OFF: PT marketing (was Re: DVD)

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2005 at 12:02:18PM +0100, Steve Freight typed out:
> If you think Hawkind is ridiculous try keeping up with Porcupine Tree (and
> Steven Wilson various offshoots) now!!
>  At least we know which CD's have the anthology / text of... stuff over
> again with nothing new. PTree seem to tack at least one extra song or
> version of a song onto each format not available on another. Take the early
> CD's of say Sky Moves Sideways (now on its 3rd remaster) and vinyl versions
> (2 at last count not including the coloured vinyl versions). The IEM album
> is being reissued with material from an LP (£15) / CD (£15) / and 5
> different coloured vinyl 12"s (£65) onto a new CD (£15) version and double
> LP (£30). Serious money for the collector Now that takes the biscuit as far
> as I am concerned but I do know someone who has bought 2 copies of each
> version so far and will continue to do so.

        I've ignored the remasters of the Delerium albums, but I tell you,
I'm glad I didn't buy the first ones... I was just looking to see if
there was new IEM material on the website the other day and found out
about that reissue of the first album. Of course the full irony of that
release is not apparent to the non-collector from Steve's post. This album
originally came out as a vinyl-only limited edition on Delerium. Then, two
years later, Delerium reissued it with a bonus track on CD. (I got this
one.) That bonus track then became the B-side of the five-different-
colour-versions EP `Escalator to Christmas' Steve mentions. Now the first
album is coming out again, with the A-side of that EP on it as well in
two different versions. It will therefore have nothing on it that hasn't
already been issued in some form at least once, and mostly twice, except a
minute and a bit of interview. This is why I delayed so long over getting
_In Absentia_, because when the hype machine wound up getting us to order
the import in the UK, I figured this would mean that the eventual European
release would have bonus stuff on it. And so it transpired.

        I can't say I blame Steven Wilson, who has over the years realised
that he has a fanbase which will snap up limited-issue vinyl recordings
of his stuff even if they're of him making raspberry noises down a garden
hoseline when he was nine,[1] and therefore sells as much as he can, but I
don't have to buy it, and now mostly I don't. PT remain the band I have
the most stuff by after Hawkwind, but the duplicate value of a lot of it
is pretty high. I'm glad Hawkwind have never cared enough about the market
to work out marketing that well. Yours,
                                        Jon

[1] As far as I know he has not actually issued such a recording. Give it
time.

ObCD: Tom Waits - _Swordfishtrombones_
--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)