THE BARGAIN BUY: Echo and the Bunnymen: Original Album Series (Rhino)

Call it what you will -- nostalgia, history, the collector mentality -- but filling gaps in your archives or just rediscovering an artist or album just got a whole lot cheaper with the Original Album Series.

Here, for example, are the first five Echo albums -- Crocodiles from '80, Heaven Up Here, Porcupine, Ocean Rain and their self-titled release from '87 -- which sell at $20 in New Zealand.

Okay, they aren't flash remasters or have added tracks (seriously though, who needs either?) and yes, aside from The Cutter and a couple of other tracks Porcupine isn't much cop, but at $20 for five albums you can hardly complain.

Here is their terrific debut and Ocean Rain, and Heaven Up Here also has more than a few moments. And this was the classic period for the band: their stunning drummer Pete de Freitas (killed in '89) quit before that final album and singer Ian McCullough left in '88.

Listening across these albums you can hear a band move from heroic and dramatic declamatory songs (Rescue on Crocodiles) to more crafted pop hits (The Killing Moon on Ocean Rain). The production echo also got turned off along the way.

At $20 this is a bargain. Through JB Hi-Fi stores here. 

Also in this series are collections by Little Feat (which includes their Essential Elsewhere Dixie Chicken), Dr John (Essential Elsewhere album Gris Gris), the Pretenders, Warren Zevon, the Monkees, Otis Redding, Jesus and Mary Chain, Rickie Lee Jones, Rod Stewart, Duke Ellington . . .

Elsewhere and history, on the cheap!