What are the greatest bargain bin albums?

I was listening to Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot the other day (Gording out late at night) and had forgotten how good it was - great singles, some of his best non-album tracks, nice arrangements, lush production, no filler. But when I see the cover all I can think of is the back section of the record store, where the $2 LPs lie - the ones they don't bother to put the sleeves on, where the condition ranges from "surprisingly mint" to "might have been used as a dog toy". In other words the ones you might still find at Goodwill.

In general I would say this is any album with a median price below $5 on Discogs, with at least 200 copies available. You can cheat a bit but that's a general guideline. Surely some of these are good? What should be on my shopping list?

Good thread idea. I'll be back later after I thumb through my collection.

Great thread idea, was just thinking about "good albums you can still find for under $5" the other day.

These come to mind right away:

Laura Nyro - Christmas and the Beads of Sweat
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Dancer With Bruised Knees
Mark Isham - Vapor Drawings
Breeders - Last Splash (one of the all-time great used CDs; not sure if you're limiting this to just vinyl)

Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates

Most 70s Todd Rundgren LPs

Ditto Isley Brothers

Billy Squier

Warren Zevon records that aren't Excitable Boy

as far as Todd goes I don't really see his early 70s stuff in those bins anymore but the later 70s stuff, including all those Utopia records, are still bargain staples. the one that surprises me is Healing from 1981, which I think is probably one of his best and most innovative albums, something you'd think would be considered an underappreciated gem now, but alas it's still only four bucks.

Do cheapo CD bins count?

sure but it has to be $2 or under :)

I gotta mention The Moody Blues here, maybe the fact that every single record store is stuffed with multiple copies of even the good albums is karma for this band's inexplicable popularity throughout the 80s and 90s. they're one of the few proggy/psych bands from that era that *didn't* have any kind of resurgence. several of those albums are total classics though.

Swell - 41 comes to mind, then - in the CD category that is... the vinyl versions are increasingly expensive these days.

Roger Miller's first four Smash LPs. (Probably a lot of uncelebrated country records TBH.)

Also, and it seems every 90s indie rock lover is seriously sleeping on these guys, but:

Lenola - The Swerving Corpse

as well as a very special mention of any of their early 7" singles.

Woozy early Polvo/Swirlies vibes but with a neat melting guitar sound that is pretty unique and identifiably their own.

oh god yeah you can clean up on classic country records that aren't willie, waylon etc etc

xp yeah with Todd it's pretty much everything from Initiation on. I'm with you waiting for the big re-evaluation of Healing. Should probably start stockpiling copies of it now

it did get reissued recently as a clear vinyl with a blue 7" with the two bonus tracks. looks awesome and I think it sounds great too - better than my $2 original, for sure. amusingly this can be found for $9 new online, which is weirdly cheap for a new pressing. the album just can't get any respect.

Donna Summer – Walk Away Collector's Edition (The Best Of 1977-1980)

All bangers, plenty of clean copies for ~$3 on Discogs

Stephen Still's Manassas

For a period up until recently Peter Lang's The Thing At The Nursery Room Window has remained pretty cheap, starting to creep up though very slightly.

yeah agreed that seems to be getting harder find, but also it should be, classic on par with anything in that zone

Humble Pie - Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore

Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees

that's a classic one

The Pretenders - The Pretenders

Couple of good UK ones:

Judy Tzuke - Ritmo
Elkie Brooks - Live & Learn

mary mccaslin - way out west
kris kristofferson - border lord
anything by the Seldom Scene, if you like bluegrass

emmylou harris is a bargain bin staple though maybe slightly less so now. can't really go wrong with anything from her you'll dig up though i have the softest spot for luxury liner, roses in the snow, and the ballad of sally rose.

you can still find bargain bin willie nelson, though it's not usually his most classic LPs. but i think LPs like the troublemaker and his ray price collab are still out there for cheap.

depending on where you're at, mellencamp can be uber-cheap.

this summer i got luxury liner out of a bin of free records at someone's little free library, heck of a record

Sad to say, but unless it's scratched up, I think the great $2 bargain-bin record is extinct where I am--$5, maybe.

los angeles is a town where there used to be $1 records, it's not really true anymore. unless it's a yard sale. but even there, you're gonna walk away arms full of andy williams lps and the flower drum song soundtrack.

moody blues first like... four records.

What are the great Andy Williams LPs?

objectively speaking maybe lonely street, his xmas albums...moon river???

not ready to give hipster kisses to him yet.

Every time bargain bins come up, I consider an ILM artist listening thread for Mitch Miller and his terrifying gang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2El5ttjM9I

Moody Blues and Roger Miller both great calls

McCoy Tyner records are still cheap too

tea for the tillerman!!!

Poco! Linda Rondstadt!
Clancy Brothers!

Doobie Bros aren't a bad bet. Basically everything up to and including Minute by Minute.

Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits

Year of the Cat by Al Stewart.

Extreme - III Sides to Every Story

that one and the final one Waiting for the Punchline are the only ones I ever saw there, and the last one sucked, but III Sides is underrated. actually got it from a CD Warehouse bargain bin.

Linda Ronstadt is a good call. I've owned the classic era albums since they were new, but recently picked up Lush Life on CD for a buck.

If 90s adult album alternative is your thing you can get Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time or Luck of the Draw, or virtually any 10,000 Maniacs for the same pittance.

I haven't ventured into the world of Enya yet, but those seem to be everywhere.

Bonnie Raitt is another good call

some of the weirder 'bargain bin' cassette finds as well:

Anthrax - Armed and Dangerous (EP): I think I got it for a buck, this EP is just to introduce new vocalist Joey Belladonna but it was my first Anthrax.

Souls at Zero - A Taste for the Perverse: same, I paid like a dollar for the cassette. ex members of Wrathchild America. it's not great but very listenable and has a song ("Inside a Scream") that I still love.

Sacrilege - Within the Prophecy: This was a weird one, I think it was 0.99 as well. It's a fairly underground, lesser known progressive thrash album from the 80s.

oh and Shai - If I Ever Fall in Love, fuck youuuuuuu that album slaps

I haven't ventured into the world of Enya yet, but those seem to be everywhere.

a couple of years ago there was a massive love groove re enya, and so i succumbed and picked up a cd, amarantine.
guess i got unlucky.
bored me beyond belief.
and i love enigma.
sometimes i do think that maybe i need to try another album just to check.
but ..

Talking of Enya, Clannad's Magical Ring is a quid bin staple here, worth buying for 'Theme From Harry's Game' alone, but also has a decent version of the great Jim Rafferty tune 'I See Red' (as also covered by Frida and Velly Joonas)

as far as surprising ones go the lone Refugee album is weirdly common for something I'd assumed was kind of a rarity. the band is The Nice with Moraz taking Emerson's role, they weren't particularly successful but the album apparently sold well enough to turn up all over the place.

You could probably amass a good collection of original cast Broadway albums for very few dollars, stuff like Camelot, Cabaret, Hair - if you're into that.

