I'm obsessed with bonus tracks. Any rare or unreleased track from a band I love, I will hunt to the end of the earth and pay thousands of dollars just to hear a 30 second clip. If I heard Nirvana covered Bruce Springsteen's Cover Me and it's only available on 8-track tape in Montana...I'd be checking flights to Helena within seconds. But I think lately bands are taking this specialty to an annoying end. This week sees the release of some major albums: Kings of Leon, TV on the Radio, the Cold War Kids and Jenny Lewis. All but Jenny have albums coming out with bonus tracks. But where can you buy these tracks? Itunes has many of them. But not all...TV on the Radio has an extra track Dogs of Light on itunes...but not amazon and instead has a song called Non-musical silence. Kings of Leon has one bonus track at itunes and a 2CD set at Target. Cold War kids has a bonus track at itunes...and supposedly a different one at emusic. The problem is that each track is exclusive...you can't buy the album at one place than the special track at the other. You want the bonus tracks...you have to buy the whole album! It doesn't make it more exciting...just more frustrating. And the record labels wonder why people illegally download music.The 11 Best TV on The Radio Songs:
1. Wolf Like Me (Return To Cookie Mountain)
2. Staring At the Sun (Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes)3. Blues From Down Here (Return To Cookie Mountain)
4. Satelite (Young Liars)5. New Health Rock (New Health Rock)
6. Dreams (Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes)7. Hours (Return To Cookie Mountain)
8. Snakes and Martyrs (Return To Cookie Mountain)9. The Wrong Way (Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes)
10. Dirtywhirl (Return To Cookie Mountain)11. Province (Return To Cookie Mountain)
Buy TV on the Radio's new album, Dear Science.
i find this very annoying also. and the people who buy the albums in a physical format rarely get rewarded.
ReplyDeleteIts also sort of jaded me in a way to not give a shit about getting the bonus tracks anymore. a lot of times it just doesn't seem worth it in the end. But it has gotten to the point where I would end up search forums, torrents, blogs, p2p, or newsgroups just trying to find the bonus tracks or hard to find ep's, etc, etc from said favorite band.
it's also fairly annoying that it hasn't become common practice for record labels to release LP records without a download code or the CD version of the album. If I see small indie labels or even the band themselves doing such things... then I know its cheap enough for a major label or a larger indie label to do such a thing. Its just one more way the label is trying' to get more money out of you. or you end up buying things to put your record onto your computer.
I can see where a download code would be nice, but I;d rather rip the disc myself. That way I have the control over the quality. There are at least a few dozen free easy to use programs that will do that for you for free.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bonus tracks, I'm finding them more and more annoying myself. I refuse to by from iTunes just to get an extra track. That said, I love Dear Science after a few listens. Hopefully that bonus track will pop up soon enough.
Just a warning, don't buy "Non-Musical Silence" as a singular track from Amazon Downloads. The "song" is quite literally four minutes of silence. I don't know if this was a protest against Amazon or what the story behind it is. I downloaded the album from Amazon rather than iTunes (forgoing the very real seven-minute-long song "Dogs of Light") for two reasons: Amazon's tracks are 256kbps non-DRM tracks whereas iTunes have DRM and are only 128kbps. Plus iTunes version of the album costs $3.50 more than the Amazon "Deluxe" version.
ReplyDeleteIf you're as crazy about bonus tracks as you claim, I guess you'll have to pay the $12.99 for the iTunes version for the single "album-only" track and then buy "Non-Musical Silence" as a stand-alone track (or just record 4 minutes of silence for free) from Amazon...
When Saul Williams released his album The Rise and Inevitable Liberation of Niggy Tardust for download on his website he gave people a choice of downloading the album for free or you could choose to pay $5 for it and support the artist. I paid the $5 and then was repaid by him later releasing the album on iTunes with album-only bonus tracks for $9.99. I felt this was a stab-in-the-back to fans who chose to support him in the first place.
I read in GQ magazine that a lot of bands now (they mentioned Cold War Kids as one example) are releasing their albums on vinyl and including in the packaging a code to download the album in MP3 format for free. This encourages people to buy the analog vinyl version and they still get the MP3 version for their portable media players.
Another TVOTR track that might be worthy of your top-10 is Dry Drunk Emperor, which was a free download from Touch & Go Records' website back in 2005. It never appeared on an album or single or EP or anything.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to say Rebel...I totally agree with everything you're saying. I, too, was very upset about the Saul Williams bonus track...and I didn't even like the album that much to want the bonus track...but it was just the pure act of not getting it...after paying for the track to support the artist.
ReplyDeleteI personally prefer Amazon for the exact same reasons...but somehow the itunes bonus tracks are always better...
PS...the bonus CD at Target for the Cold War Kids is a documentary. And the bonus CD for the Kings is a live concert.
I'm still trying to confirm what the bonus tracks are for the Japanese release, but it looks like "Dumb Animal" & "Dogs of Light" are on there:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wmg.jp/artist/tvontheradio/index.html
If any human can accurately translate the page, that would be awesome.
thanks for a cool post. I'm a big fan of TVOTR and of the bonus track too so its nice to read it described like this. I stil enjoy the physical act of buying a CD and adding it to my library but maybe that's out of daye
ReplyDeleteI've been spinning Dear Science, quite a lot recently but have to confess I'm still to get into it. To me it lacks some urgency (a Staring At The Sun or a Wolf Like Me). The songs DLZ and Dancing Choose seem to get close to that immediacy but i'm sure I'll write more about this myself.
I noticed the version of Wolf Like Me you posted is live. Do you know where it was recorded and if it is available on any "official" release?
thanks for this post :D
cougarmicrobes.com
I've been addicted to Halfway Home as of late.
ReplyDelete