April 21, 2007
Bonus tracks on iTUNES
Posted by Hal Bogerd at April 21, 2007 6:01 PMI purchased the new Cowboy Junkies disc "At End Of Paths Taken" as a small surprise for my wife. She is a real fan of the band and I thought it would be nice to give her the actual disc with booklet, lyrics and artwork instead of a LEGAL download. I picked up a copy at Borders this morning. $17.99 list price but the 20% coupon dropped it to $14.39 for the 11 tracks. Not a bad price. This morning I checked iTUNES and noticed that the album is available for download for $9.99. No surprise there but if I had downloaded the disc I would have received a bonus track "Shrike".
In the recent past, several bloggers at HickoryWind.org have ranted about the insanity of the exclusive bonus track situation and how it just might actually encourage the illegal trading of tracks or entire discs by obsessive fans. Does it make sense to penalize a fan for purchasing the disc at a higher price instead of downloading it? Pay more, get less! Would I feel guilty if I "borrowed" the track from a friend? Not at all. The Cowboy Junkies are a cult band with a loyal fan base. I'd expect better of them and their record company.
The Cowboy Junkies play the Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC next month.
My wife will probably go but I think I'll pass. That "free" bonus track that wasn't burned on the cd just cost the band $30 USD (about $45 Canadian)!!
Looks like you can download the song by itself for $0.99. So if you really need that track you can get it seperately.
The whole bonus track thing does suck and its getting way out of hand (thank you Son Volt) but you really have to see it from thae artists perspective too. Places like Best Buy and iTunes pressure the artists and labels to give them exclusives in trade for better posistioning on their racks/websites which is sometimes the only way to keep an album from disappearing all together.
The only upside to the bonus tracks on iTunes as oppossed to in the stores is that you can buy them individually. This leaves you with the choice of if you need the tracks or not. Don't deny yourself a good concert because of this, I doubt they will play the bonus track if that means anything to you.
Posted by: Patrick Hayes at April 22, 2007 1:49 PMI'm a big Junkies fan but not a completist, so this stuff doesn't bug me. I'll see them next month in Charlotte -- wouldn't miss it -- and I bought the CD today. To rub salt in your wound though, I'll note that if you download the album from the Junkies' own label website, you can also download demo versions of the songs. But only if you don't live in the U.S.; Yanks are prohibited.
http://www.latentrecordings.com/detail.php?al_id=1
I'm on their mailing list and it mentioned the bonus demo versions. I entered my credit card and then it told me I couldn't download the tracks in the US?!
I know it is $.99 and a track I can live without. I just think it is an odd way to treat your loyal fan base. Hell, when I saw bonus track I figured it was their tenth live version of "Sweet Jane".
My first impression of the disc: weak effort that won't draw any new fans. I'm guessing it won't be on my 2007 best of list.
Posted by: Hal at April 22, 2007 10:05 PM