Personally I find the "unfairly overlooked hidden gem" bargain bin find way more exciting than the "top selling hit from the past that holds up or is actually good upon reflection". Archeological discovery is more of a thrill for me. Also adds a little collector element to it. Accumulating stuff from the latter category feels more inherently like clutter to me (since this thread is talking primarily about physical copies after all).

Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, February 1, 2023 10:09 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

picked this up for a dollar last week!

There are a good number of albums I love that aren't likely to show up at Goodwill, but are probably less than $5 at any used record store that still has a large stock of late 80s/early 90s indie. Robin Lane and the Chartbusters, Salem 66, The Wygals, The Neats, Dumptruck.

I'm currently listening to Myra Holder's Four Mile Road, produced by Chris Stamey, came out in 1989 on Coyote/Twin Tone. Really pretty kinda folk/rock record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi1ek2x5ZzQ

You can probably get all 20 albums Elton John released in the late 70s/80s for 20 dollars total if you want to go deep

@ Evan - I get you. For me, though, the thread topic opens up something interesting, which is the vagaries of popular consensus in terms of which top selling hits from the past not only hold up, but are desirable. In general, most of the items in this thread undersold things like Thriller, Dark Side of the Moon or the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, but I stopped seeing any of those (no matter how beat up) in bargain bins long ago. So this thread articulates an interesting sweet spot, between things that are now $10, $20, or somehow $30 a pop, and the vast swath of permanently uncool easy-listening Square Music that's been decomposing in the same exact Goodwill bins since 1992. I've known plenty of hipsters to rep for Year of the Cat and Silk Degrees, but they've never been canonized and evangelized to the point of becoming things that every young record buyer knows about.

Feel like Donovan's Greatest Hits (invariably with massive ringwear obliterating the bard's cheery face) might still be in this category at some shops.

Oh yeah, I totally get that distinction! There is something interesting about top-selling albums that have not yet had their consensus reappraisal, so they exist in bargain bin purgatory until then. But when those super-hit-of-the-past examples are not only in the bargain bin but are somewhat guaranteed to show up multiple times at every store, the magic from the collector-digging point of view is never really going to happen. So I was just throwing in 2 cents from that point of view.

Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, February 1, 2023 10:09 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

picked this up for a dollar last week!

― k3vin k., Wednesday, February 1, 2023 1:53 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

nice, such a great record

I'm currently listening to Myra Holder's Four Mile Road, produced by Chris Stamey, came out in 1989 on Coyote/Twin Tone. Really pretty kinda folk/rock record.

i like this....btw for anyone interested twin/tone has digitized most of its catalog and you can listen free on the website

https://www.twintonedigital.com/projects

Oh, I know a good one! Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85

I think it's interesting because we're two generations removed from a lot of this stuff now, so the current crop of record shoppers never had a chance to get sick of these people. A lot of the artists mentioned here I've seen in the bin many times but couldn't name more than a song or two by. There had to be some reason it was popular.

on a similar note I feel like my generation mostly saw Michael Jackson as a punchline, yeah we were aware of his big hits (thanks Weird Al) but if you were born in the 80s chances are you probably remember him more for other things. it changed when he died and suddenly his music was everywhere and it was like "oh my god, he really was amazing"

Oh, I know a good one! Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85

― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead)

good luck finding that on cd.

Sacrilege - Within the Prophecy: This was a weird one, I think it was 0.99 as well. It's a fairly underground, lesser known progressive thrash album from the 80s.

nice find, I love Sacrilege, although it's their demos that are my favourite stuff by them, when there was still a lot of punk in their thrash. but their 1st 2 albums are great. they lost me a bit on the 3rd one.

i should check out the album I had and the others soon. I barely remember it, it was like 1997 or 1998 the last time I listened!

more punk always good for me

It's kind of ridiculous how many albums have become bargain bin purchases at places like Barnes & Noble. And now you've got the cheap five album packs that come in those cardboard sleeves - B&N will stock those, and surprisingly they'll have OOP albums as well. It's the best way to get, say, Chic's '80s albums instead of buying the OOP individual CD's for $20 or $30.

I made a thread for that: Hey Physical Media Lovers! Original Album Classics, Original Album Series (Budget Mini-LP Album Box Sets): Search & Destroy

_Oh, I know a good one! Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85

― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead)
_

good luck finding that on cd.

'Gonna Take A Miracle' by Laura Nyro & Labelle

really? maybe a u.s./u.k. thing, i see it for cheap a lot
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead),

having been a charity shop scouring beast for years, i have only ever seen it the once.

how could I forget The 5th Dimension??

Gabor Szabo used to be in this category but now Mizrab is like $20 :(

Prince Around the World in a Day

robert palmer's 'clues' is great - 'johnny & mary', looking for clues' and his version of 'i dream of wires'

some of the jose feliciano records have their moments, feliciano! is a great place to start

kid creole - tropical gangsters (aka 'wise guy' in the us)

stephanie mills - what cha gonna do With my lovin' has got a couple of really good disco bangers on it, namely 'you can get over it and 'put your body in it'

someone once tried to convince me that garfunkel's fate for breakfast was the jim o'rourke's eureka of its day. i couldn't really hear it but ymmv

don't know if vangelis albums are still cheap but there's load of great music to be had on those. see you later is my favourite i think?

some amazing cuts on pointer sisters' albums, eg 'that's how i feel' off the self-titled one is bonkers, and 'yes we can can' off the same album is obviously a heck of a jam

lots of four tops, chi-lites, temptations records are to be had for cheap out there. really got into some of the mid-70s supremes albums at the moment - 'come into my life' off the mary, sherrie & susaye album has been blowing my mind recently

Art Garfunkel wants to have FATE FOR BREAKFAST!

haha, not a lot of fans on that thread, maybe rightly so?

It's occurred to me that you rarely see Beatles, Stones, Zep, Sabbath, Zappa at thrift stores... music a music collector would actually *collect*. My sense is that those generally get sold to to record stores, while the discs at a thrift are music that was given to someone else as a gift (lots of budget label classical, big band, and Christmas) or music that was left behind by a kid who left home (REM, 10,000 Maniacs) or music that was bought to be somewhat disposable (new age, hits collections of oldies.) It's getting harder for me to find stuff I would even spend a dollar on at thrift stores any more.

I've never had much luck at actual thrift stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army), so I finally quit going. Way, way back in the day, I got 3 Kraftwerk albums and a nice copy of Van Mo's Astral Weeks, and found a nice copy of Coltrane's Giant Steps, but all that was 20 years ago. There are about 100x as many vinyl hounds out there now.

One thing I've seen in the cheapo bins at record stores since I was a teen, but never listened to until the last year, is the Fingerprintz records. After decades of making me briefly pause, I finally picked up 2 of their 3 albums (The Very Dab and Distinguishing Marks). Distinguishing Marks, in particular, has been in heavy rotation ever since. Sharp power-pop new wave stuff that leans more post-punk than skinny tie Knackoffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04_7tHYxuhU

Fate for Breakfast is my favorite solo Garfunkel, fwiw.

Another dollar bin stalwart: Dave Mason. Not every album is a winner, but a lot of them are (and I especially like the one with Cass Elliot).

