Entertainment For Lively Minds
Bingo! CD price rip off!
I wandered into HMV at lunchtime and saw the latest Steve Miller cd, Bingo! They have 2 digipack versions: at £9.99 you get the bog standard, 10-song version. For a mere £12.99 you get a 14-song version with especially extended liner notes by the man himself*.
Bingo? Rip off!
I'm not going to get into a quality / quantity debate about a short 10-song album. But both these digipacks were a 1 cd package. The second one appears to have some jumbo packaging built in. In a day and age when we're supposed to be environmentally sensitive, why on earth is someone going to pay £3 for some packaging? And most of all: as it's only 1 cd in whichever digipack, why can't we all get the 14-song version? It must actually put up manufacturing costs to split the production like this.
I don't know if artists like Steve know this is happening or if they encourage, merely endorse or argue against it. I have a thing about sound quality and prefer CD's over MP3 files. In the last year, though, I've taken to buying £5 albums from legitimate download sites or waiting for the CD to drop into "2 for £10" land. When shops and record companies are running this kind of rip-off, it's no wonder CD sales are falling and royalties are drying up.
* BTW, it's £8.99 on Amazon so go there if you want it.
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Cover art
This reminds me an awful lot
of this
The new Christina Aguilera album might be the first time ever in the history of the universe were the deluxe edition with the extra disc is authentically worth buying (it has some of the best songs on it that the record company supposedly exiled as they were too weird, allegedly, for her mainstream audience).
Reminded me a little of this as well
Definitely has all the hallmarks of a Hipgnosis design.
A story as old as time
My guess is that the "jumbo" version is intended as a limited edition to get his fanbase to buy the album in the first few weeks of release and possibly secure a chart position, rather than wait until it ends up in the sales a few months later...
As discussed here many times, when any album you want to buy will be on Amazon or iTunes effectively forever, the industry still needs to try and incentivise and front-load their sales campaigns to make the most of their marketing budgets, and this is one way they go about it, though this example doesn't sound like an especially good deal (in contrast, Marc Almond's new album came out last week with a limited bonus CD of 7 brand new songs, which was worth an extra £2 to me.)
(And yes, that sleeve has Hipgnosis written all over it.)
I suspect you're right
but it still perplexes me that the strategy is to over-charge the loyal early buyer. I suspect it also means they'll end up with a bunch of remaindered discs as well. Surely it would be better to attract the fan base and the wavering buyers by putting out a lower priced version early doors to get the momentum going, i.e. rewarding and not punishing their loyalty? We've blogged about it in the past but this seems like yet another example of the industry simply committing suicide.
yeap
it's one of Storm's - http://www.stormthorgerson.com/
This is referenced on it as well
EDIT: It's just clicked! The whole sleeve is a Bingo card for Hipgnosis-spotters. Mr Thorgerson is having a leetle joke with us.
Not spotting any other specific references so far...
... though it's exactly the sort of thing Storm would do...
I can't believe it's a coincidence that there are bears, pears and a chair in the air, though...
From the horse's mouth...
... or at least from the catalogue of the current Storm exhibition (http://gallery.ideageneration.co.uk/resources/0000/0315/Storm_Thorgerson...):
“We saw Steve Miller playing a concert in Oakland exchanging riffs with 2 different guitarists on 2 different songs and it made us think of multiple exchanges between different types of instruments in different types of music - rock, jazz and blues - as a common, if not fundamental factor, a bit like exchanging rhymes. Our design tries to visually represent this ‘duelling’ using cowboys in a cowboy town, exchanging not bullets from guns but using objects that sound the same (pear, chair, teddy bear) or look the same (circles), known to us as Rhyming Showdown and apt as Steve comes from Texas.”
I'm just intrigued
(and delighted) to see a cricket ball* on the cover of a Steve Miller album...
Keep on Hook'n Me, anyone?
*EDIT: Explained by Stimpy above. Thanks, Stimps!
The pricing makes me think
"Take The Money And Run" while the cricket analogy would be just "Take The Run."
Brian-tastic
Slightly off-topic but, awful packaging aside, HMV currently has the 3-CD Stones' 'London Years' 58 track collection for £10.
There's your value for money and it's (almost) the only Stones' stuff you'll ever really need.
All the 60s CDs are £6 n'all!!!
Ooh I saw that as well
Very tempting. If not for the fact that I have nary two farthings to my name at the moment.
Just don't see the problem ...
For the 10 track Cd you pay 99p per track for what are presumably the best 10 tracks. If you want 4 more you pay less - 92p per track - and get a better/bigger box. If you don't fancy either, save your dosh or buy something else.
Agreed
I'd hardly call it a rip-off. CDs and music in general are underpriced, in my opinion, and it's currently cheaper than it has ever been.
Packaging...
There's a difference between "environment unfriendly" packaging (like the useless layers of cardboard that came with The Beatles' 'Capitol Albums' boxes, all repeating the same design...), and a booklet with more pages of content.
As Elvis said, "It's not a matter of life or death, ...what is, what is?!"