180 Gram-mers

And, immediately, something else that sort of involves Amazon. While I was searching last night, I found out there's a few Van Morrison records that are going to be re-released on vinyl next week. One of them is Astral Weeks, which is one of my favorite albums ever, and one of the most massive gaping holes on my record shelves. But it's being released as a 180 Gram reissue, and it's going to cost $25. This might be an album that I'd spend that kind of money on, maybe, but isn't that a little absurd. First of all, $25 is a lot of money to spend on a single record. And second, I think I'd rather have it as a regular pressing than as a 180 Gram. Because, think about it, how much better can it be than what it was originally released as? I'd rather find a good old used copy of it for a legit price than shell out $25 for a 180 Gram-mer. I think. For this particular album, I could see myself caving if I was in Borders and it happened to be one of the 15 or 16 records they're currently shelving, and I just happened to run across it and fell in love. Generally though, I feel the same way about 180 Gram reissues of old albums, particularly albums like this that are not so sonically wild that a regular pressing would miss out on a ton of stuff, as I do about those deluxe edition CD packages that charge you twice for the album in mono and the same album in stereo. All I really need is the album as it was meant to be heard, or as it was originally released, the release that made me fall in love with it in the first place.