We all know that Paul Young’s No Parlez has become officially acknowledged as the Record You Are Most Likely to Find in a Charity Shop. But what would be the CD equivalent?
As has previously been noted, CDs are cheap these days, and when I browse Carousell, Singapore’s local version of eBay, I see a lot of CDs with a few titles coming up again and again. So I’d like to propose a Chazza CD shortlist. Note we’re looking at single artist CDs here, so no Nows or Buddha Bars.
Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill
Moby – Play
Savage Garden – Savage Garden
Madonna – Bedtime Stories
And then of course there are the various greatest hits CDs, of which the most common seem to be Bee Gees and the Carpenters. And let’s take a minute to recognize Karen and David, whose music has been filling Chazza shelves in different formats for over 40 years now. Truly they are the band who people like enough to buy their music, but not enough to keep it when they move house.
I bought Jagged Little Pill recently. I didn’t buy it back the day, although I’ve always liked You Oughta Know, a song I think I’ve heard being played in shops in three continents now. Guess what? It’s a really good album, full of good tunes and riffs. Some of you must have it, take it down and give it a play – it’ll be up on the shelves next to the gap where the Morrissey CDs used to be.
So what do you think? Are these the Chazza CD big hitters or does something else deserve that crown?
I’m sure I’ve seen more Jack Johnson and Athlete CDs in chazzas than I would have thought were sold new. The only explanation is that they are all re-donated and I see each one multiple times. The champion though must be either Robbie Williams Swing When You’re Winning or the first Scissor Sisters album.
Jagged Little Pill, Moby and Scissor Sisters are all good shouts.
I would suggest Abba Gold.
@Hawkfall a big of Moby’s Play and there is a new album coming out with revised versions of this songs along with others from his catalogue with some great guest performers.
I’ve bought it recently Steve, haven’t played it yet, though I’m sure I’ll recognise a lot of it as so much of it was used in adverts if I recall.
To be clear, to be King of the Chazza CDs doesn’t mean it has to be a bad album. As I mention above, Jagged Little Pill is really good.
Yeah, agree. I love Play – it’s ubiquitous for a reason!
All good suggestions. See also:
Dido – No Angel.
The Lighthouse Family – Ocean Drive.
Drinks globes – you don’t see those much any more.
In my experience – and I do have a near-addiction to charity shop CD shopping, although I am trying to wean myself off it – I would say Duffy’s Rockferry is the one.
Somewhere I have a photo of 7 or 8 of them that someone had unkindly collected and lined up on the shelf.
I reckon that Robbie Williams is a candidate for runner up, with Sing While You’re Winning or perhaps Intensive Care. EDIT: just seen Gatz’s comments above. Glad to see concurrence on RW, but different disc, I see. Swing is also a regular.
Robbie Williams is the Leo Sayer of the Compact Disc.
Pocket Full of Kryptonite by The (frankly terrible) Spin Doctors seems to have been donated in vast quantities by people who have come to their senses.
There is always something there by Travis, Snow Patrol or Keane.
I second the mention of Travis.
There’s always at least one copy of a CD that always gives me a chuckle: Westlife’s Where We Belong.
Arf!
Round my way I’d say it’s always Franz Ferdinand and The Thrills.
There’ll be two copies of Edward II’s Dancing Days in Lich soon. Dreadful stuff that makes latterday UB40 sound like early day Black Uhuru. Bought one and they sent two by mistake, a week apart. Pity as I normally a big fan.
It’s a shame that there’s only one Ed II album I like – 2 Step to Heaven – because I really love that, possibly more than any other album I have ever heard. The combination of dub, Swedish polka and English folk is such a wonderful menage, that even the best of Jan Wobble or Afro Celt don’t quite match. Particularly with Mad Professor on some tracks.
I’ve tried, but the latter albums have nothing and even Let’s Polka Steady isn’t very interesting, and nowhere near as dynamic.
It’s almost like they came together for one fantastic union then feel apart, exhausted, never to recapture the magic.
Who the bloody hell is Edward 11?
I suspect Three Tenors will be in there and probably loads of those Now that’s what I call music sets.
