Can you tell me where my country lies?

said the unifaun to his true love's eyes.
"It lies with me!" cried the Queen of Maybe
- for her merchandise, he traded in his prize.

"Paper late!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"Old man dies!" The note he left was signed 'Old Father Thames'
- it seems he's drowned;
selling england by the pound.

Sorry, I can't start that lyric without singing the whole thing in my head, so I might as well write it down. In fact, those lyrics are probably a major catalyst in my love of music. I can still remember sitting on the couch listening to my new tape on my parent's stereo. On the start of this day I didn't know that Peter Gabriel had also been a lead singer of Genesis. I had been listening religiously to Invisible Touch, and with my meager funds I had picked up a second album based on the interesting picture on the cover. Those lyrics opened the album, and turned me from a Genesis fan into a fanatic.

I bring this up for a reason. Those who know me know that I am the cheap Scotsman. My wife constantly teases me about my hesitation about buying anything over $50. I've put off my new computer purchase for months (and more months to come), and I haven't picked up a new game since 2006.

However, even though I own all the albums, and 2 box sets, I will not hesitate on June 12th in heading over to Best Buy and slapping down over $200 the new Genesis 1976-1982 surround sound mix box set.
Reviewed at http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/musicreviews/2285/genesis-in-surround.html

The fact the reviews of the surround sound mix were very good was the final nail in the coffin.

For all my frugality, I do have very little willpower when it comes to hardback books and music. Especially for my favorite bands.

Now, there's something I want to point out about my favorite top 3 bands vs what is out there today.
Between 1974-2007 Rush had 17 albums
Between 1990-2007 Tori Amos had 9 albums
Between 1969-1997 Genesis had 16 albums

That averages to an album (I didn't count live albums) under every 2 years. If you look at the early years of Rush & Genesis you'll see sometimes they did an album every year, or twice a year. Compare that with today where new artists won't see their second album until after 2 years, usually 3. You have to wonder if the ability to continuously craft your music back then really helped these bands grow. They could gradually evolve their sound over time. In fact, if you listen to the albums from their beginning days to current day you can see the connections. As opposed to today where an artist's second albums is usually a glaring contrast to their first.

With today's technology, you'd think producing more music more often would be easier. However the industry seems to want to space these things out, and I think its a reason people are dissatisfied with the recording studios in general. They seem to want to gamble on each release being a huge hit instead of growing an artist. Especially with their love of the 'single'.

While I despair over the possibility of the potential loss of the album in today's digital age, I hope it means that artists get to push their work out more often, and get better at honing their craft.