Quote:
Originally Posted by IntlDebris
Yeah, to be honest, the whole multiple-formats thing has basically rendered the album charts meaningless these days too. I know it's pretty much the only way labels can justify even putting out physical stuff these days, but I actually loathe the fact that they're taking advantage of completist fans by churning out multiple versions that will mostly just sit on shelves, never listened to. That level of collecting is great if people are tracking down alternate versions that have come about accidentally (foreign versions with different art and tracklists, running order different to fit on the cassette, etc.), but when they're just being made as identical but on a different colour piece of plastic, purely because they know there are people who'll feel compelled to buy them, I can't imagine taking any pride in that at all. Congratulations on having more obsessive, neurodivergent fans than another band, great stuff.
This isn't just a dig at the Manics, but the entire record industry at the moment, even a lot of indies do it and I fucking hate it. It also totally skews vinyl sales, so we don't really have a clue how many people are buying it, just that it's selling lots, partially because most releases will have hundreds of people shelling out for five musically identical versions.
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I quite like the way Relapse Records do a lot of their releases. They have maybe 4 or 5 vinyl colour ways of an album, all really cool, and they have a certain number of each (206 of one, 542 of another etc), which you know before buying. They’re pretty good at telling roughly how well the album will sell, so there tends to be enough to go round. But I’ve never felt compelled to buy all the different versions. I think it’s because I get to choose my preferred version, be it colour, or its number, or both, it satisfies the collecting urge in one go.
Obviously with ‘bigger bands’ these things get more diluted or complicated, so it not always easy. But hopefully the industry might find a happy medium.