They’ve been around since the mid-80s, Steve. Ever been to a festival? You’ll probably have seen them, on mid-afternoon.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/65809-Edward-II
This could be my favourite
There’s so much going on.
Originally called Edward the Second and the Red Hot Polkas. SWTDT
Clogging the shelves at local chazzas:
Best Of Blue
Paulo Nutini
Back to Bedlam by James Blunt is one I’ve seen a few times. Does Oasis’ Be Here Now make it to charity shops these days? 6 months after release you couldn’t move for 2nd hand copies in record shops I used to visit. See also REM’s Monster.
Standing on the Shoulder of Giants seems to be the Oasis one I see a lot.
What don’t you see?
Not a lot of metal or punk.
Of the huge sellers of the CD age, I almost never see Carry On Up The Charts by The Beautiful South which probably says something about the quality of the songs.
Ooh good point. Great album that.
I would add Take That – their reunion albums much more than the first run, so The Circus or Progress. Robbie is definitely the Paul Young of the CD era.
Of course there’s only one star (we know of) who donated their unwanted albums en masse not to the local chazza but ensuring those roads roll smooth in the People’s Republic…
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/robbie-williams-unsold-cds-shipped-287334
Which is a bit unfair, because Progress is a really good album, seriously.
It’s ace!
Plenty of Take That, Frank Sinatra, Coldplay, Madonna and Robbie Williams CD’s going cheap in my area – Five for a pound!
Ten for a quid round here. And you can have a mixed bag of CDs and DVDs if you want.
Wow! That is cheap. Jammy bugger
I still get to about six and then struggle.
I buy some of the charity new ones that are still in wrapping as they’re cheaper than buying normal cd cases, especially the double discs. I just bin what’s inside them. This is because I’m also the kind of sad guy that still downloads stuff (Mainly bootleg albums) and transfer it to disc, printing off covers as well. Of course it’s all saved on hard drives as backup and for portable playing. No wonder l like this site so much.
Toploader – Onkas Big Moka.
It does seem that a lot of these Chazza favourites are where people liked the hit & then thought they’d plump for the album, only to discover that it was only the one track they liked.
The Best of Deee-Lite was the last CD I bought for one song. I bought it just before the iTunes store came along.
“Civilians”, as we AW-ers like to call them, are the main donors of LPs and CDs to chazzas.
Music afficionados like our good selves tend towards hoarding.
“Civilians” aren’t particularly discerning in their purchasing, tending to buy stuff on a whim having heard it on the radio or in a movie/TV show. Not being very interested in music for itself, they’ll just periodically get rid of albums they no longer play. These are the kind of albums that top the charts in the chazzas.
Monster by R.E.M.
There is a phenomenon amongst the wider public which I think many on here might find difficult to understand – I’ve had friends who get very excited about a record for about six months, play it incessantly and then they are finished with it. We can do something similar, but always with the belief that, since we liked it so much, we will come back around to it. It goes back on the shelf. If it’s got about 10 years of dust we might move it on, but only because we need the room for new stuff.
My mates, on the other hand, are certain they’ve extracted all the joy there is to be got from their purchase. There is never a twinge of regret, but, at the same time, it’s important to appreciate they don’t go to the chazza shame-faced, full of buyers’ remorse – like Father Fintan Stack, they’ve had their fun.
I’d compare it to watching one of those clever twist movies which you do enjoy, as far as it goes, but, having finished it, have no wish to experience it again..
This is a good point, and of course records/CDs you generally see in charity shops sold millions in the first place.
this is the reverse of my ‘Not on Spotify’ thread, these albums will be on every streaming service as long as the internet lasts. No worry that those samples will give rise to a lawsuit with Queens Greatest Hits vol 1.
The comparison with films is very instructive. My most watched films ever – probably Bladerunner and 2001, I have watched maybe less than 10 times in 35 years or more. There are people who watch a movie once a year. I would fear that all the joy would indeed be extracted if I watched Bladerunner ever year for 5 years.
Blimey! I’ve needed to watch Blade Runner four times in the same period just to establish fo sho that I don’t like it.
