Let's Make This Precious

Carping from the sidelines

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

More Bile and Rage: Unlimited Edition!

A couple of weeks after it was released I went out to buy Ian Brown's greatest Hits album. I wanted the "Limited edition" with its bonus disc of remixes but I couldn't find it anywhere in town. Eventually I asked an assistant in HMV.
"Oh yeah, we did have it," he told me, "But it was limited edition and it's gone". Which is fair enough I suppose. It said was advertised as a limited edition, I didn't go out and buy it straight away. My loss! Except that I at home I have a "limited edition" copy of The Best of U2(1990-2000) complete with bonus disc and free DVD. I bought this copy about a year after it first came out for five ninety nine in the Woolworths sale. My question is, how is anybody supposed to know which CDs really are limited edition and which ones are just a sales ploy to make people pay over the odds for a package that will be in the bargain bins in time for Christmas?

Also, While we're on the subject, what is the point of those "Special Edition" stickers that Universal records plaster all other their albums. Look in any branch of HMV or Virgin and you'll find some discs with these little silver stickers on the cover despite album not having any bonus tracks, being remastered or having anything about it to mark it out as "special" in any way. It isn't important and it shouldn't matter but this is just marketing bullshit and it bugs me! Universal, in the futile pretence you're top people are reading this, please stop it now!

2 Comments:

  • At 7:10 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    They *are* special editions - there is usually an extra track there compared to the US version. Universal are trying to stop people in the UK buying from cd-wow type places and saving loads of money. Personally, I don't want bonus tracks - just the album as the artist intended.

     
  • At 6:05 AM, Blogger Chris Chopping said…

    Yeah, I know what you mean. An I don't understand why albums get switched around for different markets, it's just a bit of a con.

     

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