It was almost five years ago that I made a concerted effort to collect the entirety of a music label, the MCA Master Series. The Master Series is a collection of largely instrumental “new age” music from the late 80’s. For a little while now, I’ve been kicking around the idea of trying this again with another label. I’m going to make a start on it now.
The label this time is IRS NoSpeak. It’s another instrumental label from the same time period. The label considered themselves “anti-new age” in the sense it was much more rock-oriented. The scope of the collection is much smaller, with MCA having been 40+ releases, this label is only 19 strong. With the price of CDs being depressed across the board, plus having these CDs never really reaching a large audience outside of individual fan groups, these should be obtainable for a reasonable cost.
It’s kind of funny that with as much as I shop at thrift stores and get CDs for a buck or two, shopping online is actually a little unreasonable. When you have to pay $3-4 for shipping on a $3-5 cd, that money can get you a good haul at a thrift store. But when you want something specific, your chances of finding what you want in a random thrift store are pretty slim, so you gotta pay.
My history with the IRS NoSpeak label is pretty limited, and honestly, I don’t like most of what I already have. But what I do like, I really like, so I’m hoping that I can find some winners again. I did find some amazing stuff as I built my MCA collection, so maybe this good fortune will happen again.
The first album I got on the NoSpeak label was their first release, Guitar and Son, which was a guitar-based album. Every time I hear it, I’m taken back to the days when I’d be playing the CD on repeat, over and over, while reading the monstrous Computer Shopper magazine and dreaming of getting back into computers again. Those were simpler, happier times.
Maybe when the collection is complete, I’ll do the same as I did with the Master Series and make a set of pages for them here on the blog. The album artwork is nice, although of a much different style than the Master Series. It might be suitable for framing.
Current stats: 6 on hand, 3 on order, 10 remaining.
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