Gothic Strawberry Ice Cream Nightmare Daydream!!!

We all have to cut back in this depression/recession. I'm no exception. Like everyone else, I'm trying to get less money to go just as far. I've made one extremely frivolous purchase, however. I took a week to decide whether I should or not and I decided it would be my personal (5 month early) Birthday present to me this year (I am planning one more personal Birthday present closer to my Birthday, but more on that this June). Was it a Television..? A new game system..? A full home renovation..? That one I actually need, but no.

No, no, no. What I bought was much more frivolous than that and having them has made me very happy, so this also counts as a mental health purchase. I bought Tommy Feburary6 and Tommy Heavenly6's Greatest Hits box sets. They cost 6,666 Yen each (that's nearly $70 each, but I scored them for $64 each) and are about as deluxe as a box set can get.

The theme here is each box set is a High School class in Tommy. Tommy February6's box is entitled "Strawberry Cream Soda Pop Daydream" (also the title of the new track on the CD / DVD and Tommy Heavenly6's box is entitled "Gothic Melting Ice Cream Darkness Nightmare". Each set arrives in a heavy, glossy slipcase that's dimensions are 14 1/2" high X 9 1/2" wide X 2 3/4" deep. The insides of the set are covered in polka dot print. The box itself contains everything one needs to be enrolled in Tommy's classes. Each set includes A lyric booklet, a 16 page Composition notebook that actually serves as a picture book (4 pics per page), a big sticker sheet, 10 photo clear files and a quality loose leaf binder with enrollment information embossed on a metal plate. Oh, yeah, each set comes with a DVD and a Blu Spec CD.

Now, this whole Blu Spec CD thing... I don't know if you've heard of this or not, since it's really only being utilized in Japan right now, but it's basically this: a standard Red Book CD master is burned with a BluRay laser instead of a standard laser. This, it's reported, creates virtually no jitter to the actual pits the laser reads in a CD, so the playback is of a higher quality. Did I notice any real difference? I really can't say I did. I have a mid to high end playback setup, so I should be able to pick up a marked difference, if there was one. Maybe a side by side comparison will be in order.

I did, however, notice that the DVD's did look remastered. The images were a bit clearer that I've been used to on past Tommy DVDs.

I'm glad I bought them, all in all. Yeah, it set me back a bit, but I got the feeling that when the economy recovers, these limited edition sets are going to go up sharply in price... or not.

Usually a greatest hits package flags the end of a career, however a cruise by CDJapan reveals the Tommy train just isn't going to stop. Tommy Heavenly6 3rd, as it's titled there, is going to be released on April 29th, 2009. Click on this link to CDJapan to Preorder it.