McCartney fans SLAM new ‘download-only’ Flowers in the Dirt deluxe edition

Man, Bought the new CD release and as a collector of all things Beatles, I had everything already, but that does not excuse this awful release, soon to be forgotten in my collection. Just couldn’t put the B-sides on a CD and have the boring demos, as your downloads bonus. As the price you are asking for, this is a disgrace to you. I won’t buy that thing you call a deluxe edition ever, and it stops my habit of buying everything.

The Voodoo records release of this title (Bootleg) actually has better selections, nevertheless, Paul should have released this material on a CD (had bassically 98% already). As a collector got it, made a special CD of the downloads & put it inside my Super deluxe box set for the collection. Paul if you read this made a big mistake on this release and hope it doesn’t happen on future reissues.

if no-one bought them they will listen but f they made money from the gullible then they won’t care.

I both wrote a letter of my own and signed the petition. Let’s see what happens.

The Japanese version seems to be cd only with no downloads. That would seem therefore to be the answer.

No worries. The Japanese bootleggers will happily pirate the downlod content on pressed picture discs with bonus tracks and artwork and packaging better than the legit release !

I don’t and won’t buy overpriced crappy downloads at all. The deluxe edition of Bob Marley live! Is another example of greed driven record companies driving people to pay cd prices for downloads. Personally, I boycott them as i want a physical item if i have paid a fair price for my music. If i was into non physical downloaded music i would go on a torrent site for it and pay what its worth to me (nothing!)
(By the way, I DON’T download from torrent sites- just for the record!)

burned cd is a sort of hand made, and placing it in the deluxe set would look like handwritten papers put into an expensive book – very awkward

2 jon:

>how bout just download the songs, burn a cd, stop complaining and shut up and enjoy the music

How about just put all the songs on cds officially, with no download content – without making troubles? Quite an easy task for a record company to make every single SDE buyer happy.

how bout just download the songs, burn a cd, stop complaining and shut up and enjoy the music

Is it clear/ confirmed that the b-sides have been remastered? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

347 signatures during 24 hours. Not bad. Join us!
https://www.change.org/p/capitol-records-add-additional-cd-of-b-sides-remixes-etc-to-flowers-in-the-dirt-reissue-by-paul-mccartney

From Maccas own website:

The Paul McCartney Archive Collection release of Flowers In The Dirt was, as always, personally supervised by Paul himself.

So, there, from the horses mouth……..

Let’s be perfectly honest folks, even the previous archive releases were a tad thin in any really special extra content when put against comparable box sets by other artists. They were and are overpriced in relation their overall contents. No live unreleased material where I’m pretty sure some must exist, for instance. McCartney has been taking us all for a ride with his archive releases but up until now he did it more stealthily. Now he takes the full plunge with the bizarre choice of a 80’s album, however a good one it may or may not be? One arrogant complacent release too many I’d say.

Does anybody know just how much involvement does McCartney have with these reissues? Is he very hands on with the whole lot, or does he just throw the archives open, ala Bowie with Rykodisc, and let the record company decide how it’s all going to be packaged and sold? I can’t help but wonder if this was a descsion made by someone who doesn’t really have their finger on the pulse of what the buying public really wants, but rather what they want the public to have.

It wouldn’t harm anyone to have someone in charge of re-issues that is a fan of the maerial/artist, yet can be removed enough to be objective. Too many times we see the artist take total control over the re-issues and the results are dire – my classic example is U2. The reissues there were great, the Achtung Baby box set is magnificent, but, because they believe that Rattle & Hum and Pop were failures (read – didn’t sell enough in America) there’s no reissus, deluxe editions or box sets. I’d love deluxe editions or box sets of R&H and Pop and, honestly, I could put them together very easily. But I’ve given up on the band issuing them. Instead we’ll see deluxe/boxes for crap like Atomic Bomb and ATYCLB before the others.

So, back to the topic, is this debacle down to Macca or someone working for Capitol?

Eugen, no it’s not confirmed. I just read it on a forum when the last batch came out. That doesn’t make it truth. So, I hope I’m 100% wrong.

I would love a Back to the Egg with the promo video album they did on DVD as the ones on YouTube are unwatchable.

Can someone remind Paul about the principles behind Apple?

Some years ago, records companies wondered what to do against illegal download. The answer was obvious : deliver products of quality (that is through physical products!) to the buyers, and even some extras for the same price (some vinyls are still delivered with a cd of the album).
My attachment to music is also linked to sleeves, photos, lyrics and notes that I can handle through a physical product. I bought my first record in 1985 so maybe it is a hard habit, but I will never pay for a file that can be indefinitely duplicated with a simple paste/copy manipulation.
I understand the frustation: prices for some so-called deluxe edition are going crazy, if the price included some immaterial music, this is insane!

