“Politicalizer Money Vocabulizer” by Fabian | Atlanta
Today is a day off from work, but I am taking the time on this dreaded Black Friday to post a link I enjoyed reading on The Guardian last week, because when the electrodes have been applied to the consumption centers of our brains, there’s no time like the present to review just how far off the tracks pop music has careened in these, the end times! The rise of the hyper-limited edition, elite rock product began with the exploitation of the Classic Rock audience, which makes sense, since Baby Boomers probably have what little money the industry can suck down in the times we live in.
Now, we have 19 disc Dead Or Alive boxes and the time is rapidly approaching [already here] when cult acts have $100+ issues of their back catalog to siphon the most money from the least audience in defiance of the egalitarian origins of pop music. I’ve posted for years on the essential wrongness of this trend, and it was gratifying to finally see someone else picking up on my same sense of outrage. The Guardian story ran recently and can be found here, as written by John Harris. For a reminder of my stance on the same topic, you could always click here. If I had a nose full of nickels from all of the music related Black Friday email I received today [all of it unopened and trashed] I might even be able to afford one of these Boxed Sets Of Mammon but purchase would have to wait for another day. On Black Friday… just say no.
-30-
Post-Punk Monk 
I’m a big fan of just making your own deluxe edition. I have little interest in dropping money on a box set that often has duplicated content, a disc of 7” edits, formats that I am not going to use (SACD, vinyl) and frou frou that I just plain don’t need (posters, autographs, pins, t-shirts).
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Yes, saw this and agreed. Funny, a £1.50 charity shop CD can often bring more enjoyment than some bells and whistles box set extravaganza. It’s the music in the end…
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I follow SDE on Facebook just for the insanity of some of this stuff.
About a month ago the site’s author was having a snit because a UK grocery store chain is selling vinyl and he couldn’t find a copy of a white vinyl ”Welcome to the Pleasuredome” anywhere in the chain. I How many copies of WTTPD does a person need and I so badly wanted to leave a comment asking if he could tell us all how the music sounds different once he buys his precious white vinyl edition. First freaking world problems.
This week he reviewed the new Sting SDE. Yes, we’re doing SDE’s for albums not only right out of the gate but albums that aren’t even any good! Shouldn’t this sort of thing be relegated to career retrospectives or albums that defined a time or genre?
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Tim – Well, SDE did great work indeed on the It’s Immaterial CD and I am sorely tempted to get that upcoming Sam Brown box, but he’s just working that branding where Sting’s concerned. If I went “commercial” with PPM could it be that you’d see mereviewing Sting DLX RMs? I shudder to think!
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Yes, I enjoy SDE but agree re the first world problems of supermarket vinyl shopping:)
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I am very choosy on my box sets and deluxe editions (except for Bowie stuff, shut up and take my money!) but I have made it a habit over the past decade or so not to buy anything at all on Black Friday. I managed to get a sweet deal on an SVHS machine the last time I was foolish enough to get up at 4AM and stand out in the “cold” (Florida, so perhaps a shade on the cool side) for a BF sale. I don’t even buy things online on BF just to make the point. I can’t avoid being a consumer, but I can avoid being a mindless one.
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chasinvictoria – “I can’t avoid being a consumer, but I can avoid being a mindless one.” Cut it. Print it!! LOVE IT!!!
I remember that S-VHS deck! I think you’re talking… what? 1990?!
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