I was originally planning on posting a review of Neil Diamond's latest album, Home Before Dark. But I was distracted (not a hard thing to do considering the subject matter; more on that later this week) just yesterday evening and damn near sh#t myself at what I saw. No, it was not an attractive woman demanding my attentions to satisfy her lustful wants. It was not a set of winning lottery numbers written in blood on my bathroom mirror. It most certainly was not a Zeta Reticulan (grey alien) in a Hawaiian shirt asking for directions to Woodstock.
It was the prices on the Dead Can Dance reissues.
First, a couple notes. I f#cking love Dead Can Dance. They have been mentioned several times in this blog as being a shining example of contemporary musical beauty. Also, I have been on the edge of my seat since hearing their albums were going to be remastered and reissued in hybrid SACD format (disregarding the fact that I don't have a SACD-capable CD player... yet). These fancy hybrid reissues are to be packaged in mini-LP style sleeves, mimicking the original vinyl packages with complete liner notes and lyrics, etc. This was beautiful news; I could not wait until they reached the retailers. 4AD had them scheduled for a June 2nd release, at least for Europe.
Over the past month or so, I have taken to checking both the 4AD website and Amazon.com for news or postings about these reissues, since I have only three albums on CD as it stands right now (I have all the original albums on my computer, thanks to friends that hopped the DCD Train long before I had ever heard of them). 4AD's site didn't show much change, but just last night, I dug around Amazon. Amazement! American release dates on all 9 releases (Garden of The Arcane Delights is being issued separately, like it was originally on vinyl)! July 22nd is the date. But, there was a lurking misery.
They want $20 each (except Within The Realm of A Dying Sun, which is $16.99 for some anomalous reason). All of them. Including Garden of The Arcane Delights. Mind you Garden of The Arcane Delights is an EP. A four track EP, and it's 20 f#cking bucks! 15 minutes of music, and 20... f#ck... sh#t.... GRRRAAAAAAAA! CHRIS SMASH!
Here's the kicker. 4AD said there was a possibility of a box set. While the record label is still tight-lipped on that, Amazon offers us an import box set of all 9 discs for the low, low price of (**drum roll**) $315.99. Yeah. No kidding. Although, this is labeled as being SACD only, not SACD hybrid, which makes little sense since I was led to believe the reissues were to be all hybrid. Bad product description? Possibly. EDIT: This particular box set might be the Japanese import version.
Am I flipping out excessively here? Yes, Dead Can Dance is one of the most innovative and singularly amazing music acts to emerge from the 1980s. Yes, Amazon has the tendency to change their prices week by week; there's the distinct possibility that, as the time between first posting and release day shortens, the price will drop dramatically. It's not uncommon; hell, they do that with such frequency that it barely warrants mention, but sometimes warrants frustration when the price change is not in your favor.
At one point, when discussing the reissues with Kevin (from Swing the Heartache), I accused the band of being money-spinners whose output hasn't changed in a decade. Now, I love this band, don't have many of their albums, and had been looking forward to these reissues since the news was released. But, I, like most of my readers, am damn near flat broke. I probably wouldn't have cared what the price was if I were swimming in disposable income. Where are we supposed to get the money for this? One idea I have kicked around is saying, "f#ck the remastered editions" and buying the original CD issues either used or unopened (believe it or not, there are still unopened copies of the original editions floating around). Another is boiling a hot dog, forgetting what I was worked up about, and wandering off to do something else since I have the attention span of a hummingbird that mistook a cup of espresso for a nectar-filled flower.
Time will tell. This rant may have been for naught considering the factors involved. In the meantime, I'll be getting caffeinated and hurriedly throwing together posts when I should be doing something that earns me a living so I can afford these sorts of things.
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3 comments:
That is simply a disgusting amount of money for old music. And 20 dollars for four songs I already have on a CD that has the entire first album as well and that I probably bought for 14 or 15 bucks back in the day.
And no hybrid? Only for SACD players?
Ah, fuck it.
for $20 each, i'll track down the original vinyls. i still kick myself for passing the garden of arcane delights EP in some shitty record store in NYC when i was visiting in 2001 or so. then again, if i had bought it, it might very well have been destroyed, so i guess everything worked out.
kla*: Only that one box set which I'm pretty sure is from Japan, where SACD actually took off instead of being a commercial failure like everywhere else; everything loose is hybrid. Yeah, pretty disgusting anyway. I'm still keeping my eye on 4AD's website to see what happens from them.
frankie teardrop: I suppose it all did work out.
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