Jane Olivor to thread

xp yeah “alone together” is basically a perfect album

Gerry Rafferty - City to City

Another dollar bin stalwart: Dave Mason. Not every album is a winner, but a lot of them are (and I especially like the one with Cass Elliot).

― ⓓⓡ (Johnny Fever), Wednesday, February 1, 2023 10:08 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

around here you can find copies of Jim Kreuger's lone solo album Sweet Salvation for cheap. it's surprisingly decent. if you don't know Kreuger he was Dave Mason's touring guitar guy and the man who wrote "We Just Disagree". he also happens to be from my hometown and my Mom managed one of his bands before he died. apparently I met him when I was 7.

great thread! can't believe no one's mentioned early-mid 70s carole king yet. those albums are so good!

I just remembered my first budget album purchase: Hank Williams, Jr. & Friends (1975). I had read about it in various old record guides, and fortunately it had been reissued and remastered for the first time in the CD era on a cheap-looking budget-priced CD. (They didn't bother to preserve the original album cover.) It was like $3 in a bin where they dumped that sort of thing. It's probably the closest he ever came to a great album, and it's really good.

Now out-of-print but easily found: https://www.discogs.com/release/5173989-Hank-Williams-Jr-Hank-Williams-Jr-And-Friends

I think those Carole King records might be inching out of the bargain bin in recent years? But plausible that they're still there.

This thread has motivated me to hit my local Goodwill this weekend and see what's there. Past experience has been beat to shit Ferrante and Teicher albums and Christmas LPs but I can always hope. I'd be thrilled to find Dave Mason Alone Together. It's been ages since I've seen a marble vinyl one and even the reissue versions seem to have dried up where I am.

Dave Mason is probably more of a used record store find than a thrift store find, but even so it'll be sub $5.

I don't think I've found anything decent at a thrift store in a decade but sometimes you do find the kind of thing that shows up on those "Worst Album Covers Ever" Facebook groups. 9 times out of 10 it's just a polka record.

First thing that comes to mind reading the thread title is row upon row of Breakfast in America, not the greatest, but certainly one of the most common.

I've never topped finding On the Beach for a dollar back in 1991, and I don't think I've even seen a bin like this in at least a decade.

On the Beach got way more expensive due to the fact it wasn't in print on CD for years

gosh if i could go back in time to s. klein's. i still dream about those cutout bins. yeah i got the first stooges album for 33 cents, but i don't even want to know what i left behind.

my record collection was largely built up over a ten year span from high school thru my late twenties, back when one could walk into a chicago suburbs record store and grab an OG copy of another green world for $5, or on the beach for $4, or any rolling stones record for well under $10.

Different decade, probably, but ditto.

my rationale not necessarily being "vinyl is cool now" but "cds are $18 and i can get all the steely dan vinyl for $12 total."

in a way, vinyl inflation has benefitted me in terms of my buying habits, i used to be a sucker for buying a bunch of bargain bin stuff which most of it ultimately turned out to be not very good. now i'm more likely to leave with one $30 really great record rather than a mitt full of stuff i'll never listen to more than a couple times.

xp that's how it started with me! there was this junk store with a ton of records and I got 3 Floyds, 3 Zeps, Jimi Are You Experienced, Who's Next, Layla, 2 Steely Dans, and like five other fairly well known albums for something like 30 bucks. so I got to hear all this stuff in full for very cheap. granted several of the records were unplayable but that's how it was back then.

first stooges album for 33 cents

Mine was 25 cents! I bought it because I heard of them but never heard them. Actually didn't like it at the time, sold it to a record store for a few bucks.

the other factor is discogs - really killed the "score" for the most part, sometimes you might go to a store and it was clear the owner didn't know how rare something was, now everyone can look up pricing

Thrift stores being hip to the new vinyl economy is not surprising but still a bummer, but sometimes kinda funny. Like going in and there are these absolutely destroyed, like run over by a vehicle and shat on by a dog records priced at $6. It has prevented me from stocking up on interesting looking George shearing albums though.

Mine was 25 cents!

mine was in a 3-for-one-dollar section. i think i also got tiny tim's 2nd album and a david frye comedy lp.

yeah it sucks they think like bad condition 80s rod stewart records should be worth $20

then again i've literally never had a big score at a thrift store ever, then i see friends 'shit i got this dorothy ashby record for $1"

my major thrift store score was Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits, which totally fits in with everything else in those racks but is actually a really funny novelty record. it's not particularly valuable but it's still cool to have. I was listening to it the other day with my Mom and we laughed a lot.

I assume every time I go into a thrift store I’m just missing out on the VU acetates and first pressing blue notes by a few minutes

My best charity shop find is an obscure turkish psych record which was in with a bunch of 'greetings from Turkey!'-style tourist records. Cost me one pound, sells for £500+

!

I sold my thrift store Giant Steps (second stereo pressing iirc) for less than I expected ($50), but this was 10 or 12 years ago. Should've held on to it.

Thrift stores being hip to the new vinyl economy is not surprising but still a bummer, but sometimes kinda funny. Like going in and there are these absolutely destroyed, like run over by a vehicle and shat on by a dog records priced at $6.

my favourite one of these was finding Exile On Main St with one of the records missing and the sleeve torn completely in half. £20

I assume every time I go into a thrift store I’m just missing out on the VU acetates and first pressing blue notes by a few minutes

I was vending at a monthly "Garage Sale" market at a brewery a couple weeks ago. I was set up by a some record dealers who were trading stories. One of them mentioned hitting up a Goodwill that morning where once upon a time he made one of his greatest scores: a large collection of 1st press Blue Notes and related vintage Jazz. No such luck today. The other guy joked if he had run into that same score there now, every album would be $75 apiece, and you'd know it because someone would have written "$75" directly on the covers with a Sharpie.

oh yeah there's a store in Green Bay which sells DVDs and video games but also has a little vinyl corner which sometimes actually has pretty good stuff. they clearly look it up and price it and one of their marquee albums was a copy of 666 by Aphrodite's Child with a sleeve that was clearly glued back together. I looked at the records and they looked like they'd been making out with the concrete. that said it *is* the only time I've seen that album for sale so

I've never had "the big score" at a thrift store, but definitely racked up some enjoyable stuff here and there back in the day. More important to cheapo collection-building were the $5 or under-$10 bins of record stores who knew their stuff well enough to know that the people who pay top-dollar don't want the beat-up copies. My only real OMG $1 finds were at yard sales, and I suspect those days are done.

i've had mid thrift finds— cure kiss me, led zep first 5 albums still sealed (80s record club reissues, but still!), esquivel latinesque (lol), sealed time life classical box sets... stuff like that. not necessarily rare, but probably rare in that context. also the first rain children

sorry, clicky fingers.

anyway yeah— the first rain children was a thrift find. maybe not necessarily a "cool" thing, but again: what was that doing in a charity shop bin with lawrence welk?

never heard of the rain children - who are they?

hoo boy, multi-tasking has made my post illegible.

railway children.

the railway children is the name of the band. https://www.discogs.com/master/89587-The-Railway-Children-Reunion-Wilderness