Blade Runner 2049 is rather good, though..
I still faintly outraged when she says DYOH ‘not the Chemicals surely’ but they had their Civilian Moment it seems
I see a lot of Robbie jobby in the local Charity’s. Westlife too, though their heyday was decades ago.
One Direction, Madonna, Travis.
It’s almost as if these albums aren’t very good.
Just thought of another one. That Bond themes compilation. There was one in the mid 90s and I seem to see it everywhere.
An actual Oxfam music valuer aka daughter moles says in addition to above
David Gray white ladder
Chemicals Dig Your own hole
Oasis what’s the story
Green Day American idiot
Kings of Leon – the green one she says oh and the white one too
Kooks Kooks
White Ladder is a great shout. Perhaps we should do a “Rock CDs from the late 90s now covered in dust” thread where we post our favourite tracks by David Gray, Catatonia, Richard Ashcroft, Sterophonics and wait, where’s everyone going?
Sounds like my Playlist last weekend
(except Richard Ashcroft – I must wipe the dust off that one at some point soon)
I still faintly outraged when she says DYOH ‘not the Chemicals surely’ but they had their Civilian Moment it seems
She means Drill Your Own Hole by Gaye Bykers on Acid. They were duking it out with Swing Out Sister and Living in a Box back in the day..
Every time someone says that record labels were full of “suits” and “business folk”, I think about the time that a major record label signed a pop group whose name wouldn’t be read out on the radio.
Nosedive Karma was a good song, mind.
N.W.A.?
Butthole Surfers?
JXL?
Big Country?
Lesbian dopeheads on mopeds
In further discussion of civilians she offers view it is people who only ever had less than 50 CDs and are now going what’s the point in keeping them, I’ll just stream. These are not people trimming their 1000 Cd shelves but moving on from CD completely.
Former X Factor winners seem to make up around 30-40% of charity shop CDs.
Layer Cake seems to be one of the biggest charity shop films. There are two copies in my local charity shop; I was in a charity shop in Manchester last Sunday – they had three copies. It’s not a bad film, from memory.
I have seen multiples of Head Music by Suede, another 90’s number one album no less.
If you are 25, say (erm… Some Might “Say!”), why would you covet a vinly version of a band like Oasis whose back catalogue was established entirely in the CD age?
You’ll actually be spending more money on a product that is less accurate and revealing of its time than the CD that was released at the actual time… and that version will cost you 50p!
My current turfing out has made me less likely (Covid, doesn’t help) to want to scan rows and rows of CD racks for a bargain… if there’s a CD I want I’ll now pay £12… if it’s quality.
Answer to the original question: Lighthouse Family.
I had a ruse a couple of years ago, expressed on here, that I planned to go round charrridddeee shops and “sign” such CDs – Lighthouse Family, Williams, Simple Red, M People (all northerners, triffic), and indie landfill.
I didn’t do it, but I heard recently that Vic Reeves (I think?) used to “sign” LPs when he worked in a record shop!
In Ireland, the two most reliables are the aforementioned White Ladder by David Gray, possibly still the biggest selling album in Irish history and still quite good and, more satisfyingly the also-aforementioned So Much for the City by the Thrills, a band I dislike so much I can burn calories just thinking about them.
Our local ones also seem to stock a lot of comedy CDs – cash ins from popular radio shows rather than stand-up although the DVD shelves are bulging with them.
@bamber
I’m interested in your hatred for the innocuous Thrills??
They were just proto-Mumford & Sons, really, weren’t they?
Where they? I thought they were a little bit more jingle jangle? Who am I confusing them with I wonder?
The Thrills had a banjo…you were warned.
I have heard The Thrills at some point in time. They left no impression whatsoever on me. Mumford & Son had pretty harmonies, iirc, but apart from that left no impression on me.
It’s been quite a while since I browsed CDs in a chazza. Maybe I should check my local ones out and report.
According to my database (get me!) I apparently own the offending album*. I must have picked it up in a chazza, but I don’t recall where, neither do I recall playing it. Here are the singles, Big Sur:
and Santa Cruz:
Nope, me neither.
