Quote from: Duncan on April 30, 2020, 10:15:40 PM
I think you're basically leveling most of this at VOD releases though, right?
Consumers for their hunger for box sets and expensive reissues. And labels. Labels want and need to make money. But there's still room for what to release and how to do it. VOD seem like an easy target. I don't own anything by them and don't know much about it. I'd like the MZ box though, but can't afford it now.
So how should you release previously released material? Everything goes?
When leaving original art out and the individual title is one out of 10-20 other titles within the box. You could argue that the individual release just become one disc among many within the box. And therefore loose some individuality and power as a standalone singular release. The box is what's talked about and displayed more so than the individual release. The box is what you paid for. The historical importance and force of that standalone release gets slightly fuzzy.
Less of an easy target would be Hospital and let's choose the much celebrated Skin Crime box. I don't own it myself. But I do have several originals. It does not contain original artwork? Discs themselves seems to be packaged in some boring lookalike sleeves. Maybe original art is in that big booklet? I would have reversed that. Several releases within that box are considered US noise classics. Where as originally released the individual title, packaging and content are in symbiosis. Imagine a CD reissue set at €12. Keeping original art as far as possible. As AD/IR did with those three reissues before they caved in for the box. Those three were almost too good to be true. Maybe the splits became an issue?
But let me get back on track – Skin Crime. Instead we got a big ass box. Individual discs sleeved without original art. 300 copies, sold out quickly. What did they charge for it? I seem to recall it was over $110? Because it was out of my range at the time. Fair price for 20 discs. But an expensive one. Exclusively for those who could afford it. Now the box is close to €200 on discogs. And likely not getting cheaper.
If you had done Burn in 300 copies, it might still be in stock. At least the price wouldn't be €200 used. And let's face it who actually needs and listen repeatedly to those last few discs? I'm guessing far less than half of the owners.
Many paths are available when doing a reissue. You can do it Ramirez-style, reissue a tape in 25 copies that was originally released in 20 copies. Haha. It will save you space. But at least from the perspective of a consumer, if re-doing something that's impossible-to-find/pricey, the purpose shouldn't be
another big ass price tag and something that's available for two weeks, complete with a lot of fluff.
You could still find several of the Skin Crime releases fairly cheap at the time of release of the box. Maybe four titles were close to impossible and had a price tag. Some others were easy to find but you had to pay more than $15. But not much more than your fancy new random vinyl reissue. Those titles had been available for years at those prices! Obviously no one bought them. I miss that. The decoration of dust can be a beautiful one.
