I've certainly slowed down my "new" record buying. John Grant and Mary Gauthier aside, most of my recent purchases have been either compilations or back catalogue.

As Rob Fitzpatrick suggests in his review of the new Iron Maiden album released this week, do I really need another one?

I have a connected question that I have begun to wonder about. If the likes of Elton John or Paul McCartney were to release a new record tomorrow, would they get the money back in sales that it costs to make?

I can't think where in Gower Street it would be - it's all offices except for that Waterstones. Do tell.

... is it only the music industry that operates this model? If I went into Waterstone to buy one of Ian McEwan's early novels, say, I suspect it would be exactly the same price as his latest. It might be a quid or two less on Amazon, but the book business doesn't seem to view 'back catalogue' as being so disposable.

Back in the dim and distant past, when I started buying records, I would go to the shop with a specific aim - "Next" by SAHB, and later the new Ramones album, or whatever. As the years went by, I would potter in to record shops and mooch around more often.

For many years, Fopp sold great jazz CDs from IMPULSE! at £3 or £4. So I bought loads of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Oliver Nelson. My thoughts on setting out changed from "I should get 'Ballads' " to "I should get whatever they've got cheap on Impulse!". Instead of spending £20 on 2 new CDs, I would buy 4 or 5 bargain ones. I bought loads of soul and funk too, lots of old Miles Davis, Neil Young - based on whatever was a bargain, stockpiling stuff. I have got some great bargains there down the years - a Sun box set that was originally £150 for £10, a Byrds set from £50 to £10, Cheap Trick box from £40 to £7 - that went back up the next day.

So now I will happily go and browse to see what they have. DH mentioned Dr John - I did buy one of his more recent CDs not long after release, for about £8, because I really wanted to hear it. But for most bands, I know that they will soon enough be £3 in Fopp : I'll buy it when its cheap if it looks interesting. As Fat Freddy taught us, music will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no money.

Most of these Classic Artists have an established fanbase. The artist could release an album of the sound them scratching their arse and pissing in a bucket and The Fans would buy it unquestioningly, the continuing story of The Fall proving this point admirably. I suspect that the New Release is of no interest to anyone apart from The Fans whilst the attractively-priced back-catalogue is a way of snaring the gosh-I'll-have-that-it's-cheap-and-they're-supposed-to-be-quite-good browser. How many of these impulse purchases remain in the rack, unlistened to? Does the artist care? They've shifted a few more units of an album which has covered production costs and is, hence, probably more profitable, even at the reduced price, than the sale of the new disc.

... to the cheap back catalogue thing. When I was younger, I bought very few 'proper' albums. I did buy a lot of compilations, though. That was partly down to having less disposable income, but mainly down to the fact that I could pick up all the tracks I wanted on one CD, as opposed to buying several and taking a risk with all the other stuff I hadn't heard on the albums. Now, I'm much more likely to buy lots of an artist's back catalogue, because they're available for silly prices online, or in places like Fopp. The risk of wasting money taking a punt on an album you haven't heard before is much reduced if it's £3. It's great in the sense that I'm listening to more albums, and taking more risks in the kind of things I buy.

The downside is that, subconsciously, my perception of what an album is actually *worth* has gone down considerably. It's rare that I'll pay full whack for a CD any more - the last time I did that was with the special edition of The Divine Comedy's 'Bang Goes The Knighthood', at least partly because it was hard to come by online, so I ventured into HMV to snag a copy. Before that, it must have been a year or more since I paid anything close to £10 for an album - I've simply waited for sales, special deals, or bought the download version of an album for a much reduced price.

But as far as an artist's back catalogue vs. their new stuff goes - the older stuff appeals more, partly because it's usually better, but also because it's cheaper. I've been buying old Elvis Costello albums of late, but I haven't been touching the newer stuff...

Is it bigger than the one at Cambridge Circus?

Since I moved away from London Fopp is one of the things I miss the most, not that I have bought much the last few times I visited. I get my fix when we visit the in-laws in Edinburgh, but I occasionally have spare time when I'm attending meetings in London, so which one is best to head for?

I have visions of a shop filled with assistants, all wearing powdered wigs, waving lace handkerchiefs and using smelling-salts whenever a customer asks for a Justin Bieber CD.

so I shall tell you all what I bought in Fopp on my trip to London a week ago:

Prefab Sprout - The Best of Prefab Sprout
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Weld
Robert Wyatt - Shleep (Domino reissue)
The Ramones - Ramones Mania
Sly and the Family Stone - Greatest Hits
Neil Young - Dreamin' Man Live '92

All for around £25. Ridiculous!

Agree with the general gist of your post David but with regard to Dr. John i think his new album Tribal is top drawer and certainly better than at least 2 of the 5 cd set. I buy as much new stuff as old and iof anything places like FOPP encourage me to do so. Amazon had a 3 cd Nelson Riddle era Frank Sinatra disc for £3.99 - now thats a bargain.

I remember the bitter arguments about the high prices of cd's which in real terms is not that long ago. Now we are bemoaning the fact that they are virtually given away? Dont we live in an odd world?

Name me an act who has made more than six albums where the latest album is one of their best three. Go on. I dare you.

when you can reform, repackage, re-release and tour the hits? The back catalogue can be a gold mine too.

...they're not losing out if you buy a classic album at £4. For the retailer the margins are higher than for a chart album. Why? If you're buying a chart CD at £8 you know the retailer has bought it for £7 and has decided to make a loss on it.

