Hickory Wind | Anti- Records is sort of pissing me off lately

September 28, 2007

Anti- Records is sort of pissing me off lately

Posted by Brendan McKennedy at September 28, 2007 8:51 AM

This week Anti- yanked all their titles from eMusic -- just as I upgraded my eMusic plan to the new "connoisseur" level, and as I was one-third through my episodic downloading of Orphans -- the second disk of which is the best Tom Waits album I think I've ever heard. (I'm a sporadic Waits fan. While I can appreciate it as art, the relentless, abrasive chaos of his post-Swordfishtrombones records really distances him from my regular mood-based rotation.) Anyway, if I want to adopt the rest of these lovely Orphans, I'll have to purchase the boxed set, including the tunes I've already got, or shell out around $50 to snatch the remaining tracks a la the iTunes carte.

So then this morning I read that on November 6, Anti- will reissue last year's best album with new a five-track bonus disc. This is intrinsically good news -- more Neko is always welcome. But as a marketing move its cynicism, or greed I guess is the accurate word, irks me. It lets the loyal fans -- those of us who rushed out to purchase the CD on its original release date -- take a bath.

I'd feel good about the reissue if I could get the bonus tracks alone from eMusic. Alas.

Comments

"Last year'$ be$t album" was $hort enough that the bonu$ track$ should of and could of been on the original relea$e. I wonder why they weren't?

Posted by: Hal at September 28, 2007 1:12 PM

Based on the original information, I'd have been pleased if they'd just released these songs as a new EP, separate from the album.

But it gets worse.
http://mog.com/Charley_Rogulewski/blog_post/114235

According to that there link, only one of the bonus tracks is newish -- a "demo version" of "Behind the House," the intense murder ballad Neko based on the same family lore that inspired Fox Confessor's perfect "Dirty Knife." You can hear a live version of "Behind the House" on the "Live From Austin, TX" CD/DVD.

The rest of the songs on this bonus disc are pulled from her previous albums.

Now that's just shitty.

Posted by: Brendan at September 28, 2007 2:38 PM

Hal, I wanna add though that I really like the brevity of Fox Confessor. I wouldn't add a minute to it.

Except for the two masterpiece semi-epics ("Dirty Knife" and "Star Witness") the songs are honed and pithy, which is just how I like 'em. I think I said at the time that it's a short album, but that it casts a long shadow. I stand by that, whatever it means.

Posted by: Brendan at September 28, 2007 2:47 PM

eMusic has lost several labels this year - Red House comes to mind. They cited insufficient revenue, which indicates that perhaps the eMusic model is too cheap.

I was a big subscriber for the last 2 years but let it go recently - too much filler, not enough truly interesting stuff for me. I was stuffing my library with tracks I wasn't really listening to just to use up my credits. Maybe $0.22/track is really too good a deal to be useful.

Posted by: Brad at September 28, 2007 3:51 PM

You're probably right about it not earning enough revenue for active artists. But even if important active labels continue to disappear, I like having so many cheap downloads on hand because it encourages me try a lot of music I'd never have explored had it required more of a cash commitment. Corrina Repp, Amy Annelle, Norfolk & Western -- all good artists I wouldn't've heard without the cheapo freedom eMusic gives me.

And for me it's still worth it as long as the Folkways, Document, and JSP labels remain available there. So, so much buried treasure in those archives.

Posted by: Brendan at September 28, 2007 4:12 PM

Epitaph/Anti pulling didn't bother me, because they were already not available to download in Australia. There are some labels whose loss would affect me, but really I have about 120 albums in my Save For Later and could add a dozen more a day. My tastes are diversified over country, folk, blues, rock, jazz and "world" stuff so no one label going is going to ruin it for me.

I have two accounts 90/month and 75/month and may go to the 200/m when I get back from overseas in January. And yes, I listen to it all. Alot. So I ain't going nowhere.

Posted by: Amanda at September 29, 2007 4:32 AM

I was just wondering what everyone thought about the reliability/security of the e-music service. I'm interested in the free trial, but am a little weary of handing my credit card info over to a company that I know little about.

Any advice/thoughts?

Posted by: Nelson at September 29, 2007 9:46 PM

I've been there for three years and never had a problem, Nelson.

They've been around for ages, are owned by some private equity firm (so not run out of someone's basement) and are as safe to deal with as Amazon or any other online service.

If you sign up yourself you get 25 free songs, but if you have an existing member invite you you get 50 free songs so if you know any subscribers its worthwhile getting the invite.

Posted by: Amanda at September 30, 2007 10:54 PM

I've considered emusic, but I don't know much about what they have. Is there a way to search before you sign up? Brendan's mention that they have both the Folkways and Document labels intrigues me greatly.

Posted by: Eric at October 4, 2007 10:15 AM

I've only been a member for a few months and I've focused on discovering newish artists, because I often feel like I'm behind the times. Like seventy years behind the times. But yeah, you can search without logging in. Check it out dude -- 1,100 facets of Moe Asch's mid-century idealism plugged gracefully into a new millenium:

http://www.emusic.com/charts/ch/b/-dbm/a/0-0/556+1400133495/0.html

Let me know if you want an invitation. That goes for anyone: brendan.mckennedy at hickorywind dot org.

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