Eugen, I signed. Although I like Ben’s letter more as it goes into much more detail. Nevertheless, good job on getting it up, already over 100 signatures.

I actually like all the stuff we are getting in the box. Books, DVD, and music. It’s a lot in comparison to the last four Archive releases. BUT I do not like the downloadable content. Ben said it right when it was noted that you have to have a personal computer to get this music. That should not be the case, it should be a CD.

A last note. I was under the impression that this was to be the final Archive release? I thought that was brought up during the last batch of Archive releases; Pipes of Peace and Tug of War.

Such a disgrace for the Archive Collection which began so hopeful 6 years ago. Its first mistakes (16:9 video aspect ratio instead of original 4:3 for 1973, 1974 and 1980 promos) and random omissons of some rare collectable tracks from the corresponding eras (original 1971 mono mix of ‘Another Day / Oh Woman, Oh Why’, 45” versions of ‘Love In Song’ and ‘Get It’, ) were sad but this news about phisycal absence of 1989 B-sides is just a complete failure. You can’t do that!!!!! It fucks up the whole idea… People from MPL, please do something until it’s too late!

Excellent letter.

…and a blueprint for future similar complains!

Brilliant letter Ben and particularly like ‘The future sales of the Archive Collection depend on it’. Being a hopeless completist myself, the dilemma of whether to even keep the nine I already have is seriously looming if the situation is not resolved, and in future I will always refer to Capital as Crapital.

Just for reference, sent this in the post and in email to MPL, as well as an email to Capitol:
—–
An open-letter to Paul McCartney and Capitol Records, in regards to the forthcoming deluxe re-release of ‘Flowers In The Dirt’:

Dear Paul & Capitol Records,

I am writing to you in regards to the announcement of ‘Flowers In The Dirt’ to be reissued in March next year.

Many of us that have been purchasing the Archive Collection deluxe editions so far have all been longtime fans. We’ve been to the concerts, we’ve bought the albums, we all bought them again in 1993 when EMI reissued them, as well as collecting the singles, the DVDs and most of us remember the times our favourite McCartney albums were released. Back in 1989, Flowers In The Dirt was a big hit in the UK, reaching number one. All The Best had been released two years prior, going 3x platinum and reminding the world of all the big hits. A world tour loomed at the end of the decade, with Hofner bass and Beatles hits in hand. All in all, a great period to be a McCartney fan.

In the publicity photographs, this reissue set all looks wonderful. Remastered original album, tick. Long-sought-after demos with Elvis Costello, tick. More demos with the band, tick. Exhaustive DVD with original videos, documentaries and new interviews, tick. All the B-sides, remixes and bonuses, download-only. Wait, hold on a second… We have all been collecting these sets to “archive” all the official recordings from the time of the album (and unreleased tracks) in lovely, lavish deluxe editions, all following the same trend of previous sets so that eventually we’d have a ‘complete’ collection on CD. What happened? Why was this decision made?

Those of us that purchase expensive sets believe in physical product, that is why we buy it, year-in, year-out. That is why vinyl is on the rise and cheap sounding and throwaway mp3 sales are on the decline. An important factor is the increase use of tablet computers, unable to download music files directly. Download-only music, available in the way you are offering it, is utterly wasted on those without a desktop computer.

This set is currently retailing at £120 on the Universal music store. And that is before postage. 4 discs and some books at this price is extremely over-priced. These sets do cost money to design and manufacture, I understand that but you only have to look at a few past examples (including your own back catalogue) that multi-disc and quality deluxe reissues do not have to be too expensive to still recoup the budget (and then some) and at the same time offer real value and a real experience to all those who dearly want sets like this, especially in an age when streaming is becoming the norm. These sets are aimed at people like us that want to buy physical music. Take a look at the recent Bruce Springsteen ‘The Ties That Bind’ box set. The River album on 2 CDs remastered, either 2 Blu Ray discs or 3 DVD discs of documentary and concert footage and 3 CDs of bonus tracks, both released and unreleased, all culled from the album sessions. Whilst you don’t have to exactly replicate the way any other artists do their super deluxe editions, but you can surely look at those sets that have been received well critically and commercially with the fans. Also of note, the Springsteen set was typically less than £75 at most retailers here in the UK. It contained double the amount of discs of this reissue of Flowers In The Dirt and similar amount of books, etc. And still cheaper. Even the recent Bob Dylan box set offered a whopping 36 discs for £100!

