Since the days when Napster and those “music-stealers” that used it were in the news, we’ve heard about the forthcoming demise of compact discs.
Compact discs appear to have some life left in them yet. Just last week, all of the Beatles studio recordings were released in both mono and stereo formats and the things have sold like crazy.
That’s really no surprise. The Beatles are – after all – the greatest rock band of all time (in my opinion, at least, and I’m not alone) and the band’s catalogue was completely remastered. People have demanded such a remastering job for years and they’ve finally gotten it – it’s no shock these two boxed sets have sold so well.
Ah, but there’s something about these collections that also points out why so many people love stealing music through torrents or anywhere else they can find it. Here’s the deal – the stereo box set costs $260 and the mono boxed set costs $299. Wow.
Hey, the remasters sound great and you do get a lot of albums in those sets (the original British studio albums plus volumes 1 and 2 of the Past Masters series in the stereo set, a little bit less in the mono edition) and the remasters do sound great. But the price seems a bit steep.
That’s particularly true for those of us who bought all the CD remasters that came out in 1987, and more expensive still to those of us who bought albums and tapes before the catalogue was put on CD. Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black referenced “having to buy the White Album – again” and I know exactly how he felt.
I’ll probably wind up buying the stereo remasters, but one has to wonder – how many times do we have to pay for the same songs over and over again? Those music pirates may have a point.
1 comment:
I was tempted, but that price is just way out of my range. I think I'm going to wait it out this time.
Remember buying the #1 hits CD that they released, only to see it discounted to less than half the price I paid :(
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