Thrift Store Music - My Cheesiest Music Finds

Buying music at the thrift store can be an interesting experience. There are bins of music CD's mixed up with old computer software. There may be a shelf of vinyl and a small number of cassette tapes. Every once in awhile a batch of 8 tracks will come in.

You have to dig through quite a bit of unwanted material to find the real gems. For example, everyone donates their grandparents Lawrence Welk albums. If you are looking for The Best of Lawrence Welk, it's probably there!

 You'll also find plenty of orchestral renditions of movie and television themes. They are always a bit cheesy, but I always fall for them. For example, I recently picked up a CD of James Bond movie themes and a CD of science fiction movie themes.  The Bond CD was cool to listen to for about ten minutes on my morning commute. Then my mind was overwhelmed by two thoughts:

1. These aren't the real movie soundtrack themes. 
2. My Toyota Highlander is nothing like an Aston Martin.

I wish I would have found a CD like this one with many of the real James Bond themes:



Of course, the cheesiness of the Bond movie themes paled in comparison to the Science Fiction movie theme CD. That CD had the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark by an orchestra and all the rest of the Sci Fi movie themes were interpreted on a music synthesizer. If you can imagine the "Friends" episode where Ross finds his keyboard, you are on the right track. They even added a disco beat to some of the music.  If you'd like to check it out, you can get it for only 1 penny (plus shipping) from an Amazon seller.


There is a reason some music gets donated to the thrift store. But, with tapes being only 55 cents, it's hard to resist picking up affordable music from major artists. I recently picked Sting's album,Ten Summoner's Tales on cassette. It was a good listen and well worth two quarters and a nickel. It is quite a bit better than a orchestral rendition of various James Bond themes and you don't have to wear a Darth Vader mask to listen to it.