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 ..

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!