How About Another Reason I Hate The Music Industry?
Let’s see, last week The Police reminded me that I hate exclusivity deals. Earlier today I discovered U2 knows how to fuck up a perfectly good re-release opportunity. What else am I pissed off about? Oh, I know!
It’s pretty stupid to take a title that a lot of people will want and make it available in only one spot. Dumber still is to take an album and make it available basically every-fucking-where except in the United States. Such is — again — the fate of Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell’s duet record.
I had to import Ballad of The Broken Seas last year when no US distribution was immediately announced. Eventually US distribution was secured, but not before I’d paid a pretty hefty markup to get the record shipped to me here, which is why I didn’t immediately spring for the sequel to Ballad, Sunday at Devil Dirt. I was sure it would soon have US distribution, so I held off. Until this morning.
Once again, I’m paying a premium — although not as much as I paid for Ballad — because music executives still haven’t found a way to consistently make music available to people willing to pay for it.
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not wrong. I could be sending a stronger message to these assholes if I’d stop supporting them with my money. Of course that means not being able to listen to the music I want and need. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The way I see it — rationalize it — is that we’re all going to get shit on and I can either get shit on with Sunday at Devil Dirt or without it. This morning, I finally chose with. I’m sure it was the right call.
Filed under: Tags: Mark Lanegan
“What else am I pissed off about? ”
Oh, i thought it was that Bruce was playing the next Super Bowl
Lanegan again proves he loves his fans.
This isn’t Lanegan’s fault; he does these duet records with Campbell on her label. It’s her label that doesn’t have US distribution secured.
Things have slowly regressed back to the way they were 15-20 years ago. Just when we got to the point when almost nothing wasn’t being released everywhere at the same time, the bottom starts falling out of the market. Now we’re right back where we were – watching releases come out and there’s no telling if they’re going to see a release in different territories or not. And there’s an even bigger worry – that you’ll buy the expensive import and then the US version will come out, which you can usually ignore, but they’ve opted to add some significant bonuses to it.