I saw a Leningrad Blues Machine CD at goodwill before I knew who they were, I thought it was some legit raw Russian blues shit because almost all of the song titles were “Russian asshole”

oh i know them! they were on factory in the uk xp

My other big find was four Italian progressive rock LPs for a quarter each at the public library: PFM, New Trolls, Area and Banco.

i've got a comp somewhere with a leningrad blues machine track on it and lo and behold their song is called 'russian asshole' :))

also has the boredoms singing 'Hawaiian Disco With My Bollocks' and Off Mask 00 with 'Sex Dick'

xps

How did this thread morph from good bargain bin albums (which is info I can use) to "my one in a million bargain bin score from 1995" (which just gives me FOMO)

These are still available cheap in my neck of the woods:
ABC - Lexicon of Love
Diana Ross - Diana (1980)
Thompson Twins - Side Kicks
Marshall Crenshaw - Field Day
Joe Jackson - first 2 albums
Go-Gos - Talk Show
Haircut 100 - Pelican West

(but truly reliable dollar bin finds are mostly 70's MOR)

I know this is not the point of the thread, which is to hunt down great albums that still turn up cheaply, but I'll mention in passing my greatest delete-bin (so still sealed) find ever: the Swingin' Medallions' Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love) LP on Smash. Found it in the early '90s, in my hometown (12,000 people) record store.

I'm guessing the Shoes' Present Tense still turns up all over the place? (As opposed to their small-label debut.) Highly recommend that.

And, xpost, anything by Marshall Crenshaw.

Yeah, you definitely see cheap used copies of Shoes' Tongue Twister and Present Tense, and both are just as good a Black Vinyl Shoes, which you can basically only get as a reissue.

Also (xp) that first Railway Children album is peak jangle, and I've spotted that in the dollar bin multiple times.

My most recent holy shit yard sale find was an OG us vinyl press of power corruption and lies for iirc $5. Beautiful condition too. But honestly that was the only one ever, almost.

Another bargain bin artist is Ramsey Lewis, who is probably moving outta the bargain bin at this point but whose key work is probably still well under $10 or maybe $5 in some places.

I have two Random Hold records that were both fished out of bargain bins - I think they're still a sub-$5 band on discogs, so they are bargain bin-worthy on that basis, and I reckon they're a pretty interesting band

there is a local record store that wildly overprices classic rock, but had a mint OG copy of The Sound's first LP in their bargain bin, that was a good day

another local store is also very classic rock-y, but has a flat AUD$5 pricing policy for 12"s - have got some excellent records cheap as a result of this. they also have vast mounds of $5 house and techno twelves, i have often wished i knew more about this stuff so I could ID the gems

When random 1986 indie shows up in a thrift/yardsale cache, I always picture someone who was dragged to the club and liked the show and bought the LP, listened twice at home, then filed it between the Genesis and Billy Idol, never to be heard again. Or they were related to the band.

Emsworth what's the store with the $5 12 's?

Chet Atkins
Martin Denny (maybe still?)
Merle Haggard

I just filtered stuff I've bought in the last 20 years or so (yes I have a spreadsheet) and there's a ton of stuff I found v cheap in charity shops or £3 or less bins but kinda depressing that it drops way off after about 2015, there's basically nothing since then

mostly it was stuff that I was probably lucky to find so not really applicable for this thread, but I did buy Present Tense by the Shoes which was mentioned upthread for $2.99 and that is one of my favourite albums of all time

My dollar bin finds today were:
"Stars" by Sylvester (I picked up "Step II" years ago and still see it for cheap regularly)
"Night Life" by Ray Price (I got his follow-up "Love Life" last year for a buck also)

I passed up cheap pre-war 78 by The Masked Tenor

"a cheap"

78s and 45s typically still yield gems as well

xp Tib it is called The V1nt@ge Rec0rd - in Annandale, Sydney - I am not totally sure why I felt the need to google-proof the name but I guess I am hopeful that the dude doesn’t revise his pricing policy anytime soon lol

At my local thrift store the other day, I saw a copy of Halsey's 2017 album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom on vinyl, which currently holds the record for most recent record to find at a local thrift store. I did not pick it up though, because $4 is still to much for that.

Thanks Emsworth.

Best bargain finds were all on the same day, from a bookshop that had a shelf of dusty vinyl at the back that I'd never seen before. Sign said 'all vinyl £3' and I got: On the Corner, three Shirley Collins/Albion Band records, Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs & Iron Maiden's Live After Death. I did the whole guilty 'are you *sure* they're only £3?' when I went up to buy them. Magic.

wow, major score! were the shirleys first pressings or reissues? just asking so I can accurately calibrate my jealousy

Unbelievably, first pressings. In varying degrees of nick, tbh (eg the *Power of the True Love Knot* record plays fine but the cover is a wreck), but I absolutely didn't care.

oh jesus, full scale deflection on the envyometer that

Not completely on topic, but worth repeating:

That reminds me of my favorite overheard record store owner humor:

Customer: [Discussing how the Bohemian Rhapsody movie pushed up the price of Queen records.]
Owner: When the Mantovani movie comes out, I'm going to make a killing.

― perhaps I myself was the object of my search (PBKR), Wednesday, March 10, 2021 8:19 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would watch the shit out of a Mantovani movie. That’s a genuinely intriguing idea. He’s a thrift-cult icon I know next to nothing about,

I've found that any antique mall is a solid bet for a bargain, since the higher number of merchants increases the chances that at least one of them will be less-dependent on seeking assistance from the internet to price their records.

While the era of finding $1 copies of Pink Floyd's "Animals" or the U.S. version of "Rubber Soul" are long gone, one of my go-tos before I left Kentucky was the Boone Square Mini Mall in Berea (where I found those $1 albums). As recently as 2018, it was prime territory for loads of well-maintained late-'70s/early-'80s LPs from yet-to-get-their-reassessment artists like Paul Davis, Jaon Armatrading, Ambrosia, or Pablo Cruise; and FM Radio stalwarts like Jethro Tull, Elton John, Chicago, Boston, and Styx; a bunch of enjoyable disco compilations (like K-Tel's "Disco Fire"); and bin after bin of relatively-obscure ‘70s country artists that had a hit here or there.

I'm not gonna hold my breath for a critical reassessment of Pablo Cruise . Though if Pitchfork is reviewing "Silk Degrees" these days, maybe it's just around the corner?

friend,

i had a poco phase. imagine my delight when pfork gets around to them.

(poco recommended if spotted in the bargain bin, btw)

Labour of Lust
Repeat When Necessary
Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits

all front to back bangers, pay no more than $2 (dollar bin inflation)

I was lucky enough to find a copy of Poco's "A Good Feelin' To Know" from '72 in Columbus Ohio for $2 a few years ago, but I can totally see their 1969 release |redacted| joining the $20 ranks within the next few years (please don't let that happen!).

