Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Online music services offer the potential to alleviate one of my great annoyances with record labels - the scam of re-issuing albums with “improved” sound quality or a couple of additional tracks. Take Miles Davis’s classic “Kind of Blue” - should I really have to pay full price for the re-issue that adds ONE track? With online sales, I can purchase that track a la carte. Other albums that I own have been given this treatment of late - Coltrane’s “Blue Train” and Ellington’s “Far East Suite.” I will not be buying either of them in CD form. If I want the additional tracks, I’ll legally purchase them online. I’m not going to pay again for music I already have.

For remastered albums, I’d like to see a credit system implemented, giving you the updated version in its entirety for only a dollar or two if you have already purchased a prior release. I’m willing to pay a few extra bucks for a remastered version because that process takes a hell of a lot more work than simply releasing alternate takes.

Verve, Blue Note, and Columbia are particularly guilty of this, slowly releasing the massive amount of material they have in their vaults while charging full price for the recordings. With the costs of musician and studio personnel time and cover art design already paid, why do they feel it is okay to charge as much as for completely new recordings?

I wonder how badly they are going to try to screw consumers over with DVD-Audio . . .