These days in the music world, we all know that there is a little thing called “the Internet” that is getting in the way of sales. There are some people that choose to use their favorite file sharing network to get the tracks and albums they want, instead of paying for the CD itself. Artists and labels thought that they were one-upping us when they thought to re-press their albums into new and improved “special edition” disks packed with bonus tracks and unreleased b-sides. This, above all things, aggravates me.
First of all, even if you do re-release the album, do you think that those of the music community that downloaded illegally in the first place are going to go out and buy the album this time? It would be so much easier to just wait for the few hundred people that did buy it to upload it onto the Internet. Free and easy.
Secondly, if I were a true fan of the artist and went and bought the album the first time, I wouldn't appreciate the record company trying to take advantage of that. If the artist goes along with it, I personally feel that they are only in it for the money instead of the love of the music. The true fans are the ones that show up to the shows, not the ones buying everything that the band puts out—like miniature dolls created of themselves. If they wanted to try and make money on b-sides, they could put the individual tracks up on iTunes instead of putting out a re-release. Honestly, I would probably just go to LiveJournal and ask around until I found the new tracks instead of putting up another twenty bucks or so to basically pay for a bunch of songs I already own.
In the end, illegal downloading is never going to go away. So, all of this leaves me with the question, “Why even bother with re-releasing an already pressed album just for a few more songs?”
-Paige Snively
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