There was a time, probably peaking 8 years ago, but running up until say, mid 2005, where I would buy most of the discs that I wanted to here, and payed special attention to things that were, to me, deemed Mongerous and especially those Stones related.

This related to me being one of 9 people in the free world to own this album:



Now, I didn't stop buying records because I stopped liking music, stopped loving all things Mong or because life/economic circumstances shifted my priorities -- I stopped because leaks and blogs made buying music I wanted to hear less of a priority.

So, apparently, after the smashing success of Pay Pack and the burgeoning music purchasing market, a label has put out this:



which is essentially a remixed, and reordered version of the previous album that was itself buried for almost 25 years after the original sessions.

I guess my question is - with product like this, how do they ever expect to stay relevant/profitable?

is there something about the business I am not getting?

GAR,

the best answer I can think of is that with the death of most physical music product within sight, labels are scrambling to release "vault" records that they own all the rights to and can turn a slight profit with little promotion or money spent on production.

That said, this record and its masters should have been buried or set on fire

I thought about this, but I would think that the market for something like this is so fucking limited that they would spend more to produce it than they would make in profit.

Someone had to design the packaging, etc...

I'm sure that emi has people on retainer or salary just churning this shit out...

also, your scenario is pretty much right and this is one of the reasons why the industry is in the fucking toilet

The people at its helms are deluded.

Personally I think it's an awesome album, and most people are slagging it off without ever hearing a note of it. Having said that, it was a little surprising to see it re-released, shocked really. I can see when they gussy up a Dennis Wilson solo album with a certain cult-following, but this? Frankly I bet more people own that Shaggs album or some remarkably shitty insanity rock like Daniel Johnston than Pay Pack.

I'm pretty happy that I used to take enough drugs to think that Pay Pack sounded normal.

New Sig.

You guys realize it's been 8 years since that Phillips record came out?

I mean, this is just an age old industry trick of repackage, resell. We're living in an age where bands have re-issued or remastered albums that came out only 3 years ago.

I guess Gar's real question is was there really a demand for this? The only answer I can think of is that the record people felt that at relative inexpensive cost of re-issuing this with the "original 70's mix" plus some bonus tracks they could turn a small profit from collectors, music geeks, or completists. I'm sure they have a list of hundreds of albums they can give this treatment to and possibly turn a profit, however small.

If so, that's a sad statement on the record industry. Then again, Phillips was so fucked up then that he probably gave the record company all the rights to the music and it could be 100% profit with none of it going to Phillips' estate.

The record companies continue to hemorrhage money and these kinds of deals could be some last gasp efforts at milking artists. Lord knows that most quality bands continue to work outside of their reach and using other methods to get their music out there.

Also, I don't necessarily bemoan the death of the music industry. The big boys certainly dug their own graves and cemented a special place in hell decades ago but with the advent of the internet I do think the record buying experience has lost something.

Remember New Release Tuesdays?

That idea seems so antiquated now that it's sad. These days a record has been heard, reviewed, hyped, and backlashed against before the official release date even arrives.

FWIW, I still enjoy going to the record store and picking up the physical copy of something even if I don't do it near as much as I used to.

Me too, I'm going to buy that new Cracker album today.

In terms of CDs, short runs are the way to go until we can get a basically lossless, relatively compact electronic music file (probably within 5 years), and then I figure they'll go the way of the dodo bird.

A short run can still pay for itself pretty easily (per disc cost maxes out at $4-$5 but is usually around $3), particularly if you can do preorders or have a good enough sense of demand. I'm sure with something like this they pressed a very small amount.

While we're bemoaning music industry woes, I'm currently trying to figure out how to configure my site to sell mp3s without having to pay a third party vendor a portion of each sale right now. Any suggestions would be mucho welcome.

Gar, I own Pay Pack too so I imagine you're substantially underestimating the success of that album at least a little bit. Pay Pack is actually the Phillips remixed versions of those songs. The original Keef and Mick produced versions were discovered in 2003, two years after the Pay Pack album got released. These are those original versions plus bonus tracks.

I'd probably rather have this version than Pay Pack but that said, I haven't considered it worth buying since I already own Pay Pack. Finally, this isn't really a case of a label reissuing, repackaging and milking dry any possible revenue out of an artist. Pussycats and Pay Pack were released by different labels.

Personally, I'm glad that there are these reissue specialist labels. I've found alot of good shit that I would never have found through reissues. I still buy a lot of cds (probably about 50 this year) and most of them are reissues like this one.

Shouldn't the tread be re-titled "A thread about the record industry?" and that's an over generalization in the context of esoterica in this thread.

Add something to the discussion or get the fuck out Stu.