(*) And only 12 by Neil Young.
I’ve got a database too. And I own 2 Thrills albums. And I saw them live (at the glorious Reading Hexagon no less)
I used to like their page in the NME.
I’m starting to think that Databases come loaded with Thrills albums.
Speaking of databases, did anyone ever play that U2 album that came with iTunes?
I’m sure it’s a nice venue and everything but you can’t imagine a live album from the Reading Hexagon can you?
No Sleep Til the Hexagon
Live and Dangerous at the Hexagon
I saw the Stranglers there on Hugh’s last tour. And the snooker.
I can’t imagine Glasgow Barrowlands ever hosts the snooker.
I’m not sure, there are often fellas walking around the Barras with snooker cues. And baseball bats, for that matter, suggesting a lively sports scene going on somewhere near.
Arf!
Reminds me of Kevin Bridges’ joke about the sports shop in Glasgow that has sold hundreds of baseball bats but has yet to sell a single baseball..
I’m confusing the Thrills with a band from Southampton but I can’t remember who
Perhaps the two videos I’ve just posted will help. Having heard them again, I have no need to for another 20 years or so.
Portsmouth’s (well, Southsea’s) The Dawn Chorus had a banjo for a bit. They were ace, though.
Relax everyone… it’s the Delays. No idea how Thrill like they are
Don’t diss the banjo: a fine instrument in the right hands. (Mumford and Sons are the wrong hands, of course.)
It’s a Dublin thing – to me they were the epitome of south Dublin privileged gobshites and, for a time they were ubiquitous, interviewed on every show, in every publication dropping names like there was no tomorrow. They wore very thin plus I found their music dull and lightweight. There’s more to it but, safe to say I was glad when their star waned.
Nowadays I only ever encounter them in charity shops.
I’ve stopped looking through piles of secondhand cds because the finds were getting rarer and the shit was getting deeper. Here in Brisbane, I recall lots of Van Halen III (the one with the singer from Extreme), lots of Robbie Williams, lots of Rod singing standards, lots of No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, lots of second-rate 90s alternative (Bush etc) and industrial quantities of Naxos classical CDs.
Wow, almost forgot… Manic Street Preachers – “This Is My Truth…”
About 10 years ago in London every single charity shop would have at least one of them.
Then on eBay they’d be described as “rare!”
At one such establishment I went into, which stocked about 20 CDs, they had two.
Excellent spot. The Holy Bible not so much in evidence out there in the wild.
Perfect storm, innit. Previous album was a smasheroo. New LP is heralded by a number one record, so rekkid stores add a zero on the end of their order. Punters buy loads, but don’t like what they hear. Stores have stacks unshifted..
Actually This is My Truth … is (easily) their biggest selling album, around 5 million. Not as good as the predecessor (s) though.
Yes, but the people who bought the previous one kept it..
I listened to Gen. Terrorists all the way through yesterday. What a silly record – and very enjoyable too. Just James Dean Bradfield and a drum machine, really.
Yes, don’t think anyone else is on there. It’s way too long, they (he) should have made a single album.
It was the behemoth that never was. They quite specifically said it was going to sell 17 million copies. Christ they used to talk some balderdash…
If they hadn’t already been established on the live circuit as a properly good little hard rock band, they might have gone down in history as Sigue Sigue Sputnik with Sociology A-levels.
They also said they would split up straight after … don’t think they did that either
Unfortunately…
Millions have enjoyed their music since then, just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean they should be deprived of some superb albums. Actually an extraordinarily diverse career that one couldn’t have known at the time of their debut.
Motorcycle Emptiness. Oh yes. What a song. I mention it everytime there’s mention of MSP.
No, not having it. How anyone can listen to their tuneless 4th form poetry baffles me. Worst band ever.
Live and let live. Your opinion is meaningless.
I see Mr. Patronising is back in town.
Politics degrees I think (2 of them)
You can only do two things with a politics degree – become a SPAD or, er, buy some eyeliner and white jeans and become a rock legend. That’s what my careers master said, anyway.
