Jolt Country

I still buy a small number of physical CDs every year, and one of the perks of this activity is I get informed by CD Universe of important releases throughout the year. CD Universe has the sensitivity and attention to detail one would expect from an online business that also sells porn and CBD products; in other words, they know my musical tastes well enough not to try to sell me Taylor Swift albums and do their part to help me feel slightly more in the loop when it comes to interesting music, but they also try to sell me random Christmas music starting well before Thanksgiving. Anyway, a few hours ago CD Universe sent me an email about the new deluxe edition of Fear Inoculum. When they say DELUXE, they're not fucking around. Sure, it's got a 36 page booklet...you'd expect some quality reading material for almost $50, after all. But that's just the start: this bad boy also features a "video booklet" that comes with its own HD screen and speaker. Charging cable is included. When's the last time you bought a CD that you could recharge?

I'm torn between BUY THIS NOW and THIS IS ENTIRELY TOO EXCESSIVE right now. One thing I like about physical media is that it's simple. I like feelies as much as the next guy, but I don't ever want to be in a position where I need to take a CD into Best Buy to get it repaired. You're not even good enough to get Geek Squad if you try to pull a stunt like that...it's Nerd Brigade level. I also like the fact that CDs are something I can buy that typically aren't made in China which is notable because everything is made in China. I've got CDs made everywhere from Australia to Austria; in fact, some of the CD producing countries don't even start with the letter A. A epic production like this almost certainly has to be Chinese unless the global supply chain has shifted more considerably than reported. I wouldn't be overly surprised if it turned out Xi assembled the screen and speaker himself...this is probably how he wins the trade war. But yeah, I'm probably going to buy it anyway. Have you purchased the deluxe edition already or are you going to get it, Ben?

Sadly, I quickly stopped listening to the album except for Invincible, which I then eventually also stopped listening to that. I think it's great they got to victory-lap at the end of their careers, I still think Invincible is amazing, but it kind of came and went for me. Contrasted with 10,000 Days which I listened to pretty regularly for the decade after it was released.

Oh well.

I kind of wish I'd just bought the deluxe edition of Fear Inoculum on impulse as soon as I heard about it because then I would be getting a cool collector's item and my heirs would have something to sell on Future Bay a couple of days after I kicked the bucket. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of first reading about the album instead of immediately clicking Buy. This lead me to find out that the CD doesn't have three bonus tracks that are on the digital release...it's "deluxe" but not definitive evidently. I could actually live with that since bonus tracks tend not to be Earth-shattering and in any case would be easily available digitally, but then I also found out the video that plays on the small display they bundle with the CD is just a few minutes long and computer generated. I haven't seen the video, but in my mind's eye I'm imagining a Winamp visualizer. I like to hoard just as much as the next guy, but even I probably don't need a special screen for playing Winamp visualizers.