"if anyone ever pays more than $10 for a poco album, you're dumber than i am."- lou reed (maybe)

i remember a yo la tengo show in central park summerstage where ira announced he was thrilled to be performing in the same park where he saw poco.

i paid a lot of money in shipping for a marshall tucker band album (s/t) and proudly showed it off to some visiting americans who were not impressed since it's apparently a bargain bin album there (makes sense)

hit three thrifts today and Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Moody Blues, Roger Miller, and numerous others mentioned ITT were present. I got a nice batch of 60s country, George Jones, Dolly Parton, etc

also Poco, Chet Atkins, Dave Mason

Also Al Stewart — I always assumed he was a sub-Poco rocker but it turns out he’s totally worth exploring, weird over-emotive intense British (isles) folk. I imagine if he had sold as few albums as Nick Drake did he’d be more revered.

I see Alan Price records for peanuts pretty often - certainly the O Lucky Man soundtrack is worth a couple of bucks for the title track alone.

There's a market every weekend at Tynemouth near Newcastle that's always worth a dig, although a lot of the stalls are way overpriced. But there are a few with interesting bargain bins, with a lot of regional oddities: comedy how-to-speak-Geordie LPs from the 70s and, more interestingly, lots of Northumbrian pipe records. Also got an 80s MFP Reggae Love Songs LP for £3 which is solid gold, despite the cheesy Caribbean sunset cover.

I see Alan Price records for peanuts pretty often - certainly the O Lucky Man soundtrack is worth a couple of bucks for the title track alone.

I see the Little River Band s/t album in UK record store cheap bins all the time and although tbh it's not the greatest, it's still worth picking up for this one CSNY-ish guitar-drenched tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPsevhQkn68
Little River Band - It's A Long Way There

Another one that haunts the bargain buckets is Alan White's Ramshackled, again it's kind of patchy but some of the highlights are great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8uyu7ZEuFA
Alan White ‎- Song Of Innocence

never seen a copy of that one johnny bristol album that wasn't in the quid bin, this song off it is fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGerSKGY6Bs
Johnny Bristol - Woman, Woman

Big YES fan and I’ve never listened to “Ramshackled”. Must correct.
Maybe?

I know fuck all about Judy Collins, but it's comforting to know that any day I want I can go and acquire most of her discography for $10-15 total.

I listened to Ramshackled after White's death, and other than the song mentioned above (featuring Anderson and Howe), it's pretty run-of-the-mill R&B, fusion or 70s rock. But it won't crush your image of Alan White either.

o shit I forgot to mention Kay Gardner! probably US-only, but grab em if you see em, cool feminist new age stuff from the 70s/80s

Colin Newman's solo records used to be plentiful and cheap.

I bought A-Z for $2 from a bin in what I remember was mostly a fabric store on Bloor St., along with Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep, but I've never seen Not To or It Seems on vinyl to this day.

wish this thread had little flags next to the posts to know where everyone's from

You can still occasionally pick up some good disco-ish records on the cheap here in the UK, I've picked up

Giorogo - From Here to Eternity
Cerrone - Supernature
Was (Not Was) - Was (Not Was)

for £1 each.

When it comes to big scores, I've found the following LPs for £1-£2 over the years:

Wire - A Bell is a Cup Until it is Struck
Andy Smith - The Document 2LP
The Who - Quadrophenia (with the gorgeous picture booklet still attached to the gatefold sleeve!)
Amon Duul - Live in London (this was a fiver but it's a great record)
Sade - Diamond Life
The The - Infected
Billy Cobham - Total Eclipse (worth it for the sleeve alone)

I still have occasional pangs of regret for not buying a copy of Obituary's first album I saw in a charity shop in Dunfermline!

I sometimes see other jazz-fusion records knocking about too, not your Miles or Herbies but the likes of Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra. I think these records were up until fairly recently deeply unfashionable but are now being redeiscovered, so they won't be turning up in Oxfams nearly as much in future.

"Giorgio" above of course!

I had “It Seems” on vinyl! But paid full price - bought it upon release. Kind of forgettable if memory serves…

Been playing the crap out of It Seems recently, I genuinely love it

When it comes to big scores, I've found the following LPs for £1-£2 over the years...Who - Quadrophenia (with the gorgeous picture booklet still attached to the gatefold sleeve!)

If that was in good shape, and if I'm converting currency correctly, pretty amazing.

xpost Great! I need to relisten again.

The Who - Quadrophenia (with the gorgeous picture booklet still attached to the gatefold sleeve!)

An original booklet is a big deal: the negatives of those photos have since been lost, and the re-creation of the booklet in the 2011 Quadrophenia box is super blurry.

It's definitely more electronic than his previous records, it's sort of arty synthpop xp

Slightly tangential but people who had CD Warehouses where you lived, what were the bargain bins full of?

I'm going to leave out ones I already mentioned, but in the 90s in Sanford FL, it was

Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark (like 20 copies at all times)

R.E.M. - Monster (racks upon racks)

Pat Boone - In a Metal Mood

Bush - Razorblade Suitcase

Vanilla Ice - II the Extreme

Motley Crue - s/t

There were others obv but those were the ones I remembered

_The Who - Quadrophenia (with the gorgeous picture booklet still attached to the gatefold sleeve!)_

An original booklet is a big deal: the negatives of those photos have since been lost, and the re-creation of the booklet in the 2011 _Quadrophenia_ box is super blurry.

Nice!

Also Al Stewart — I always assumed he was a sub-Poco rocker but it turns out he’s totally worth exploring, weird over-emotive intense British (isles) folk. I imagine if he had sold as few albums as Nick Drake did he’d be more revered.

― The land of dreams and endless remorse (hardcore dilettante), Sunday, February 5, 2023 8:21 PM

i've flipped past so many al stewarts in my day. i assumed he was like a sub-styx arena rock thing but this description has inspired me put on year of the cat and hey it's good! first track is very lush and lovely! very decent roots rock. off to read al stewart topics!

'year of the cat' is probably the best place to start as it's really what most people think of when they think of al stewart, but some of his earlier stuff is good. i quite like the album 'orange' which has stuff like this on which is a really good, and very moody, bowie-ish number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cacx7vZPDQg
Al Stewart - I'm Falling

listening to that one again and it wouldn't sound out of place on a mixtape with bill fay, nick drake etc

al stewart is great! lots of his albums used to not be on streaming though

i don't think i've ever paid more than $6 for nm copies of neil young's reactor and have grabbed many copies to give to friends over the years.

the last Neil Young standing in the bargain bin is likely gonna be either Long May You Run or Reactor. my money's on the former, the Stills factor coming into play there.

those two definitely pop up a bunch, but Landing on Water also has a rich storied history as dollar bin fodder as well. Although I feel like due to its 1986 release date, it's most commonly found in cassette form.

Trans used to be on the cheaper side of things (if not the dollar bins) but that's def no longer the case. Old Ways has gone up a lot too, and i'm guessing This Note's For You got its bump from the Bluenote Cafe release.

One of the few good reasons to be old: I got Tonight's the Night as a cutout circa 1977--cloth gatefold cover, poster, everything.

what about Everybody's Rockin'?

If you see Landing on Water for a dollar, do not give in to temptation (unless for completist reasons).