Even if you priced this new set at £100, you could still offer more content within the set, most importantly these B sides and remixes advertised as ‘download-only’. There are more songs from 1987 to 1989 that are completely worthy of inclusion. For example, you offer Back On My Feet and Loveliest Thing but no Once Upon A Long Ago, Love Come Tumbling Down, Same Love, Atlantic Ocean or PS Love Me Do and many more, which stem from the same period. Fans are clamouring for these tracks in good sound, not on long out of print singles or bootlegs. You surely want to demote piracy? Imagine how many more sets would be sold if more rarities were included? The more that buy the early ones the more that will buy the later ones. Imagine releasing McCartney II with no Check My Machine or RAM without Another Day? It would seem strange and ill-thought. And that is crux of the issue here. You are alienating a lot of people who buy these sets by not including basic things that have been included on previous sets, and fans deserve better treatment and better value.

We love you and your work. We love your new music (Flaming Pie, Chaos & Creation and NEW are absolutely fabulous works, up there with your best!) and we merely ask that we have celebration of your landmark albums with all they have to offer, warts and all.

Take a look at the comments on ‘SuperDeluxeEdition.com’, a leading music release website. In the first couple of hours of the reissue announcement, hundreds had voiced their anger at the decisions made in the contents and pricing of this set. I urge you to take heed at these comments – these are the people that buy these sets.

I hope sincerely that you reconsider the contents of this box at this price. There is still time. Even including a 4th CD with the B-sides and remixes, etc in a paper sleeve (if packaging has already been printed and completed) and slipped inside the box. The future sales of the Archive Collection depend on it.

Kind regards,

Ben Williams.

26 have signed already. Come on join us https://www.change.org/p/capitol-records-add-additional-cd-of-b-sides-remixes-etc-to-flowers-in-the-dirt-reissue-by-paul-mccartney?recruiter=653875553&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Ask for advice: where else can I post the link?

Hey, Mac: What have you been smoking lately? I do not plan on buying this set. I will buy another set from an artist who makes sense of what I will pay for. Shame on you!

https://www.change.org/p/capitol-records-add-additional-cd-of-b-sides-remixes-etc-to-flowers-in-the-dirt-reissue-by-paul-mccartney?recruiter=653875553&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Please sign the petition

With download-only content on this McCartney box and no CD release for a recent Bob Marley concert album, we are obviously seeing the first of what will be a series of provocations against Compact Disc collectors (and eventually against vinyl collectors as well) from Universal Music. One of Universal’s label’s (Capitol) has already stated that they will no longer offer recordings on any physical format after the end of 2018.

Feel the need to go on record with my displeasure at the decision not to release evrything on cd. This fan won’t be spending any money on the reissue.

Well the Flowers In The Dirt package is now on the horizon which I have been waiting in anticipation for some time now. I have bought the whole series of these releases and to say the very least the content has been dwindling on the last 2 releases and this is the final straw, we can have the tracks if we down load load them at a vastly over priced box set.What is the point of down loads when we want something physical, a download is definitely not. If the down load was included on CD everybody would be happy with the exception of the price.However they have still omitted several tracks that came with the Flowers In The Dirt album and the many different single configuration releases which were included on the Japanese 2 disc version. Where is the Long And Winding Road, the 2nd version of Rough Ride, Mamma’s Little Girl, Same Time Next Year and PS Love Me Do. I seriously hope that the powers that be in Capitol can see all these negative comments. I can’t fathom out why Paul who apparently has been heavily involved in putting this compilation together would do this to his loyal fans who have stuck by him all these years, I think this is pretty shabby treatment. He has so much money, why would he want to short change his fans. Come on Paul put this right and make it something you and the fans can be proud of and enjoy that will have a long lasting effect that will outlive us all.

I admire Sir Paul and all he has accomplished either with the Beatles and with Wings and to a lower extent most of his solo output. Although I have to say one of his strongest ones was this one (Flowers in the Dirt) and a shame that this is transpiring at this juncture. I think Rush have had some great reissues with the vinyls with the download cards available and with the 2112 respectful reissues. However Mr. Ian Anderson with Jethro Tull need to be commended and are by far the ones that are listening to the fans the most. Great reissues, book size, reasonable price with 80-100 booklets with 2 Cd/2DVD with complete history on the making of the albums.
If all record companies would follow suit it would be a wonderful world.
Speaking of wonderful world… I would like to wish you Paul and all your followers and a great holiday season with plenty of great new reissues in 2017 and plenty of money from Santa so we can take part in some of these.

Sincerely,

Tino

Definitely the Macca team needs some fans (UK, USA and South America) to serve as consultant for these releases. It’s a shame what they are doing.

This is probably because they intend to do a re-release at some point…hopefully with Blu-ray…

Someone on the internet pointed out that the demos included in this boxed set have long been available unofficially, and(knowing the length of those songs) that individual calculated the total length of the demo disc that McCartney intends to include in the “Flowers in the Dirt” boxed set. It has a total running time of a mere 26 minutes. McCartney and his manager have a poor sense of what constitutes good value for money at this price point.
Why should this set be priced nearly double the price of the “Tug of War”, “Pipes of Peace”, “Venus and Mars” & “Wings at The Speed of Sound” boxed sets?

