Entertainment For Lively Minds
Erm..can I just have the music without the side salad?
"yeah but look...It lights up...HOW BOUT THAT?!"
Just over a week to go before SMiLE is finally unleashed on the world and I find myself remembering the heady days when the Pet Sounds box set came out which retailed for something in the region of 40 quid for which you got the record on Mono, remastered stereo, a few more discs of out-takes and a book. That is really all anyone needs.
SMiLE, inevitably is coming out on a variety of configurations. There is a lunatic fringe version for $6,000 which comes with a SMiLE Surfboard (entirely inappropriate since this is their least surf-tastic record...a bit like including a Beatles mop-top wig with a copy of the White Album).
There is a $700 light-up version demonstrated by the 'I Get Around' hitmaker in the clip, right down to the cheapskate £20 version which contains two CDs. There are numerous other options including signed stuff, T Shirts and so forth.
Fine, and if people want to pay stupid money for whistles, bells and tat good for them. What I have a real beef with is that I am really only interested in the music. However, in order to get the full set of music across 5 CDs you need to purchase a deluxe version for around £120. That works out at a ludicrous £24 per disc. For this you also get the same music duplicated over a Vinyl LP, a couple of 7" singles, a box and a book.
I can't afford, and don't need, any of the extras. I really just want to buy the music. I probably won't listen to the out-takes very often (how many versions of 'I Love to Say Da Da' does anyone really need to hear more than once) nevertheless I'd like the option to buy the CDs and un-bundled from the other stuff. I can't,..so, I will buy the no-frills 2 CD version and I'm afraid I will be looking to acquire other 3 CDs worth of content via foul means rather than fair.
Anyone else fed up with Box-set Frippery used to bump up the price? (TMFTL)
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I shall be getting
the box set without the lights etc. Vinyl, Cds of out-takes - all yum. the basic set is there for those not bothered. If you don't want to shell out then that's fine. But at least you get a choice of how deep the ocean is. . Just download the outakes illegally like you're going to, listen once and delete
the Smile 2 Cd edition is 12 quid from Amazon UK BTW
Hello DFB
I have an image of you typing that wearing the Bono shades you got with yr Achtung Baby box set! ;)
My issue is you don't have the option of getting the box set without the Vinyl versions. Same music, different plastic. I can't really justify £120 but I'd happily pay £50 for the 5 CD set without the duplicate Vinyl. Actually, I'd happily buy the 2 CD set and download the rest from iTunes or Amazon or whatever...but that doesn't appear to be an option either.
What
a load of bollocks. See also the impending Achtung Baby release. Sorry Bono me old mate but I'll be hitting the web for the unreleased stuff. Nice of you to include the b-sides that all the fans bought at the time in the 2 cd version and then try and charge us a small fortune for the new old.
Just paying for the packaging
I would have thought that any BB fan who would spend that amount would already have the music. The Sea Of Tunes boots have tons of Smile as do other sources.
I'm interested in what music in the new box set is totally unheard. Or has it all come out before? I would also guess at better sound quality than on the boots.
So, it could be that some nutter fans are paying for the wrapping only.
I'm a big BBs fan
but I'm not one for wading through bootlegs so it will be nice to have some selected cuts direct from the original tapes and it will be interesting to hear what they have come up with in the way of a reconstruction of SMiLE, albeit in Mono.
There is a ton of unreleased Beach Boys music in the vaults, whole albums of stuff. I'm amazed how little interest the surviving band have shown in releasing stuff...seems a bit late in the day to start trying to package Smile up really.
I'm not bothering with Achtung set
as most of the unreleased stuff has been bootlegged, have the bsides and that and the DVds not much to write home about. Decided against the Quadrophenia and Nevermind sets as could get the DVD seperately and again, lots of the rest had been released by other means.
Yes I get thats what you want from the Smile set but won't those extra 3 CDs just end up being things you never play?
These things are marketed at the saddoes (me) and we want our vinyl, replica singles and books. Leave us alone!
haha!
Well maybe, I think I've only listened to the Pet Sounds out-takes a couple of times although it did provide a piece of music that a friend of mine walked up the aisle to on her wedding day. She had the acappella version of 'Wouldn't it be Nice' and it sounded amazing.
there might be some really cool stuff on the extra CDs..I'd like the choice to buy that without having to buy all replica singles etc. then I can leave you alone ;)
Got
Pet Sounds box when it came out. Lovely thing, but i have to ponder how often i've played the sessions discs in the last decade..
The box looks lovely. It's a fantastic record. I am prone to the fetish of ownership of the rare, limite and lovely.
I will buy the double vinyl and try to ignore this exists.
