Album Re-Releases

Picture this, I, an eager, excited fan of Chris Brown, go out and buy his album Exclusive the day of release, I've waited a long fricking time, haven't listened to the leaks etc. I spend my £9.99 at HMV in UK, take it home and listen to the album non stop for months (this is all true, except I alternated with Jay-Z's classic American Gangster, released on the same day haha).

3-4 months later, once me and all of Chris Brown's fans have purchased the album what do Jive (a label who I on the whole think are the best in terms of marketing and making good music) go and do?! Reward these fans by re-releasing the album with a few extra songs on....and expect us to pay another £9.99 for it. How much of a slap in the face is that?! We support the label, the artist, the whole album cycle with singles etc yet we get less than a new fan, someone that needed a new single, only available on the new version and probably the 4th-5th release off the album, to get excited enough to part with their cash.

Now, I understand the whole business reasons of why the labels do it, encourage more fans yada yada yada. But my beef is, why insult the core fanbase by giving us less?! If they're going to do this whole re-release idea, why not give the fans who have already bought the album these extras for free, as a little reward for supporting it in the first place? They should give a redeemable code out with the orginal album, these labels already have the re-release scheduled in the album cycle, its not a spontaneous decision.

I know we can buy the extra songs and videos on itunes without the album tracks we've already paid for but that will cost around £9.99 anyway. Now, I generally don't bootleg, if I want an album, I wait for it to be released. This is an exception, I always bootleg the new re-released songs because, really, I've already paid for it.

If all of this was offered to me at the very start, paying a premium for a deluxe version of the album, as I did with Beyonce's new joint, would not be a problem. We as consumers have the choice to pay a buck or two extra and get a whole lot more instead of being limited to the normal content of the album and then 4-5 months later seeing we have to pay double to get a few extra songs.

Take music software as an example of other industries actually treating their consumers well. I paid for Version 7 of Pro Tools and was given free updates up until 7.4. Digidesign didn't ask me to pay for it. And yes, for any smart arse c*nts, I know that the updates are to fix problems/bugs etc but isn't that what an album re-release is? The extra tracks make the album "better" in terms of it presents a more inticing package for consumers to pay for. The new songs/videos fix the problem of slow record sales.

I could go into a lot more detail but, who would actually read it?! Haha. I'm just laying out a few things for y'all to think about. I will conclude by using this as an example of how the labels' continual practice of ripping off their consumers has come right back around to bite em on the ass as illegal downloads prove to be a huge problem and are killing their revenue. Quite frankly, by doing this sh!t, they fricking deserve it!

Peace