Take yourself back two days, to Tuesday, when I am writing this column. Audioslave’s self-titled debut CD has just hit stores. In your Thursday world, everyone who cares has bought it already and is in a state of sonic bliss, but I’m sitting here — still Tuesday — waging war with myself whether or not to haul my ass to Face the Music and cough up the cash.
I’m cheap. There’s no point dancing around it with words like “thrifty” or “discerning.” It takes a mountain of anticipation and cajoling to push me over the limit of my spend resistance. As if that weren’t bad enough, my internal price meter is skewed so what I expect things will cost is far below the actual price tag.
Which brings me back to Audioslave. This is the pairing of former Soundgarden front man Chris Cornell with the former members of Rage Against the Machine, minus Zack de la Rocha. The idea is perfect. The marriage of Rage’s addictive riffs with Cornell’s versatile voice is everything I dreamed it would be based on the single “Cochise.” So what’s the problem?
Well, $15.99 is the problem.
That’s the “sale” price of the CD at Face the Music. I broke down and went there looking for an excuse to buy, but even walking all that way from the EMU wasn’t enough to pry open my pocketbook. This is why, with rare exception, I don’t buy new goods (see last week’s “Lord of the Rings” column). I mean, do you know what I can get with $16? In that same trip to Face the Music, I found “Memento” on DVD for $10.98. I’ve loved that movie since I first saw it, but swore I wouldn’t pay more than $12 to own it.
These self contracts keep me sane by making it acceptable to spend money at all — so long as the price is right. That price goes up depending on how new the item is. Last week, I bought Contra: Shattered Soldier for my PlayStation 2 for $35, but it was less than a week old, and my love of the Nintendo original had already fostered a need for the game.
I would say being a cheapskate is a sickness, but it generally pays off with a little patience. I haven’t bought a video game new since Zelda for Nintendo 64. I’ve bought maybe one new record in my life, and over half of my DVD collection is second-hand. Mind you, I go to the CD/Game Exchange at least three times a week.
On the other hand, I got burned by the last new CD I bought (Weezer’s Green Album — I think my face turned the color of the CD after I heard it), and like a wounded animal, I’m not ready to come back out of my hole yet. I can’t remember when I bought a new CD before that.
Here’s where I sound intelligent: Recorded music has lost its ability to command high prices because it is so easily obtained through other means. If I still had any kind of respectable Internet connection, you’d better believe I’d be downloading MP3s night and day. Ethics be damned! I do, however, have a CD burner … I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Because the general public isn’t burning DVDs or downloading movies over the Internet (but oh, it will be) it seems easier to buy them at retail, but I’m still really picky. Another personal factor in my CD resistance is that I have a huge music collection, while my DVD library currently hovers around 50. Even though I will listen to a CD more times than I will watch a DVD, it just doesn’t seem like I need more of them.
So I’m back in the waiting game, and I’ll come out on top sooner or later. But, in the meantime, if anyone wants to get rid of their Audioslave album, I’ll pay five bucks for it.
Contact the Pulse columnist at [email protected]. His views do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.