If you want both, that'll be £23. Fair enough. If you want both in a box, that'll be £50. I know. Although you do get some badges and photos and posters with that.
Remember NME's 2007 redesign which featured a "Weekly Planner catering for younger readers"? That was the magazine's death knell, a sign it had moved so far from its roots and mission, that its closure was inevitable. This box set stinks of the same desperation for the box set market.
The £50 price tag is telling. This sounds like a record company trying to bring back the 50 quid bloke, a term coined by journalist and magazine publisher David Hepworth in 2003:
"This is the guy we've all seen in Borders or HMV on a Friday afternoon, possibly after a drink or two, tie slightly undone, buying two CDs, a DVD and maybe a book - fifty quid's worth - and frantically computing how he's going to convince his partner that this is a really, really worthwhile investment."
50 quid bloke died, possibly with Borders and HMV, replaced either by Vinyl Revival Man (repurchasing those cheap CDs from HMV with £20 180g virgin vinyl reissues) or by 79p download man.
Whoever buys this box set will have a hard time justifying it to anyone if they have to. It doesn't offer anything like value for money.
The marketing team have subtitled this 'Mk 1 Box Set'. Let's imagine what will be in Mk 2 Box Set. All 3 studio albums? What about Mk 3 Box Set? All the singles? Well, if that's the case then Box Sets Mk 2 and 3 would be a reissue of the 5x LP 1989 Product box set.
Then you could rightly say "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
"This is the guy we've all seen in Borders or HMV on a Friday afternoon, possibly after a drink or two, tie slightly undone, buying two CDs, a DVD and maybe a book - fifty quid's worth - and frantically computing how he's going to convince his partner that this is a really, really worthwhile investment."
50 quid bloke died, possibly with Borders and HMV, replaced either by Vinyl Revival Man (repurchasing those cheap CDs from HMV with £20 180g virgin vinyl reissues) or by 79p download man.
Whoever buys this box set will have a hard time justifying it to anyone if they have to. It doesn't offer anything like value for money.
The marketing team have subtitled this 'Mk 1 Box Set'. Let's imagine what will be in Mk 2 Box Set. All 3 studio albums? What about Mk 3 Box Set? All the singles? Well, if that's the case then Box Sets Mk 2 and 3 would be a reissue of the 5x LP 1989 Product box set.
There's no high enough price for the Buzzcocks :).
ReplyDeleteYet we don't need these expensive reissues, I agree.
(Time's up is good, anyway)
Fair enough, I bet plenty of people like Time's Up. Buzzcocks are my favourite ever singles band. There might be some reissue involving those, but Singles Going Steady - the title, the songs - is pretty much perfect so there's no real need.
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