Landing on Water is such a bizarre sounding album, I can't really think of anything else like it - I dig it, though

one of his that's weirdly cheap a lot of the time is American Stars n Bars, but i also know that's the one supposedly mediocre hiccup in his solo run from the s/t thru Rust Never Sleeps.

I like Landing on Water

The Bluenote Cafe at once made a great case for that era and also completely erased any need to ever listen to This Note's For You

Another one I got as a cutout was Freedom, right when used stores had all but given up on vinyl and were practically giving it away.

There used to be this kinda-douchey local vinyl shop that wasn't smart about hiding their backstock, so their Neil section included about 15-20 $15 copies of Reactor.

omar little
Posted: 22 February 2023 at 17:51:57
one of his that's weirdly cheap a lot of the time is American Stars n Bars, but i also know that's the one supposedly mediocre hiccup in his solo run from the s/t thru Rust Never Sleeps.

Sort of redeemed by the presence of Like a Hurricane though?

and Star Of Bethlehem! and Homegrown!

will to love

I think I bought three copies of Drama by Yes as cutouts over the years.

When I finally got a stereo as a kid when I was about 11, my parents bought me a whole stack of records from the cutout bin. Most of them were rubbish but the Blackfoot album was and is still good.

I was going to saw Al Stewart but see someone else mentioned him. I got his live album Indian Summer as a cutout, probably for $2, back in the 80's. It's great.

i'm pro-American Stars n Bars, but its rep is weirdly low

just considering its place on the neil timeline, coming after Zuma and before Comes a Time and Rust Never Sleeps

al stewart also recently released an insane 50 CD box set collection which I can't believe there is any demand for

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/al-stewart-the-admiralty-lights-complete-studio-live-and-rare-1964-2009/

£325!!!

limited to 2000 copies and still rather easy to find seems to indicate this wasn't the best decision

Old-school Al Stewart fans are still pondering whether to buy a CD player or not.

ok similar question: what about thrift store/garage sale stuff? you know, religious records, bizarre compilations, 10-LP boxsets of classical music, "Sing Along with Mitch", stuff like that

My dad once got me a cutout version of Ooh La La by the Faces. That was a pretty good one.

the david munrow records are the first thing to spring to mind - they're recordings of early medieval instruments and sort of a minor cult thing, but you still see them around a lot in the uk. basically they sound like music that could've been used in the wicker man - check out the wild tune they play at the start of this clip and you too might feel the urge to set fire to a police officer in a ritualistic sort of style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKxdCSbAtOE

this is the one to get iirc:

https://www.discogs.com/master/404309-David-Munrow-The-Early-Music-Consort-Of-London-Instruments-Of-The-Middle-Ages-And-Renaissance

(but make sure it includes the book!)

Did 'The Demis Roussos Magic' get mentioned? has some cheese on it but its arranged and produced by Vangelis and has at least two total bangers on it - 'I Dig You' and Demis' version of 'Let It Happen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBmui2eHzY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9NT-ZmC1Gs

488 for sale from £0.82 - now that's what i'm talking about

xps to frogbs

this series:
https://www.discogs.com/label/457027-The-Greatest-Country-Music-Recordings-Of-All-Time

this one's great too:
https://www.discogs.com/label/580589-Great-Men-Of-Music

(but make sure it includes the book!)

annoyingly i have the book but not the lps!

i am fond of this one, 1st side has spoken introductions/descriptions of the various instruments followed by musical examples

Got one for yer...

I bought "It's Reggae Time with Ray McVay" for the lolz, expecting death by BBC orchestra, but actually it's all pretty decent!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2eA-TeqTXg

I think there's probably a better thread for this, but: there's a record store about 40 minutes away from me in Woodstock (not that one, no) where you can actually buy great stuff cheap. Usually CDs, where they have a very good 3/$10 bin, but when I was in there last week, somebody had clearly sold them their country collection on vinyl, and they were selling everything at $5 an album, old stuff in excellent shape. I bought compilations by David Houston, Jeannie Seely, the Browns, and a double by Red Foley, plus an old Vocallion album by Bobby Helms, who I mistakenly always thought of a pop guy. Anyway, I'm playing the Red Foley now, and was reminded of something that always makes me smile: the way they'd configure a double album with side 1 backed with side 4, and side 2 backed with side 3, presumably so you could play 1 and 2 in order on an old turntable that stacked albums. It's such a quaint reminder of a long-gone world.

correct, it's called "autocoupling"

a.k.a. "the 70s"

also, Red Foley rules

Do you know if it started in the '70s, or were they already doing it in the '60s (like on Blonde or Blonde or something)? Too lazy to check downstairs!

Also, "autocoupling" sounds kind of erotic.

it dates back to the 78 era!

https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/805905
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_changer

Interesting. I checked my copy of Blonde on Blonde--which, even though it has the inside photo of Claudia Cardinale that I've read was later deleted, is in no way anything but a '70s pressing; I've always been confused by this--and it's 1/2 and 3/4. So either that one was never autocoupled, or it was but it was then decoupled later on.

i never understood the 1/4 and 2/3 ordering. i know it was meant for a specific type of player and that would allow for continuous play at a certain point in the album or something? it allowed you to skip switching records once, but you still had to turn them at the end of each side(?). idk i figured it out on my grandparents old player once (with isaac hayes live at sahara tahoe — nice) but it didn't really seem to save that much time?

anyway, good finds! love those instances where you can tell all the stuff that came from a single collection.

Somewhere there must be a good top ten list of the greatest multi-disc albums made the most infuriating by auto-coupling, AKA the Songs in the Key of Life Award.

Red Foley was from Berea Ky and the local middle school is named after him.

I still use my record stacker daily, so I appreciate those collections that are coupled like that (though I only have a few).

You play side 1, then it drops side 2 from the stack. Then you flip the whole thing over, and it plays side 3, then drops side 4.

The stacking function saves you two trips to the turntable (regardless of order), and the autocoupling just means you get to hear the album in sequence.

Also got a Browns studio album, Grand Ole Opry Favorites, that looks immaculate but has a skip near the end of side two. Practically put it under a microscope to identify the cause, but it looks clean--will return it, regrettably (and hope they take it back). Red Foley was different than I expected; not sure why (maybe confusing him with Bob Wills, for some reason), but I thought he'd be country-swing.

xp my copy of Tommy is sequenced like this (early Aus pressing)

The reason it makes me smile is I imagine someone younger wondering why the sides are numbered out of order. (After you finish explaining to them what exactly you do with the round black things.) It'd be like handing them a book where the page-numbering starts off 1, 4, 2, 3.

I still use my record stacker daily, so I appreciate those collections that are coupled like that (though I only have a few).

You play side 1, then it drops side 2 from the stack. Then you flip the whole thing over, and it plays side 3, then drops side 4.

The stacking function saves you two trips to the turntable (regardless of order), and the autocoupling just means you get to hear the album in sequence.

― enochroot, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 5:12 PM

thank you for this explanation!

I just got Manassas on vinyl, and it's a 1,3,2,4. Not sure if I've seen that before.

Cocaine is a...

