BY MIKEY MIGO
How many times have YOU purchased an album only to find a "new and improved" better version of it released soon after or even worse, on the same day? It has happened to everyone. Unlike the $40 concert tees, ringtone charges, the higher than ever ticket prices or even the "fan club" that leeches on the diehards; the biggest scam in music is the infamous "double-dip".
Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and repurchase an album. There are times when technology changes and we have to switch to whatever the standard medium is. This is something those have dealt with as time has moved on from the record to the cassette to the CD to the mp3 and all the 8-Tracks and other failed technology in between. In this case, I don't think we can blame the musicians. This is really out of the artist's hands as is an inevitable situation depending on what part of the technological timeline you're collection hails from.
Hidden in the veil of "by popular demand", the double-dip is becoming a given in music. No matter the genre of music, the more successful the work is the more likely a double-dip will take place. We support these artists. We go out, but their album the first day it comes out and take it home to overplay and over examine. The band's new album is in your hands and ears and you can't help but love it. You play it for awhile, you hear the singles, go to shows, and basically promote the band to anyone who will listen. Then… THEN, these double-dipping motherfuckers try to squeeze even MORE hard earned money out of us with promises of something we already enjoy being "new and improved". Despite buying the album that was originally release, the artists put their "new and improved" update out and tell us that it's the definitive version of the album. It's a bait and switch in its purest form.
Let's take a look at some of the methods our favorite artists double-dip on our hard earned money. Ultimately it's your choice on what you buy, but it's rough. The line between being a casual fan and a collector has been firmly drawn. If you're a collector you almost have to become somewhat obsessive about it and put tons of cash into building your completist ego. Some of these re-release scams are more worthwhile than others, but it's still what it is.
Live/Unplugged
This one isn't SO bad, but it's still technically double-dipping. Yeah, I paid $15 for your CD when it was released, and yeah, I paid at least $40 for your concert ticket, but does this mean you have to squeeze out more? I'm talking about another $15 to hear you play the same songs I already own? I love the little extra embellishments and dude, you're band is soooo awesome live but this is WHY we go to concerts. I'm pretty sure all music fans are suckers for this. There are bands that I love hearing and seeing live that I merely tolerate when on album. Then they'll throw a curve ball at us and sometimes do completely re-worked versions like an acoustic version or something like that. If the band is good enough to have a diehard fan base and put on great shows, it's dumb not to capitalize on us for it. It's just that it's almost gotten to the point that for every album track released there is eventually an official "live" version released at a later date. That shit ain't free.
Multiple Album Covers
Do you like this album? You do? Cool! Now go out and buy the SAME EXACT album four times because there's different album art on each one. Collect them all NOW! This one bothers me. I'm all for expression and having various images to represent your music, but this is the very reason albums have booklets. Utilize this to its fullest before trying to cash in on a different picture pose. If a proven band like Tool did this, I'd be way more open to it. Their album art is just that, art. The problem is that 99.9% of the other musicians out there don't put that much work into their artwork. That doesn't stop the bands from selling us the same exact product with a different wrapper.
Special Edition/Re-Release/Remastered/Import
I must lump these four together. There is nothing more frightening than the "special edition remastered rerelease import". Why is this reissue a "Special Edition"? Sometimes it's because they add a few demo tracks, a few b-sides that were initially thought of as not good enough for the album, it's been remastered and now has Hi-Def 7.1 Surround IMAX Super Sonic Sound, or it's a foreign import with that hard to find b-side single. But really, it's a "Special Edition" because the artist tells us so. The import side of this normally slides right by without much complaint. Let's face it, unless you're a psycho super fan you're not even going to notice that these imports even exist. The remastered stuff does most of us no good. Unless you're equipped with whatever technology trend the artist is capitalizing on you're going to hear pretty much the same album you already have. Just because there is now an extra disc and the packaging is just that much shiner does not mean it's worth buying for the second, third, or seventeenth time.
Remix Album
Yep, we liked it. Now give us the same thing again, but this time do it with more noise and less melody. Add in some bass, toss in some creative looping, and wah-lah! We have a remix album. I'm all for a good danceable song when done in a higher than 6th grade education style. The problem is that more times than not a remix album won't hold a candle to the original. There are not many remix albums where this is not the case. If I had to think of remixes that are better than the original track I could count them on one hand and have enough fingers left over to flip you off.
Clean Version
Ever hear a clean version of a Marilyn Manson or Korn CD? Sadly, I have. What is the point of owning an album of someone's art when it's not being presented as intended? In high school I bought someone a Korn CD for Christmas. First of all don't hate on me, at the time Korn was awesome and relevant. So with that said, the gesture was very nice on my part or at least so I thought. That next day at school I come to find out I gave this friend a CLEAN VERSION. It was a horrible lesson learned that found me vigorously checking CDs to find out if it's "clean" or "explicit". I understand the reasoning behind this kind of alternate version, but it's still lame. As a parent, if you think your child will grow up to be a better person because they had to wait until they looked old enough to buy the "explicit" version then they're flat out bad parents, bad people and shouldn't let their children out of their cells in the first place. I've even seen bands pull a major double-dip "fuck you, pay me" by adding a new or different track to the "clean" version in order to spike sales. That's dirty as fuck because they KNOW some people, normally the band's biggest fans, will shell out another $10-$15 for the same album just in order to get that extra track.
Greatest Hits
So by this point, we have all your albums, imports, live versions, remixes, and the super-duper-special editions. We've aimlessly given you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, for this experience and we're not complaining about it yet. Your career has been long and we've been along for the entire ride. Now you release a "Greatest Hits" album?! The internet provides us with a tracklisting of tracks we already have. We could easily just make a playlist or mix CD to accommodate the release, but now bands are adding a new track or worse a totally unrelated cover. To me, this is sometimes just an excuse for a band to make money on tour with the guise of supporting a "new" release. It's shameful. I can see an iconic band having a "Definative Collection" release because their catalogue runs deep and it's an easy way for a casual fan to get the singles they've heard on the radio. The problem is that bands that have maybe five studio albums from the 90's till now are doing this. Does anyone REALLY need an Incubus "Greatest Hits" album? No, but because of the Prince cover it had some love. Biggie Smalls had like two albums and has a "Greatest Hits" album? That's ridiculous. Offspring? Really? No thanks. I think the rule should be that an artist must be retired or inactive for such a release or at least have half as many albums as there are songs on their "hits" collection. Otherwise, it's merely a "My band's collection of singles and songs we play every show".
And they wonder why millions of people are illegally downloading their music?
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