear and tear on the packaging.

Normally this is the part in the story where I realize that I was not as impressed as I would have hoped, and the moral would be that sometimes the greatest joy is in the hunt. Not so. Everything I had heard and read was right. On the first listen I was drawn into every song, every note and every lyric. The search was just the beginning. Now came the part where the same attachment that came with one song, came with the whole package. If there's a lesson to be taken away, it is that sometimes music is best appreciated when it is not simply laid down at one's feet.

==TJ==