Another bargain bin regular is Rosanne Cash. It’s not difficult to find Right or Wrong, Seven Year Ache, Somewhere in the Stars, Rhythm & Romance, maybe even King’s Record Shop for several bucks apiece on LP.

recently found Aretha's "Live In Paris" and "Aretha Now" in a thrift, can't argue w/ any of those Atlantic albums

I see I already mentioned Chet Atkins, add The Ventures to that

I once found a copy of The Man Who Sold the World (the comic book cover) in the cutout bin at Radio Shack.

(xpost) I went back to that record store I mentioned above and bought a whole bunch of 5/$20 albums I missed the first time, including Seven Year Ache.

re: autocoupling, I showed a one-sided record to a kid at work and they didn't see what was so special about it, after a bit of back and forth we figured out that she thought ALL records were one-sided, like CDs are. made me laugh.

would not recommend doing what i once did and put the needle down on the blank side :-/

Interesting. I checked my copy of Blonde on Blonde--which, even though it has the inside photo of Claudia Cardinale that I've read was later deleted, is in no way anything but a '70s pressing; I've always been confused by this--and it's 1/2 and 3/4. So either that one was never autocoupled, or it was but it was then decoupled later on.

don't think i've ever seen a columbia/cbs release with autocoupling? most reprise & warner bros doubles of the era seem to be that way (even a bootleg i was listening to recently was autocoupled). so many times i've ended up forgetting just which lps are & aren't ac-ed, followed by the moral quandary of whether to let it play through out of sequence or do a quick needle lift!

The triple-LP Stevie Wonder Anthology Motown put out in the mid 70s (I guess?) is auto coupled 1/6 2/5, 3/4, FYI.

Wreckless Eric's third LP, Big Smash was released packaged with an extra LP compiled from his devious output (you'd struggle to call it a greatest hits, obv). It came autocoupled which meant the new LP was spread across two records, presumably as one of Stuff Records's little jokes. I found this infuriating as a kid. Just to make things more confusing / dog's-breakfasty, the labels read: Odd record A: Side 1, Odd record A: Side 3, Even record B: Side 2, Even record B: Side 4.

previous output, Eric never having been especially devious afaik.

just about all those cutout "man who sold the world" lps with the comic book cover are boots.
https://www.discogs.com/release/2833017-David-Bowie-The-Man-Who-Sold-The-World

finding legit and good vintage vinyl of TMWSTW is really a crapshoot. I have this one:

https://www.discogs.com/release/446035-David-Bowie-The-Man-Who-Sold-The-World

It doesn’t sound particularly great but then again this album’s production doesn’t really work for me anyway, despite the quality tunes.

picked up this hawaiian / surf record today for 50p, plenty of twangy guitar and no cheesy strings. i'm into it, especially this edgy little number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAC10nYRoE
The Waikiki Surfriders - Hawaiian Rock

That's a great cover. Does it note the musicians who played on it? Seems like info online is sparse.

youtube description—

1,311 views May 16, 2015
Obscure Hawaiian surf/rock recording from their self titled and, apparently, sole LP. No date info on the record, but it appears to be 1960s vintage.

yeah interesting find, nick! any useful info on it?

looking into discogs comments and it's suggested this is the same surfriders. fascinating!

short rabbit hole lead me to this image and i'd just like to state for the record that i would instantly purchase anything in this sleeve—
https://i.imgur.com/hJpSxDC.jpg

re: record stacking, I went through several copies of Quadrophenia before I found one that wasn't set up with the sides in that manner (I finally got the Classic Records printing).

oddly I don't think I've ever seen a copy of the White Album configured like this

good day at the thrift today:

Perez Prado
Little Anthony & The Imperials
Duke Ellington
5th Dimension
Papa Celestin And His New Orleans Ragtime Band

totally rules

https://i.discogs.com/1x2KkY-m7laohZeEwlh0UFFPCCNqtquNf7ljQxO33dQ/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:596/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE0MjY2/NzItMTU5OTkyODMw/MC0xNDM0LmpwZWc.jpeg

Autocoupling:

I was playing this the other day

https://www.discogs.com/release/2247032-Bessie-Smith-The-Worlds-Greatest-Blues-Singer

From the 1970 five volume double record set reissues of Bessie Smith’s complete work, and I’d forgotten this last volume contains her earliest and final recordings, and the other volumes work towards the middle of her career, so I could stack up the ten LPs and play her works in chronological order, only flipping once. If I had a stacker.

And I’d think by the time the tenth disc drops on the turntable the tone arm would be skating around an inch higher than normal so I wonder why they even did this.

Yeah, that Ellington record is good times.

I found an absolutely pristine original pressing of Ellington Uptown for $5 not too long ago. I honestly didn’t know what it normally goes for, but the pricing of everything else in the shop indicated they knew what they had.

yeah it's not valuable, but it sure is great!

My best haul was getting a good chunk of Tangerine Dream's discography out of a 2 dollar LP bin at a book store back in the 90s. I got like 10-11 of them in one shot all in really nice shape.

I found the same Bessie Smith album that bendy mentions in a box on the street, and the organization of the whole 10 disc set is really bewildering. I mean, how many people wanted to sit by their stereo listening to 80 Bessie Smith songs in a row with no interruption?

many xp I found TMWSTW in the bargain bin of a Radio Shack in the 70s. It was the "comic book" version. I don't have it any more; I wish I did, so that if nothing else I could check its authenticity. I don't remember it being of particularly poor quality, but then again my sound system at the time consisted of a yellow plastic fold-out record player made by GE.

found a nearly mint copy of ABC's Lexicon of Love for three bucks! just sittin in with all the trash! this is one of the greatest albums ever made what the hell is it doing in there??

still seeing Donna Summers records for next to nothing still amazes me.

My dad once got me a copy of Ooh La La from the cutout bin. Kind of shocking that record ended up there.

The dollar bin from 15 (and up) years ago could get you an unspeakable number of gems…the dollar bin from today won’t get you much more than that same collection of grandma’s records that is somehow in every Goodwill in America.

3 bucks sounds about right for Lexicon of Love though….I haven’t seen it go for too much more than that.

That’s what I’m saying it’s an insanely good album to be going for that cheap

Yes to Donna Summer too

Assorted albums by Herbie Mann and Ten Years After, along with Squeeze's Singles 45 and Under, have been my favorite recent dollar bin acquisitions.

Oh yeah, I also found a $1 copy of After the Gold Rush that had a somewhat busted sleeve but the vinyl was pretty clean, but that's not one you see that cheap too often.

Let me use this thread to reflect on simpler times.

I remember when every album I bought from Goodwill in the old days - meaning the early 1990s - was priced at 79 cents. Regardless of the collectibility of the record or the condition of it, everything was 79 cents. A Mantovani album from 1962 that was beat to shit... 79 cents. A classic period Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 album in mint condition still in its shrink wrap... 79 cents. Esquivel in Outer Space or whatever that record is called... perfect condition, 79 cents. I don't remember what Salvation Army charged but I'm sure it was similar.

I got turned on to countless record and artists this way. A friend bought me I'm Free Again by La Lupe, assuming from the cover that I would like it, which of course I did, and that sent me on a multiple year quest to find other Latin soul/boogaloo records. Meanwhile, somehow around 1992 I came across Latin a la Lee by Peggy Lee, which inspired me to eventually buy virtually every Peggy Lee album there is.