Yer £4 CD in Fopp, on the other hand...

Fact.

that artists who got famous with albums a quarter of a century ago are incapable of matching their former glories. This notion seems to be espoused everywhere so I guess i am in the minority in thinking otherwise.

Costellos new album is going to be very good indeed if the songs he played from it on his recent tour are anything to go by.
Eels have made 2 recent albums as good as his earlier stuff.
Flaming Lips last album Embryonic (disregarding the Dark side of the moon release which wasn't supposed to be official)is better than the ones that made them famous.
Alejandro Escovedo has arguably made the best album of his career this year and the aforementioned Dr.John album is his best in years.
Lucinda Williams hasn't made a better album than Car Wheels but her last 2 were better than the rest.
Likewise Emmylou Harris has made better albums in last decade than she did in the previous 3 but has the millstone of Boulder to Birmingham and her association with a dead legend hanging round her neck.

After Spotify, MySpace and illegal downloading (for which they recieve nothing) and YouTube and streaming (for which they receive a pittance) and being on a major record label (for which they will have to put up with all these things and pay for the privilege)... is cheap back catalogue another of the rock star's worst enemies?

To which the answer would be yes. Am I alone in noticing a drift in The Word's editorial towards the general all round benevolence and good nature of the major record companies? You have a growing tendency to mention their huge investment in new artists and promotion of new records as a good reason why they "want to get their money back", although you seem curiously unaware of the masive drop in that investment in the last five years. Just to offer an alternative vision - Sony, EMI, Warners and Universal made hideous, unfathomable profits from their recording sections for more than 50 years and treated the overwhelming majority of their artists appallingly. If you have bad and explotative businesses practices it will eventually bite you on the arse. Giving away the artist's back catalogue is simply arranging the deckchairs.

After his cynicism was pleasingly rebuffed.
My votes...
Automatic For The People was REM's eigth album; I prefer New Adventures In Hi-Fi, their 10th, while Accelerate (No 14) is better than Reckoning and Fables Of The Reconstruction, for me.
If you count the mini-albums Cherry Tree and Virginia, then High Violet is The National's seventh album.
Squeeze's Some Fantastic Place, album No 10, is the best of the lot.
And didn't Mr H himself imply that the Pete Seeger covers record was as good as anything Springsteen had done?

Re the books vs music biz comparison earlier.
If you pick the right location you'll find most recently published or 'modern classic' novels in many an oxfam or other charity shop. Not so music, because of the re-sell demand for secondhand/rare recordings caused by ebay or 'record collector' type 'merchants' or the floor-level pricing of mass remaindered stock.
Ian McEwan's catalogue stuff was probably the last books I happily paid full price for that weren't gifts for others or sudden impulse purchases.
I bought an array of albums by Doctor John when he was 'in profile' here in the UK via his Parlophone deal / collaborative efforts around 2000. I didn't expect to pay that much for them because I wasn't sure what to expect from the material and he may well have seen little of the income from them anyway. Gris Gris had a critical reputation but much of his other earlier stuff literally was catalogue recordings of his pieces as they were thought likely to become covered for other artists and so gain money from publishing rather than original sales.
I would suggest that intellectual property should revert to the artist concerned for a short 'grace' period if still extant/gigging/studied academically say, 30 years after production. a sort of valedictory lap of honour re-release for benevolent purposes. A bit like the fiddler selling their instrument on retirement.
I'm sure this would be a huge pain in the arse for royalty admin etc but I don't want to hear how some noted artist was robbed blind by their deal or manager in the beginning and so will not tour their old material unless they see good interest in their latest 'moon sausage' product, which is normally massively more costly than their 'back of a fag packet' penned meisterwerk was originally.
Ideally for the consumer it should not 'be about the money' it should be a treasured work that is a pleasure to the senses. For the artist it should not be a naive embarassment, they should be honest, eg "I re-recorded some of my catalogue to do it justice AND to have one over on my previous label who dis-regard my work gathering dust on their shelves"
Re the original point raised by DH, go to your library and borrow all that you can or request they find a copy from another library. Music has 6 months sales priority before it is allowed in libraries and I'm sure the same is true of books.

The Mumford and Sons 'Sigh No More' in the local BHF emporium this morning for two quid. Not that I bought it in any case. There are always a fair smattering of new pop\ rock titles in the shops I frequent.

Some people just can't be bothered to sell a bog standard CD for a couple of quid to your local cash convertors or on Ebay.

'New' music may be pushing the envelope a bit (and I don't look for it) but there's no reason why anyone couldn't sustain themselves on what they find in charity shops on CD (and vinyl/cassette) in 2010.
Not to my taste admittedly, but the whole of U2, Blur, Madonna, Prince, REM and Manic Street Preachers' back catalogues are currently on an Oxfam/YMCA/PDSA shelf near you for a dollar an item.
Indeed, I haven't been near a charity shop for three years that hasn't got either 'Everything Must Go' or the follow up available for 99p or less.
Music (i.e. stuff you can actually feel and hold) has never been cheaper.

Porcupine Tree have been getting better and better over the last 20 years and their latest album "The Incident" is a stunner.

and everytime i get down to that big old london town i always call in. Last time i picked up the Little Feat original album series in a slipcase for £12. Five albums (Little Feat,Sailin' Shoes,Dixie Chicken,Feats Don't Fail Me Now and The Last Record Album). I call that a bargain etc etc..............