Not much going on but went a bit crazy on Amazon this morning. I belatedly discovered that Hip-O Select has been released limited edition 2-CD compilations of James Brown singles, complete A&B sides. Volume 1 covers 1956-1960, Volume 2 1960-63, Volume 3 1964-65, Volume 4 1966-67, Volume 5 1967-69 and undoubtedly more to come. All 5 of these are available as MP3 downloads from Amazon, but I decided I wanted atoms, not bytes, and ordered them all. (The first two were out of stock so I snagged copies from the Amazon Marketplace.)
Then I discovered that Hip-O select was also doing complete Bo Diddley reissues. The first one covering 1955-58, the second 1959-60. Again, available as downloads, again I decided I wanted the physical discs and booklets, again the first one is already gone but found in the Marketplace.
There’s also now ten volumes in Hip-O’s series of complete Motown singles, covering 1959 up through 1970 so far, super deluxe packaging on each. But each one of these is a 5, 6 or 7 disc set, and each one is selling for over US$100. At that price, a bit out of reach at the moment, and they’re not available as legit downloads. Have managed to find most of the tracks via (cough, cough) alternate sources.
Vaguely related, over at Lifehacker they’re doing the Battle of the Media Collection Managers. My movie collection is definitely out of control, split as it is among about 2,000 legal DVDs, lots more purchased (cough, cough) in China and scads more .AVI files. Any readers out there with huge collections using some software to manage/catalog/index the batch? Let me know what you’re using.
Hi, I’m Spike. Born and bred in The Bronx but I've been calling Hong Kong home since 1995. I'm a corporate IT professional, music and film critic and aspiring photo-journalist. I've been writing Hongkie Town since 2004 and have been writing the "Spike" column in BC Magazine since 2006. You can follow me on Twitter 