God, Latin a la Lee is such a bop.

i had this beautiful window around 2002-2005 when i was a poor college kid that realized it was cheaper to buy vinyl than the cd release. probably 1/3 of my current collection was purchased during that window for 1-4 bucks apiece.

Interesting reading that people still used the stackibg system now. I thought it wasnt good for the vinyl. Thought it was a legacy of a time when vinyl was seen to be more disposable.
Thought the friction between 2 discs likely to scratch them. Is it not?

There was a time when the expanded Melodica by Blackalicious was around for £2.99Ir seemed to be multiple copies and seemed to be for a while. Certainly a reduction which almost amounts to bargain bin. Great cd anyway.

at my job (rough trade uk) we just had a massive shipment of cheap bargain bin records from the us and I was shocked at some of the stuff in there. the roches! stories! isleys as mentioned upthread. it was really cool.

In Western Mass, we give a Roches record away with every purchase. Actually, you get your pick of an album by Roches, Joan Armatrading, or the McGarrigle Sisters. We've actually started paving our roads with them as well.

I picked up Wang Chung's Mosaic this weekend in a bargain bin. Waiting to clean it to see how well it plays though. Feel like that's at least an $8 record if it weren't in questionable condition.

Also grabbed the Tom Tom Club album Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom, which has only been mentioned on ILX 3 times, so maybe it's ripe for rediscovery.

i had this beautiful window around 2002-2005 when i was a poor college kid that realized it was cheaper to buy vinyl than the cd release. probably 1/3 of my current collection was purchased during that window for 1-4 bucks apiece.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Saturday, October 7, 2023 8:44 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this was like 2004-2006 for me, that was probably the peak of 1st generation vinyl buyers deciding they finally wanna get rid of their collection. remember spending 50 bucks on like 5 good Beatles albums, Zep IV, three Floyds, Are You Experienced, four Genesis albums, and I think a bunch of Huey Lewis ones? I remember thinking "congrats you just spent 50 dollars on garbage" lol

Mid-90s in Pittsburgh was a vinyl paradise. Jerry's Records, Attic, and many other smaller shops selling LPs for $3 or $5, and just walking around on the street on trash night found nice copies of Born to Run and Aja. The diggers seem to raid the thrift stores rapidly, but yard sale scores were easy.

R.I.P. Jerry!

the david munrow records are the first thing to spring to mind - they're recordings of early medieval instruments and sort of a minor cult thing, but you still see them around a lot in the uk. basically they sound like music that could've been used in the wicker man - check out the wild tune they play at the start of this clip and you too might feel the urge to set fire to a police officer in a ritualistic sort of style:

― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Tuesday, February 28, 2023 5:01 PM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I came here to mention David Munrow, but I see he's been covered! I see his records for cheap in the US too. Just picked up Pleasures of the Court (1971) and The Pleasures of the Royal Courts (1976) at a small upstate NY record shop for $2 each. Near-identical titles, two completely different records lol

Houdini, if you want a shipping container full of otherwise unwanted Roches records, I’m sure we can fill one for you.

I bought a sealed vinyl copy of the Roches Christmas album We Three Kings for $1 from the clearance bin at J&R Music like 12 years ago. It's pretty good if you wanna get into the holiday spirit. Anyway I assumed it was consigned to perma-dollar-bin status like all their other albums, but I looked it up on Discogs a few months ago and it turns out it goes for about $50 on average. Makes me wish I had snatched up the 10 other copies they had at J&R

Also purchased sealed from the same dollar bin, not secretly valuable: https://www.discogs.com/release/1631515-Richard-Simmons-Reach

I found that one at Goodwill! all original music isn't it? that makes it quite a bit different than other workout albums I reckon

Yup, it also has a 20-page exercise guide with photos. No expense spared!

I have several Roches albums but the Christmas album is the only one I really play. Love that record.

peace man otm- second tom tom club is definitely solid and a no-brainer bargain bin grab. it's not better than the first album, but "man with the four way hips" is due some retro love for sure.

one that i used to see in the bb often was the self-titled fleetwood mac from 1975. never any of their others though. maybe that was a reno/northern cali thing.

whoops, i was thinking close to the bone by tom tom club. my bad. i've only ever heard boom boom in passing.

(but yeah- everybody go listen to more tom tom club besides the first album!)

sometimes in one of my social media vinyl groups or via instagram i'll see a post from someone who shows off a treasure trove thrift store haul, and i'm shocked that there are still some great finds out there.

I *did* recently pick up an OG copy of this one at a thrift store for $4 (nothing is 79 cents anymore, anywhere), in really really nice shape: https://www.discogs.com/master/33108-The-Incredible-Jimmy-Smith-Midnight-Special but of course it wasn't part of a larger Blue Note LP dump, everything else was Andy Williams and Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand.

thread inspires me to take a long lunch and go dig in a thrift

Houdini, if you want a shipping container full of otherwise unwanted Roches records, I’m sure we can fill one for you. ― The land of dreams and endless remorse (hardcore dilettante)

Bring it on! :)

Incidentally my display name on here comes from a track on “Himself”, Gilbert O’Sullivan’s debut album which is a cheap charity shop classic in the UK. It’s a fantastic record IMO, so many excellent unorthodox pop songs on there.

In my area there are a lot of estate and downsizing sales for silent gen and early boomers, and sometimes there's a motherlode from a childless elderboho, those autobiographical collections where you get a sense of the previous owner. I think of them when I play their LPs. Much better finds than yard sales and thrift stores. A world traveling college administrator who had a single Blue Note, Duke Pearson. Did she get to see him? Is that why she picked it up? Grumpy guy with macrame wall hangings, and his copy of Transformer which skips and locks in on the line "Oh heavenly father I know I have sinned"

About a year ago I posted about this great record store in Woodstock (Ontario). They're not great anymore--they used to throw out all their vinyl for $5, but now they've got different sections, and anything you'd actually want will cost you. There's one section for the insanely over-priced records, a $20 section, a $5 section (scratched if it's any good), and a $1 section. I guess the $20 stuff doesn't sell, so they marked all that down to $10. That's my upper ceiling: if something interesting is in perfect shape, I'll pay $10. So I bought seven albums there today:

https://i.postimg.cc/63yk4HJ4/albums.jpg

The Chuck Willis is an Epic reissue (early '80s?) of a 1958 album; the Wanda Jackson is sealed. I always regretted not buying a remaindered copy of the Turtles compilation for $4 or $5 dollars in the late '70s; I am finally free of that burden.

I picked up Anne Clark’s Joined Up Writing for $2 in a cheap bin a few years ago, and having just given it a clean and an attentive listen felt moved to nominate it for this thread.

The combination of ambient synth textures / earnest poetry / darkwavey beats / minimal Virginia Ashley vibes has aged exceptionally well. The words are a bit Rik the People’s Poet / Bombs All Around at times but that is quite a charming aesthetic in 2024 I feel.

Plenty of cheap copies on Discogs!