Comments on: Nineteen-Year-Old Singer-Songwriter Attacked by Coyotes; Ticket Brokers Call Foul Over Garth Concerts

By: Your Take: Version 2.0 | The 9513

Your Take: Version 2.0 | The 9513 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:01:26 +0000

[...] Thursday’s News Roundup, Brody included a link to a Billboard feature on Taylor Swift’s new platinum edition release [...]

By: Grizzly Adam

Grizzly Adam — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:53:00 +0000

Lemme throw my two cents in on the whole platinum edition deal. If this record sold 20,000 copies total, no record company in their right mind would release an extended edtion. If I’m one of the first million or so who have purchased the album and pushed it to selling however million copies it has sold, then hell yeah I’d feel kinda like I got burned because I’m one of the reasons this records gets a re-release. I’m sure Taylor’s fans are a bit more internet savvy and can get these songs legally (or illegally), but why re-release a fairly new album when you could maybe release an EP/DVD for the holidays? Coldplay did this last year with their Viva La Vida album. They released a deluxe version a few months after the initial release with an extra CD and the extra CD (Prospekt’s March) by itself for the ones who had already purchased the album. I have a helluva lot more respect for an artist who do this for the fans.

By: Johnny Paycheck

Johnny Paycheck — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Lucas, I agree she’s not an artist, that was just unintentional misusage of the word on my part. I’m quite surprised that they didn’t have Taylor Swift perform one of her songs on the Ellen Degeneras show when she was there the other day, as that seems like it would have helped sustain her itunes and other sales. Tim Mcgraw did sing, perhaps they drew straws to see who would get to promote their album and Taylor lost.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:02:27 +0000

Despite your attempt at being Johnny Paycheck you made a few good points in there. I must point out, however, that Lady Gaga is not an artist.

By: Razor X

Razor X — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:28:23 +0000

The iTunes version has some videos that can’t be purchased individually, so the die-hards will have to buy the entire album to get those. I don’t see this re-release as trickery; fans are free to buy it or not buy it. At least they made all the new audio tracks available for individual download. I do think it’s a way to rig the sales charts, though. A lot of fans will buy the entire album to get the new material. I wish Billboard will list re-releases with some new material like this one as a whole new album and not combine them with the sales of the previous version of the album.

By: Johnny Paycheck

Johnny Paycheck — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:32:15 +0000

Lucas, that argument is not as weighty when you look at the fact that most of her fans are very internet savvy, and Big Machine has released the new tunes to i-tunes where most of her regular fans will buy those new tunes and skip the album itself. Evidence of that is 5 and sometimes all 6 of her new tunes are in the top 5 on itunes, beating out gaga for number 1 and various other artists this week. This while none of those tunes have airplay support. It will be interesting to see the totals for the album itself. I’m kind of surprised they released the tunes to i-tunes as that obviously will drive down first week total sales of the platinum release. Perhaps it wasn’t all strictly about money after all.

By: sam (but not the one who wrote the toby review)

sam (but not the one who wrote the toby review) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:30:22 +0000

Yes, Lucas, I stick with that even if the average fan is 12 years old. Even if the kid doesn’t know a “deluxe edition” is likely to come out in 8 months, there is hardly any significant trickery involved. (I imagine that even if many of these fans were told that a deluxe edition would come out in eight months, they would buy the initial edition the week of its release, anyhow, and still buy the deluxe one later). Products of all sorts are updated from time to time, and even though some buyers may be unaware of said updates, this hardly seems like a deceitful practice to me. The product is put on the shelf, it is priced, and if the consumer gets what he or she thought he was getting, I just don’t see any trickery. Maybe there would be some if the label said, “We absolutely promise that we won’t release a deluxe edition next Christmas, so there’s no need to wait to purchase” and then it did release such an edition. But otherwise, I don’t see any significant trickery.

I don’t think its “trickery” for Craig Morgan to rerelease his current CD with the “Bonfire” track either, nor do I think its trickery for a group to release a version of a CD with “exclusive bonus content” to one retailer only.

I can understand that some fans may not like the practice. They may want to own “everything” that Swift releases and be a bit peeved because, to own “everything” they essentially have to buy what is almost the same product two times. But if they do decide to buy twice, I don’t think they have been tricked.

By: idlewildsouth

idlewildsouth — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:33:09 +0000

Last summer I saw Jamey Johnson at The Bluebird and he did “Moment of Forever” (breaking their strict ‘only originals’ rule, much to my delight). While i’m fairly indifferent about the song either way, I think it’s an interesting cover from him, considering in interviews, and through his songs, he makes it clear that his divorce still weighs very heavy on his mind.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:20:48 +0000

When your average fan is 12, do you stick with that?

There’s a reason they don’t say “We’re releasing Taylor’s album… but hey, we’ll re-release the same thing with a few new songs in a couple months, so you might just want to wait.”

By: sam

sam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:05:03 +0000

I don’t see how a “platinum edition” would “tric[k] fans into buying the same thing twice.” As far as I understand there is little to no deceit involved when a platinum edition or what not is released. I see no evidence that fans are “tricked” into buying anything. I would guess that most of the fans who buy a platinum edition know very well exactly what they are buying.