I’m still wondering what I can do with mine. I guess they’d the philosophy part of it.
Loving the eyeliner, Sal.
*Looks at Moose with a sheepish, kohl-lined eye*
Down in Melbourne the most common cds seem to be by Michael Buble.
I laughed at the repeated shout outs for Robbie Williams as being the king. I’ve looked through more piles of used DVD’s than any sane person ought to and the most common seems to Robbie WIlliams Live at Knebworth. You see it in Katherine Heigl quantities.
I follow an Instagram account which at least once a week features a photo taken in a chazza with this hashtag: #CharityShopTingTings
In his original post, Hawkfall states “CDs are cheap these days”
I’d like to add a little caveat to that:
“CDs are cheap these days – EXCEPT THE ONES I’M INTERESTED IN BUYING ON DISCOGS, which all seem to cost about 30 euros or something…”
I see loads of girl group CDs…Eternal, All Saints etc, and then there’s Anastasia, who seems all over the place.. They don’t really register while I flip tnrough or, more likely, painfully turn my head sideways to try to read the spines before I give up!
The aforementioned Robbie Williams and Take That, Westlife and Boyzone. Also the Corrs, who must have sold shedloads of Talk on Corners.
Some big sellers you never see…The Beatles, Fleetwod Mac, Pink Floyd…?
That’s a great shout – I hadn’t computed just how many All Saints CDs I’ve seen in charity shops. They’re everywhere.
Pure Shores and Black Coffee are CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS….
…second class ticket to Nottingham, please.
Nigel T is right –
Why don’t charity shops have the spines upwards?
Also, if you put CDs on a shelf, why not have the titles, in the unlikely event they are upwards, facing “towards” the consumer?
Also, has anyone who has designed CD shelves in charity shops (presumably all now millionaires) ever designed anything more complicated than a house from their first set of building bricks?
Also, why put books (which people who buy CDs or the dreaded vinly also buy) in a corner right next to the CDs or the dreaded vinly (which people who buy books also buy), so only one person can access one of them at any given time?
In fairness, I do know why the vinly is put on the floor… so I can take an inordinate amount of time shuffling fron side to side and examining a Robbie Williams CD while a vinly guy fumes in the background waiting to get his hands on a Spandau Ballet vinly. That, I do get. Well, there’s no sport!
Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits (green cove? WEA?) you see a lot of.
A trail of the charity shops of Billericay today reminded me of one band not yet mentioned – no shop is complete without multiple Red Hit Chili Peppers CDs.
Just one letter out there @gatz
Surely it’s no parlez? No?
Our charity shops in Scotland are now open again. Just for this thread, I nipped in to one(Strathcarron Hospice) when I was in town earlier. Disappointed to find only a single row of cds, maybe 50 or so. There were 6 Susan Boyle cds.
How many of them did you buy?
If W.H. Smiths stock a maximum of 20 or 30 CDs, and have done for a good 10, maybe 15, years now, and they’re all awful… they are the CDs that end up in the Chazz.
Most Christmas or birthday presents, I expect.
Many of those (very recent) RPO monstrosities Elvis/Roy Orbison/Buddy Holly/Beach Boys must now be rubbing shoulders with Susan Boyle and M People.
“We haven’t got Jeff anything. Look, Buddy Holly. Jeff likes him. He’s got all those little singles at home with picture covers from around the world. He’s bound to like this.”
Here’s the thing though – who are the people who then buy Susan Boyle et al ten years later? Surely, no one does?
ms Moles actually bought the last Bob Dylan which was one of those 20/30 at Smiths last year so occasionally an album worth buying does appear.
I expect they have a mix of classic rock and pop plus selected new releases. Bit of Abbey Road, Fleetwood Mac and Taylor Swift. Sort of stuff old farts like us go for even. Something for all the family. What sells innit?
I say I expect. I should say I know because I looked. We have WHS at the airport, even in some bigger towns. The nearest in Gävle gets 2 out of 5 stars online. Not a ringing endorsement.
I checked Discogs. Susan Boyle has eight or nine albums listed, spanning 10 years. I have questions…