Annabel Lamb: Once Bitten – NL – CD [2021]
- Once Bitten
- Take Me In Your Arms
- Heartland
- Hold Fast
- Backwards Through The Looking Glass
- Dividing the Spoils of Love
- Red For Danger
- Snake Pliskin
- Missing
- No Cure
Well this certainly came out of nowhere! I was poking around at the New Wave Outpost Forum when I notice that one member had posted a thread revealing that “Once Bitten” was now out on CD. I had made my own 2xCD-R of the title in 2016 with the plethora of non-LP material surrounding this album on a second disc. To date; there is only a Euro compilation CD of material from this album and her second one [1984’s “The Flame”] as well as a full Cherry Red DLX RM of “The Flame” from 2009 which is now two solid figures. I have both of those so I’m in the cross hairs for a copy of this one.
I saw that the first UK version of the album was the one that the Dutch Music On CD label was issuing. “Once Bitten” was later reissued in the UK and issued in America in a 2nd, different configuration. The cover was completely different and a heavy New Wave cover of “Riders On The Storm” was swapped out for “Red For Danger.” The Doors cover single added later was Ms. Lamb’s biggest chart splash, so issuing the original UK LP without it was a surprising move.
After seeing this news, I went to the Music On CD website, and read the copy on the disc page while my jaw dropped at my own words being read on the screen. there was only a single paragraph, but some intern had scraped my 2010 post on the desire to make a CD of this album and had taken a few sentences to plug into their page copy. To wit.
I’m not sure what to make of this. I don’t know if a DMCA takedown notice is called for or not. But anyone could make the argument that I grab images off the web willy-nilly here at PPM. It’s true. But once I got a single DMCA takedown on a photo I had used, and now I am very skittish about using images that are clearly not intentional promo. I often waste a third of my lunch hour trying to find images which are clearly promo images. I am annoyed that the thought was to simply take what they wanted without at least asking first. I would have been happy to give then 400-500 words gratis. The first half of their copy wastes enormous space name dropping R.E.M. and Madonna and saying nothing about the artist!
So there’s that.
On the other hand, the CD is already in the hands of fans and I’m reading complaints that it’s not mastered from a master tape, but instead from vinyl. This gives me pause. Not only because I have already done that, but even so, I would still likely want to own a glass mastered CD that will never deteriorate like even an archival CD-R can. But the notion makes spending upwards of $30 from a CD shipped from The Netherlands that might actually sound worse than my own CD-R is dispiriting. Right now I’m in a holding pattern. Your mileage may vary, and if it does, then here’s the link to buy your own personal copy below. At the very least, one hopes that Ms. Lamb will be seeing coin from the sale of her efforts via this release.
-30-
![REVO Remastering: Spandau Ballet – Canon boxed set [REVO 045]](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/spandau-ballet-canonbsoga.jpg?resize=200%2C200)
Post-Punk Monk 
I know your frustration, but (IMHO anyway) the world is already too litigious by several orders of magnitude. The words are out there, and a snip here and borrow there could much more positively be construed as “influence” as opposed to “theft” – particularly when the material is from a public blog anyway. If there was reason to believe that the pinched sentence fragments actually affected their bottom line (that is, materially increased the unit sales) on this CD, that would be one thing, but…. come on, he’s selling an Annabel Lamb CD, and prolly even sending her some of the proceeds – should we really do anything to discourage such an awesome good deed?
My $0.02 – YMMV
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This is plagiarism. No need to sue or anything, but send them a note requesting that they revise their advertisement to include their own language. Theft is theft. Keep them on their toes. Reinforce that they have done wrong, discourage them from doing so again. Getting away with a small thing emboldens thieves to go for bigger targets.
This sort of thing is becoming normalized and even rationalized in our digital culture. Any form of creeping normality needs to be nipped in the bud. “It’s only a little” becomes the new normal, and then we have “only a little” more on top of that, which becomes the new new norm, and so on, until we find ourselves in a dark place. What’s one more water bottle in the ocean? It’s just a little…
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JT – Good advice. Particularly since this Music On CD concern sounds dodgy. I’ve consulted with Lamb’s webmaster and he says the goods are very shoddy. Possibly not from even a fresh [or even well cared for] vinyl copy but a P2P file. MOCD/MOV seems to be a Dutch company but they are distributed by UMG, for what’s it’s worth!
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I was curious and checked the site. First album that took my interest in their catalogue was their advertising for the new live album by The Art Of Noise and noticed straightaway that they took huge parts from the text from the text on the Superdeluxeedition website! (I remembered because I ordered it from SDE’s shop)
https://musiconcd.eu/product/the-art-of-noise-noise-in-the-city-live-in-tokyo/
https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/the-art-of-noise-noise-in-the-city-live-in-tokyo-1986/
Being Dutch I find this quite painful ;-(
I have no desire no try any product from them (there are no prices on the site( ?) and a store locator)
but I wouldn’t be surprised if you received a CD-R instead of recordlabel product…..
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Fred – You are right! I was so jarred by what I saw, that I never noticed that there is no store enabled on the site to actually purchase the products! Just a store locater for The Netherlands. Weird. I have seen their sister label, Music On Vinyl releases in stores over here in The States, so I know they are at least that legitimate. I have had words with Ms. Lamb’s webmaster who assures me that the quality is very poor. It’s sad when goods I’d normally desire are compromised within an inch of their life.
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