EMI Distribution Center Annual Deleted Items Sale

Today, I went to the annual EMI distribution center deleted items sale at the EMI warehouse in Jacksonville IL. I've gone on this journey every year since I discovered the sale's existence. This is the fourth year that I've gone. How it works is like this, they move all the pallets of returned items into an empty warehouse and then open the doors and allow everyone to dig through the boxes and pick up whatever they want at $3.00 per disc (i.e. 2-disc sets cost $6.00 but it's usually so busy at the check out counter that they only count the sets that look like they have multiple CDs as 2-disc sets).

Every year I go thinking, "I've got most of the stuff they're going to have so it'll be a waste of time." But, every year I come away with a nice new stack of new music. It seems every year they throw out tons of stuff from some artist or another that I enjoy. The first year it was an entire table packed with every Beach Boys CD (the HDCD two-fer sets) so I nabbed what I didn't already have. Last year it was the Rolling Stones turn, and this year it was David Bowie. Alas, I arrived about 10 minutes after the doors opened and that seems to have cost me one of the two "holy grails" of this year's sale... The Band: A Musical History 6-disc box set. There were only 6 or 7 available and I saw one person walking around with 2 and a second person with the rest. I curse them! I did, however, manage to nab one of the precious few Misfits box sets available. Yay me!

Let's take a look at my haul this year:

CDs

David Bowie:

• "Heroes"
• Let's Dance
• Never Let Me Down
• Young Americans
• Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
• Hunky Dory
• Pinups

(All the above are Japanese import pressings)

• The Best of Bowie (single CD + DVD version)

Jethro Tull:

• A Passion Play
• A Little Light Music
• Roots To Branches

(The 2006 remasters)

Monty Python:

• The Life of Brian
• The Meaning of Life

The Beach Boys:

• Pet Sounds (40th Anniversary Limited Edition Collector's Edition + booklet and DVD)
• The Warmth of the Sun

The Stooges:

• The Weirdness

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes:

• Love Their Country

Radiohead:

• Airbag / How Am I Driving? (EP)

The Band:

• The Best of A Musical History (single CD collection of rarities from the box set)

Ben Harper:

• Both Sides of the Gun

Grand Funk Railroad:

• Greatest Hits (+ DVD)

The Misfits:

• Coffin Shaped Box

DVDs

• Live 8
• REM: When The Light is Mine (The Best of the IRS Years Video Collection)

Plus I picked up a few various and sundry CDs and DVDs to hand out as Christmas presents that I will not name in case someone on the receiving end happens to read this post. Nyah nyah!

The big surprise, for me, this year is that the place was not crammed full of CDs since between this years sale and last year's sale Tower Records shut down (and shipped all their remaining EMI stock back to EMI). Well there was and entire big section of nothing but "Tower Exclusive" CDs, but those were all cheapie best of compilations that still had Tower's $4.99 price stickers on them.

Oh, and for those wondering, certain artists are exempt from the sale (The Beatles) and any titles from those artists that slip through and wind up in the sale are confiscated at checkout.