I usually buy my music from iTunes—it’s cheaper, faster, and saves me the step of having to import ‘real’ CDs into the computer. But some albums are either not available in iTunes or are only ‘Partial Albums,’ so when I run across those I still buy CDs the old-fashioned way (well, if you can call Amazon.com the ‘old-fashioned’ way).
I’ve been working for a long time on getting ‘complete’ collections of music from my favorite musicians (all of their studio and live albums—I don’t count compilations). My Pink Floyd collection is the only ‘finished’ one, and I’m getting very close with some other great artists. So, since I was buying a couple of books from Amazon, I figured I’d throw in some non-iTunes albums that I needed to work toward completing my Bee Gees and Billy Joel collections.
“Odessa” and “Horizontal” by the Bee Gees put me only two albums away from completion, but I was most excited to be finally buying “2000 Years: The Millennium Concert” by Billy Joel—the one and only outstanding Billy Joel album.
They arrived yesterday evening, and as soon as I got home I whipped out the pocket knife and began removing the typical shrink-wrap and security stickers. But upon digging out and opening the Billy Joel album—a two-disc set—I discovered something very bizarre. Disc 1 was missing. I kid you not. My two-disc set came with only disc 2 in the jewel case.
Needless to say, the CD got sent back this morning (at Amazon’s expense) and a new copy of The Millennium Concert is on its way. Hopefully this time the two-disc set will include both discs and I can finally call my Billy Joel collection complete.
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UPDATE 3/31: The new copy of the Billy Joel album arrived yesterday, and did include both discs. Furthermore, it’s a pretty good album :-).