A saddo writes
OK, I've just done the calculations. I've assumed that in 1967 a stereo album would have cost about £2.00 (I failed to find an actual price on the web so I had to very roughly convert US prices). That means that, at todays prices, Smile (had it been available on vinyl would have cost you about £27. Perhaps the notion of £24 a disc in the box set is an attempt to keep things as close to the original as possible!!
Apart from that, I'm with you, I think it just encourages piracy by people perfectly willing to pay what they consider a reasonable price.
I think,
in those pre-decimalisation days I'd guess that an album was less than £1:15s, (or £1:75p in decimal currency introduced in February 1971).
When I started buying albums around 1971 the range was from around £1:70 to £1:90. DeLuxe albums in gatefold sleeves tended to be the more expensive ones. The oil price shock in 1973 increased the price of vinyl and took us over the £2:00 mark.
Other Memories Are Available. Can anyone else refine these price estimates?
In 1965 a single stereo classical LP
cost 37/6 including purchase tax. Pop may have been a few shillings cheaper.
Fuzzy Warbles
I bought each of the Cds as they were released only to find that they were released in a box set with an extra volume that was unavailable as a stand alone purchase to all us loyal fans.
When I bought mine
you could buy the box and the extra discs on their own if you already had the rest of it. A thing of wonder it is too.
$6000 for three great songs and a load of fannying about...
Bargain!
Although the difference in price between the CD and.....
.....2-CD set is only about £3, I'm going for the 1967 experience and that means going for the most trimmed down version available, just like the original '60s LPs by The Beach Boys, The Beatles et al.
Like another comment above, I've hardly touched the (comparatively
cheap) 'Pet Sounds' box in a decade and, personally, I just don't 'do' boxes anyway.
However, the 'roughly as it would have been released' summer of '67 version will rarely leave my turntable for the duration of November, and I'd have saved £3, £115, $685 and/or $5,985 (delete as applicable)..... and I won't have a surf-board getting in the way of the telly.
Never really got the Beach Boys
but that surfboard looks great.
Is it on iTunes?
I noticed recently that the iTunes version of the Smiths' box set includes all the non-album b-sides that aren't available in the CD-only set. If you're really just after the music for a reasonable price that might be worth a look (all arguments over CD-versus-MP3 taken as read).
I've no problem with
buying stuff from Ian Tunes. According to the website though, the iTunes version will be the same track list as the standard 2CD version. The deluxe box set is the only way to get all 5 discs.
It seems to me that this recent spate of
super-deluxe boxes is deliberately ignoring a key market.
- Rabid fans will want the full experience including the little surfboards, bag of marbles, sunglasses etc
- Casual fans will settle for the minimalist 'album only' 2cd edition
But what about those who want all the music, including the outtakes, alternate versions, live versions etc? Going by recent events, we're supposed to buy the super-deluxe edition and bin the packaging/accessories (shades of the James May/train set anecdote).
It's just not going to happen... Credit to The Grateful Dead for being the only band I know of who always release a music-only edition of any super-deluxe sets they produce.
"Music Only" Version
I like that, There's a radical idea!
64 quid here
http://www.amazon.ca/Smile-Sessions-Box-Set-5CD/dp/B004RFYEEC/ref=sr_1_1...
Plus duty possibly.
Hmmm
maybe it'll be worth getting it sent to me mate in Vancouver and for her to send it on. No duty then.....
Glad someone else thinks this
I have bored anyone who'll listen with these very same arguments - even wrote to The Word a couple of times! This is really getting out of hand. The Springsteen Darkness box annoyed the hell out of me - remastered album + The Promise Cds were worth around, say, £20 - Documentary dvd was on telly, so you basically had to pay about £60 get the other 2 dvds and a replica notebook which was pretty unreadable anyway. The Who Live at Leeds was £80 just to get the Live at Hull discs! Makes the Beatles Mono box look a bit of a bargain.
Seems everyone is cottoning on now - Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, U2, the Who again.
Now, I know someone will say we aren't forced to buy these, but fans just want the music, and these discs cost pennies to make, so it is profiteering on a grand scale.
You are very much buying an artifact
particularly with the Boss Darkness set and I'm happy with that - its a beautiful thing. As was the bootleg of all the rest that came out shortly afterwards (6 CDs all in digipacks with posters and booklets - lovely)
http://theultimatebootlegexperience2.blogspot.com/2011/05/bruce-springst...
I'm old skool, I still love all the packaging. But I'm not buying all the ones I want if I think I won't play em more than the once. I'm not THAT mad
"I even wrote to the Word" - now steady on! There are limits.....