Bonus tracks, special editions, box sets: your thoughts?
 

I'm talking here about albums that are specifically released on the basis of one or two tracks being new, the likes of a greatest hits compilation with one new track or two, or a live album with one or two new studio tracks. The Eagles spring to mind, but I'm sure there are many others. When you see a "new album" announced and then realise it's exactly the same as one you have but there is one or maybe two new tracks on it. Or remixes of your favourite stuff. Or re-recorded, double Dolby mega-enhanced-whatever-the-**** versions. How do you feel? Do you want to buy them, think they're a ripoff, buy them even though you feel they're a ripoff or ignore them?

Sort of case in point currently: Pink Floyd's "new" album. I know it's being discussed in the PF thread but this is not just about that album, though it does illustrate the point very well. Is it right to ask your fans to pay for a bunch of material that wasn't deemed good enough for your last album, but now you want to cash in on it, and then as Gilmour says, "Pink Floyd is not in my future", so there'll be no more? Is that not a two-fingers to the fans, who were told a new album was on the way?

And then there are those "definitive editions" of their albums, with like ten discs per album, costing a king's ransom. If you're considered a true Floyd fan, maybe you feel you have to buy them to have them in your collection, even though they're bank-breakingly expensive.

But as I say, this is about more than the pink ones. Many artistes release several versions of albums --- different covers, different track on the Japanese release, another on the US one etc --- and as I say there are many GH compilations that you wouldn't buy but then there's a "new track" stuck on it so that they can tempt you.

Does anyone have opinions on how this is done? Does it annoy you, are you bothered? Do you grab every single new item from your favourite band, even if they release the same album in, say, a blue, a red and a green cover? I'm just wondering how people feel? I mentioned years ago how annoyed I was that the then-recently-released "Eagles' Greatest Hits" was exactly --- and I mean to the track --- the same as the last one, and yet people were expected to buy it. Am I alone here? Do you all think I'm making something out of nothing as usual, or does anyone else get annoyed about the constant moneygrabbing tactics of labels and maybe artistes, who seem to want to squeeze as much money out of their fans as possible?

I feel it is okay to include a few bonus tracks on a reissue or an anniversary edition of an album, but these things stop being okay when the songs start being framed as 'new material'. If an album I love is reissued and there's an extra disc of b-sides, outtakes, and live recordings it gives me incentive to pick it up.

I think the Beatles nailed it with no bonus tracks on the albums, but the massive anthology packages for extreme fans. I don't listen to bonus tracks for the most part.

Nobody HAS to buy anything.

All it comes down to is what's being offered and how desirable it is to you and how much they're charging for it.

I'm not going to pick up an album I already own for a bunch of unlistenable demos or a couple of B sides.

A perfect example of this was when Judas Priest re-released their entire back catalogue a decade or so ago, the extras were so laughably bad I didn't bother. There was barely an EP's worth of unreleased material spread out over something like 9 albums. When you have a live song recorded in 1986 being touted as bonus extra material from an album released 1978 I think it's fair to say they're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Stick a free live concert CD with it and I might be interested.

The recent vinyl reissue of Slint's Spiderland was a good buy. I think it's the perfect example.
Featured a documentary and a little book.

I picked up some of the deluxe editions of the Radiohead album a while back and with all the b-day, live recording and others I thought the price was justified while I think something like the new Opera which included a different mix is a complete ripoff. The new Wilco box set looks awesome though. But I say something significant should be included or else there is really no point to buy it.

Bands like Radiohead are a good shout because they're b-sides and non-album singles are very valuable in their own right. The Daily Mail is one of my favourite tracks by them, and going back, Bishop's Robes was as good as many of the songs on The Bends.

Of course I'm partial, but I like the way Jimmy is handling it with the new Zep stuff. Completely remastered using all new technology and hardware and including bonus live tracks and/or different mixes of the well known tunes.

Led Zeppelin Reissue Program Continues With Deluxe Editions of Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy Produced and Newly Remastered by Jimmy Page, Each With Previously Unreleased Companion Audio

i have mixed feelings about it..

On the one hand im thankful for them, I got into the pixies through the "Death to the pixies" album which had a compilation of their best studio tracks plus a Live cd

But in the other hand if i already know the band and their rare tracks im not gonna buy some especial edition album just for those tracks.

Im not really a collector of anything so i usually don't care about buying box sets or anything like that.

In these days of itunes and being able to buy single tracks it's not so relevant, but I used to be annoyed when a band or artiste I liked released an album with extra tracks that were only available in, say, US or Japan. Short of paying mad prices at the time to get a shop to import the album specially, you couldn't get these songs, unless you knew someone in those countries and they bought it for you and sent it over.

I don't get why an European release of an album is often different to that released in the US or other country. I'm also not a collector per se --- used to have a huge vinyl collection (well, still do but I don't collect it anymore) but even then I only bought albums I wanted, not special editions. Even now I'll baulk at paying a few extra cents for extra tracks I may not want, ESPECIALLY bloody live versions of the tracks that are on the album, or acoustic or "demo" versions. Just don't see the point. I can see how collectors would but not me.

Of course nobody's forced to buy anything, but sometimes peer pressure, espeically in younger people, might lead to questions like "Oh you only have the STANDARD edition of album X? You didn't buy the special collector's edition?" with the customary disdainful sniff. Not so much now again, but back then.

I simply though do not get how a band's catalogue can be released time and time and time again in almost the very same lineup as "greatest hits" collections, and people buy them? Really: that Eagles I spoke of? I think the only difference in the two, released a year or so apart, was the colour of the CD case. Honestly. Are people that stupid/dedicated/desperate?