A word about the Cockburn Tracker

In a way, seeing Bruce Cockburn live was the breaking point that lead me to Tried To Buy.

My husband and I were lucky enough to see Bruce Cockburn live in Banff, Alberta on August 9. I won't turn this into a concert review, but the show was friggin' amazing beyond anything I could have imagined. I'd seen Cockburn live before, and I was a casual fan, but this night something really clicked.

Being a casual fan going in, we owned some CDs, but now I wanted more. When it comes to bands I am a completest at heart, so hubby and I decided to pick up as much Cockburn as we could on our next CD shopping round. The guy has almost 30 recordings and we owned about half of those, so we figured we'd drop a couple hundred and pick up the remainder.

What fools we were.

Despite the fact we're in Canada, and Cockburn had just played in the area, not a single store had much beyond the most recent album and a 5 year old hits collection. Eventually, after hitting about 5 stores over the course of a few days we managed to get a remastered version of Humans (we already owned the original), a 1990 Live album, and a remastered copy of Stealing Fire. Instead of spending a couple hundred dollars, we dropped maybe $42.

I'm realistic. I don't expect to find the entire Cockburn catalog in stock at once. But for a Canadian artist with such a varied catalog, is it too much to expect more than a couple of CDs? Heck, even the amazing Waiting For A Miracle 2 CD set was completely MIA (I finally saw it for the first time last weekend in an HMV).

Over time we managed to find Dancing in The Dragon's Jaws, In The Falling Dark and more. My most recent purchase was Big Circumstance earlier this month. Looking at the tracker now, I think it's fair that most stores would not stock the remainder of the CDs I need to complete the catalog.

So for kicks, I'm going to try special ordering them and see how long it takes them to come in. Or see if I even can special order them, since I've failed so miserably in being able to special order CDs in the past few years (that could be another rant).

I thought Bruce Cockburn wasn't a bad example to use -- extensive catalog, loyal following, Canadian artist who still gets a tons of exposure with each new release. He's not a steady seller, but he's certainly an act that warrants some attention to the catalog. He sort of represents the type of artist that is short changed by the lack of available catalog in stores these days, and why people would turn to obtaining material online.

What's also amazing is that for the Cockburn CDs we did see, the prices were extremely reasonable. Rarely more than $16.99 for a catalog CD.

Keep an eye on the tracker for updates once I begin the special order experiment.