A few more AAA live sampler CDs tracklistings are out. Sadly, a lot of the usual suspects (Mat Kearney, Scars on 45, Iron & Wine, etc) make repeat appearances.
Cities 97 (Minneapolis):
http://www.cities97.com/pages/Cities97SamplerVolume23.htmlThis one has a few of the bands' "other" tracks (i.e. "Don't Gotta Work It Out" by Fitz/Tantrums, "Poison & Wine" by Civil Wars, "Only the Wine" by David Gray) & I'm excited to see Lissie on here, but there still a lot of repeats. But
$25.97?!?!?!? I understand they're trying to discourage the "black market" but...wow. They're making a limited # of these available online, but I think I'll pass, especially since it comes out to ~$33 with shipping.
103.7 The Mountain (Seattle):
http://www.1037themountain.com/pages/11327385.phpAlso mostly underwhelming. Of note: at least the Sarah McLesbian track (Adia) is one that to my knowledge has not appeared on previous AAA samplers (or at least not very many times; otoh "Angel" has about 10 appearances between them all.) That and the Bob Schneider & Burned tracks may make it worth it, since it's literally half the cost of Cities 97's.
So far, all of this years' are disappointing. It hasn't been this bland and/or overlapping since the 2004 series. Maybe KBCO's will be better...they usually do a pretty good job. I wonder what the future of these is going to be. The proceeds to go charity but aside from the CDs from the Borders going out of business sale these are my only CD purchases this year & I can't imagine that the already dying-out hype of these is something that would translate too well to digital downloads (i.e. are people going to look forward every year to making an online donation and downloading a set of live tracks from the station's website? Especially since you can already stream many of their performances for free?)
