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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "bryan" <munki100@pacbell.net> |
| Subject | Re: Reissues, label side of things..... |
| Date | Tue, 6 Jan 2004 07:51:54 -0800 |
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> Btw, my feeling is that after the Ryko Costello reissues from the early
> 90's, when Rhino had a chance to do them(and let's face it, there is no one
> better to handle such a task, in the world for such an extensive reissue
> campaign), Gary Stewart, their head A&R guy, jumped at it. Why?
I remember writing a LOT about this particular reissue
series (I'm sure the comments are still in the Audities
Archives), but the main thing to keep in mind, I'll
remind everyone (again), is that the Elvis Costello
albums were *licensed* to Ryko for a period of time
(5 years, I think), and Costello was shopping around
for another label to *keep the albums in print for those
people who didn't own them yet* and after meeting
with Gary Stewart, he chose Rhino/WSM to do the
reissues.
Sure, Gary was a big fan of Elvis', but more importantly,
I think, is to emphasize that the CDs were going out of
print. Now, some customers already had these albums,
whether they owned the original Columbia albums (not
to mention imports), the reissues on Columbia CD, or
the RYKO's, but Gary Stewart and Costello put their
heads together and came up with something *more*
to offer the consumer who wanted to buy the albums
for the first time, and to give them the Rhino touch,
with extra bonus tracks -- *not* to rip-off the people
who already owned the album. The bonus material
could have been released separately, but Rhino
decided to drop the price of the reissues to a "single
CD" price to give customers 2-CDs worth of stuff for
the price of one.
The "reissue" CD business is mostly about marketing to
the customer -- those of you who work on that side of
the business already know this. I wish more people
buying the CDs understood how record companies
work, it would make things a lot easier for everyone if
we shared a common understanding about it.
Bryan
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