Re: (idm) idm inna old-skool stylee

From Adam J Weitzman
Sent Fri, Sep 25th 1998, 14:15

Hail, hail, the gang's still here.  Five-year veteran in effect, y'all.

Frankly, I too find the "limited" trend rather annoying.  It makes it
extremely difficult to plan your purchases if certain good music that
you're looking for is only available in a one-week window, or by
immediate pre-order (so you don't really know *when* it's going to come
out, only that you have to pay for it now in order to get it later).
Despite rumors to the contrary, the amount of money one has to buy music
is not unlimited, and deciding how to spread it around can be a royal
nuisance when the "opportunity" to get into something limited is an
unbelievably small timeframe.  There's a sense of urgency: if I don't
buy it *now* I'll never have the opportunity to do so, and then I'll
never hear it unless I pay a collector's price for it.  On top of that,
you often have to decide to buy before you have any idea what it is
you're getting.

When you think about it, it kinda makes sense for the label in the short
run.  What would you rather do, press 2000 and hope that word of mouth
gets a quarter of them out of your basement, or press 250, many of them
presold already, and be done with them and on to the next thing with the
wad of cash you just got?  However, I think it can be very damaging in
the long run, because if/when you finally get to the point that you
*can* sell 2000 copies of your next release through normal channels, no
one will be able to find your older stuff, and you'll be too busy
cranking out new stuff to reissue the older stuff.  People just get
frustrated, which leads to MP3s/CDRs and all that other semi-unsavory
stuff.

I just think it would be nice if I had more than a week (or two) to
decide whether I'm going to purchase something now, or never be able to
do so again.  It can get to be a drag sometimes.

NP: Ultramarine - Every Man And Woman Is A Star

--
Adam J Weitzman
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