Import albums that are too friggin' expensive

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A few of my favorite bands are ones that never had their albums professionally imported in the US. I find out about them via MySpace, or YouTube, or friends...and it's always frustrating because I'm not willing to pay $40 for album that should be $10-$15, especially if I haven't heard it first and can't find any reviews of it (so I don't know if it's a good album or if it was a crappy album by a good artist). Examples of this for me have been Dir en Grey's Vulgar (though Withering to Death and Marrow of a Bone are availible) and anything by Samsas Traum (a German advant-guard metal band).

Does anyone else find this so irksome?

Yeah... but quite often there is domestic pressing and distribution of import CD's a few months after they are released in the original country. One case in point being Boris'
'Pink' CD. It was originally released in late 2k5 in Japan, and released in May 2k6 here in the states on Southern Lord, who BTW, are a very good label.

We had the opposite problem in Australia with local albums being very expensive. Up until a few years ago, imports were strictly regulated. You can now get really good compilations from Disky and Pickwick and Karussel at discount stores for between $9.95 AUS and $14.95 AUS whereas before, you would have to pay at least $27.95 AUS for a compilation and it would have the same old suspects on it instead of more variety.

I'm a huge fan of downtempo/IDM and some of the prices for out-of-print and imports on Amazon are outrageous! I saw an edition of the Cafe Abstrait compilation series going for $65 used. I want that CD but not that bad.

I like Japanese Pop and Anime Music but if I wanted to buy album or soundtrack fo, I'll try an anime store or online anime store to buy it.

My 16 year old daughter makes anime music videos. She's really good at it. I want to learn how to do ordinary music videos and have started to do them but not the anime ones.