So my music collection consists of about 500 albums. Not pirated. No joke. I own a lot of music, most of it instrumental. Why? Well, I’m an author, and I need to listen to something while I work. Rather than burn out an album or two, I find its better to have a huge variety. A couple of readers have asked me about favorites from my collection, and the topic has been the subject of a BaBW post once before.

Anyway, this post is sort of in the vein of that one, except now I’m throwing out a suggestion.

Earlier today, on a whim, I picked up a new soundtrack. Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, to be specific. I loved the soundtrack to the first Mirror’s Edge. Solar Fields did a fantastic job putting together an album that you could just lose yourself in, something that was perfect for just throwing on while you worked. Busy and pumping without ever losing its smooth, ambient quality, the first Mirror’s Edge soundtrack was a delight, and I still enjoy listening to it.

Today I thought I’d check out the sequel: Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. So I loaded it up on the Amazon Music Store and took a quick look. Five-star reviews, still the same artist, 32 songs … Good, good, good …

Then I saw the album length: Five hours, twelve minutes.

I kid you not. I looked back up at the tracks to make sure it wasn’t mistaken. It wasn’t. Some of these tracks are almost twenty-five minutes long. And they’re not just playing the same tune for that whole length, either. No, these are electric suites that smoothly flow from one melody to another.

For five hours.

This soundtrack costs $9.49.

I have no idea how this one slipped into this price category. Catalyst is published by EA, who before have had the wonderful (sarcasm) habit of taking a soundtrack and splitting it into at least three or four overpriced albums with a couple of songs apiece. I have no idea who was responsible to taking what by their previous standard was about twenty albums worth of content and selling it for the price of one.

But I bought it, and it’s fantastic.

And now I draw your attention to it. If you’ve heard Mirror’s Edge before and enjoyed it, definitely consider picking this one up. It’s a steal, and I almost don’t expect it to stay at such a low price.

If you’re a fan of Solar Fields, consider picking this one up. Maybe listen to it while you read a book.