December 2020 Music Collection Update

The final month of 2020 was fairly light for me as I can fit all of the pickup in one post!  A big reason is Ontario’s return to a lock-down which had me visiting my mission thrift for $2 CDs only once.  But before we get to those, I also caught up on a few releases from 2020 that I wanted to review before the year was up.  I already wrote about them at length, so follow the links if you want to know more.  All of these were ordered online:

Armored Saint’s Punching The Sky and The Dirty Knobs’s Wreckless Abandon were both Black Friday grabs on amazon that didn’t arrive to the house until December.

Most of you got Iron Maiden’s Nights of the Dead, Legacy of the Beast Live in Mexico City in November but my special edition didn’t make it to the house until Dec. 12th, which is my Birthday!  Not a bad present, at all!

I ordered Sloan’s B-Sides Win 1992-1997 from their website and Freeway’s True Bearings from Bandcamp.

And the last online order goes to ZZ Top who reissued Live in Germany 1980 on vinyl.

Now to the fruits of my one trip to the mission thrift.  Spoiler alert:  It is a little weak sauce.

I picked up Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed‘s Sneakin’ Around out of respect for both artists.  I’m a little disappointed how most of the album’s tunes are instrumentals.  They feel a little incomplete to me.  Probably not one I’d spin often.

Big Head Todd And The Monsters is a band that I feel I should enjoy more but they have yet to excite me.  Adding Sister Sweetly to that list.

Billy Joel‘s The Bridge is already in the collection on vinyl, but adding the CD for $2 is to difficult  to resist.

There seems to be an album from The Mamas & The Papas waiting for me for every visit to the mission thrift. Usually it is a greatest hits compilation.  This one is their self titled debut.  Its not bad.  Mostly a sign of things to come.

Bob Seger Bob & The Silver Bullet Band‘s released The Fire Inside in 1991 and I believe most of the fire was gone by then.  This has two Tom Waits covers.  Two!  There are a few good tracks on it though.

Finally, the mission thrift pulled out all of the Christmas music.  I grew up with Bing Crosby‘s Merry Christmas.  I’m not too much of a fan of the churchy stuff on side 1 but side 2 is the bomb.  I really want A Very Special Christmas 2 with the Tom Petty Song on it, but I’ll take the first for $2.  Bruce Cockburn‘s Christmas was a pleasant surprise.  It is a nice mix of old standards with originals.  This will be spun a few times during the Holidays from now on.

Bonus pickup!  A Star Trek jigsaw puzzle to put together while I listen to the tunes!