A laughing stock and a great nonsense. Hopefully MPL and Capitol did not hire a new manager, who used to work at Burger King before that. I remembered the interview which Paul did with David Stewart from Eurythmics. I have laughed a lot when Dave was telling the Story about a manager who used to work at BK and then went to work at MCA and this manager intended to Give away free Eurythmics EPs with a special Hamburger menu.

I really wonder who comes up with such a bullsh.. and who from The music companies approve that and to what extend the artists who really involved in such decisions.
I wish we had a similar hot discussion about other reissues e.g. George Michael’s Listen without prejudice as there is lots of material instrumentals, remixes and demos that are not included. Wake up Sony and Colombia and come out of the comfort zone when it comes to reissues !!!!

Other thing are all this rocket prices for some boxes which are also unrealistic. Often including LP’s in the boxes to make the price utopic is also a big nonsense. Since it is now official that in the UK more LPs were sold in 2016 than downloads it makes sense to separate things a bit more.

If I have to be Honest for me Universal does the best work on reissues – content and price wise and offering various formats as well. Welldone !!!!!! E.g. Tears for fears Boxes, U2 boxes etc.

My biggest wish is that the records companies will pay a bit more attention to all The Feedback given from all the music lovers on this site and from The people who are buying the products.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Good job, Paul. And I mean Sinclair!
If MPL doesn’t listen, I hope people stay away from this product. What a bummer!

Macca/MPL/Capitol/whoever – just have a look at the beautifully packaged and very reasonable Steven Wilson Jethro Tull reissues.

The argument that ‘if we dopn’t buy this, all deluxe editions will be stopped’ is fallacy. It is so clear from the reaction here that this is a specifically and particularly poor and thoughtless way to reissue material for such a major recording artist.

A slap in the face to all fans

After a hectic Christmas season release schedule, I’m (finacially & personally) relieved that the schedule is now quieting down. The only items that I presently have preordered are the Japanese surround sound SACD of “Jeff Beck Group-Rough and Ready”, the “Cream-Fresh Cream” boxed set and “The Move-Magnetic Waves of Sound” CD + DVD set. And, in the near future, I’ll preorder the expanded reissue of “Shoot-On The Frontier”.
If the archival release schedule remains quiet after February, I can then consider some of the items that I previously had been unable to fit into my budget, including Jimmy Page’s mail-order 4-CD set of film soundtrack music, some 2014 Level 42 expanded remasters, and perhaps Pink Floyd’s “The Early Years” box (if the issue of faulty Blu-Ray discs is adressed) and The Monkees Blu-Ray box. For 3 months, sales of The Monkees Blu-Ray box was suspended, when the original packaging proved too fragile to withstand postal handling. The packaging was then re-designed and manufactured….only to have factory workers forget to include “disc 7″(the exclusive bonus content) in some of the re-packaged sets. I just didn’t want to take on the possible stress of the Pink Floyd and Monkees sets at this time.
I’ve collected so-called “Classic rock” for slightly over 50 years. If there’s a slight drought in new archival releases in the first half of 2017, I’m O.K. with that. It may be an opportunity for me to play some of my CD’s, SACD’s, DVD-Audio & Blu-ray Audio discs for a second time, and to work my way through a more than 2000 disc backlog of CD-R’s and homemade DVD-Audio discs that i have yet to play. Playing discs for the first time is, for me, a quality control procedure (to be sure that the discs play properly). Playing a disc for the second time is for pleasure; to actually enjoy the music.

A guy from Capital I know sent me an email & asked if I had seen this. I had. What a strange idea but these guys actually believe they are doing you a favor! In their mind, this is a really cutting edge idea. Those of you who know Mr Barentt will know what I mean. The good news is that downloads are down 40% + since their peak in 2012 and the offering will be dead by 2019.Some very important people will have a conversation about this and it will last all of 5 minutes. Bear in mind that SDE readers are fans, collectors and are passionate in the extreme. These guys look @ record releases the way you & I look @ a loaf of bread.
Good luck Paul.
And I mean both of you.
J

The Paul McCartney reissues haven’t been that bad so saying all of them have been poor is a bit harsh. I have all the deluxe ones so far and have been pleased with the majority. Yes more could be included but overall they have been done well. This one however with the download tracks and price has unfortunately left a bad taste. Hopefully they sort it out for us fans

Very disappointing release. Will pass on this one if te b-sides are download only.

I agree with everyone here, it’s a shame and a real lack of decency for the fans who are the only ones to buy the SDE ! Where is the petition to have the download bonus on a 4th CD for me to sign it ????