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Sony adjust Cyndi Lauper deluxe set pricing after criticism

By Paul Sinclair

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49

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Having been roundly criticised by fans for being too expensive and missing key content, Sony have taken some action and dropped the price of the Cyndi Lauper She’s So Unusual deluxe edition.

The two-CD set is now retailing for £21 on Amazon UK rather than £33, a drop of more than a third. This drop has come about as a direct result of Sony lowering the dealer price thanks to feedback from readers of SuperDeluxeEdition. There is (unfortunately) no change to the package in terms of presentation or in particular, the track listing.

The 30th Anniversary Celebration of She’s Not Unusual is issued on 31 March 2014.

2CD Deluxe Edition

Vinyl (with download code)

Single disc remaster

 Track listing

Disc: 1

  • 1. Money Changes Everything
  • 2. Girls Just Want To Have
  • 3. When You Were Mine
  • 4. Time After Time
  • 5. She Bop
  • 6. All Through The Night
  • 7. Witness
  • 8. I’ll Kiss You
  • 9. He’s So Unusual
  • 10. Yeah Yeah
  • 11. Girls Just Want To Have Fun (2013 Yolanda Be Cool Remix)
  • 12. Time After Time (2013 Nervo Remix)
  • 13. Time After Time (2013 Bent Collective Remix)

Disc: 2 (deluxe only)

  • 1. Girls Just Want To Have Fun (Early Guitar Demo)
  • 2. All Through The Night (1982 rehearsal, with studio dialog)
  • 3. Rules And Regulations (1982 Rehearsal)
  • 4. Money Changes Everything (Demo)
  • 5. Girls Just Want To Have Fun (Demo)
  • 6. Right Train, Wrong Track (Non LP B-Side)
  • 7. Witness (Live, Boston, 1984)
  • 8. She Bop (1983 Arthur Baker Remix)
  • 9. Time After Time (Work In Progress Rough Mix)

SuperDeluxeEdition.com helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.

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49 Comments

49 thoughts on “Sony adjust Cyndi Lauper deluxe set pricing after criticism”

  1. You said it pal. Best you stick to remixes of One Direction and X Factor spuds ;) All super-talented, and loved by our blessed youth.

  2. “if what you’re saying is true, every nightclub in every city in the country would play nothing but 80′s extended remixes – all the time, every night … but crowds in general go for mostly modern/current productions from the last few years or so – and THAT’s a fact Jack ;)”

    Of course they play the new stuff! The Dj’s and the dancers are both young and stupid like most yoof these days. They have pills in their system and sh*t for brains. How many late 30’s and 40 somethings are out clubbing at the weekend? Very very few. Doh. Modern remixes are usually crap attempts at deconstructing a good original into something else, and 90% fair miserably. The only decent mixes I hear these days are from Stuart Price (Thin White Duke), Redanka and Jackknife Lee. The rest usually blow.

  3. I don’t mind getting the 2014 remixes or demo’s as bonus (digital downloads or space fillers)! But first all those original 12″/7″/Dub/Instr/etc have to be present. Or even previously unreleased/promo 80’s remixes from the vault :P

    So we’re not negative! We just want Sony to make this a super positive project for us to buy :D

  4. “As a DJ and remix collector, the 2014 remixes are much more preferred than some moldy oldie 12″ remix from 1983.”

    I take it you mean the modern remix which breaks down the song into something that sounds nothing like the original song / mix that you liked?

    If so then YOU are the minority. Many of us were lucky enough to be around in the early eighties when remixes were almost always extended versions of the brilliant original song. Fat Roland Jupiter analogue bass sequences and Linn Drum pattern breakdowns combined with edit syncs.. fantastic.

    Most modern remixes are cr*p in comparison. Fact. People would walk miles around cities to track down a Shep Pettibone Pet Shop Boys remix, or something from New Order or Depeche Mode 12″ in the 80’s. I would not get off the sofa to get one of yours Mr Angelo.

    Get over yourself with the modern ‘yoof’ culture is superior rubbish. It is not.

    1. @Daran = “Most modern remixes are cr*p in comparison. Fact. People would walk miles around cities to track down a Shep Pettibone Pet Shop Boys remix, or something from New Order or Depeche Mode 12″ in the 80′s. I would not get off the sofa to get one of yours Mr Angelo.”

      I’m not a remixer myself, but thanks for playing! Hey if what you’re saying is true, every nightclub in every city in the country would play nothing but 80’s extended remixes – all the time, every night. Obviously that’s not reality. Granted, there are “niche” 80’s nights every so often, but “what the kids dance to these days” along with play on their iPods, listen to on the radio, and download online – is current remixes. For better or for worse. Hell, I’d actually like to be ABLE to play more 80’s & 90’s remixes in my DJ gigs, but crowds in general go for mostly modern/current productions from the last few years or so – and THAT’s a fact Jack ;)

  5. There are multiple points of view here, but I wanted to reiterate something DJ MichaelAngelo said:

    “Thank goodness this little niche website doesn’t represent an average cross-section of the normal music-buying public.”

    I agree entirely. Thank goodness for that, because the normal music-buying public doesn’t give a crap about physical releases anymore. That public will download or stream what they want from this release digitally, and that’s fine for them. The denizens of “this little niche website” are the people keeping physical releases alive.

    Some of us want demos. Some of us want all the original versions. Some of us want new remixes. Some of us want videos. But Sony/Cyndi can do all of that digitally any time they want. But if they’re going to bother to court to those of us left who want a physical release, they should make it a good one and price it accordingly. As an overall package, this one is a bit scant: it has a few of each of the things we would want (except videos), but not a trove of anything (except maybe demos), something nobody really wants (the diorama and costume nonsense), and for all that, a ridiculous price tag.

    For those of us who treasure this album, the physical version of this release represents a bit of a lost opportunity. You should be able to see where some of the negativity arises.

  6. Actually, I’d be interested in the demo versions for Girls Just Wanna… and Time After Time, provided they would stand up to repeated listenings. The Peter Gabriel early versions CD in the infamous So box has not been played much at all so far. There’s that tough divide between historically interesting, and worth repeated listens that can be hard to join.

  8. Cyndi SHOULD cancel this release, DJ MichaelAngelo! It’s going to be a failure!!!

    And if you love it so much, I fully expect you to buy up all copies so Sony doesn’t have a complete and utter loss on this project.

    The ONLY tracks I want from this edition are:
    – Right Train, Wrong Track
    – She Bop (1983 Arthur Baker Remix)

    THEN add all those 12″ mixes, single versions, etc.

    Otherwise, and I hope someone from Sony reads this, YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE A LOT OF MONEY ON THIS! I’ve bought a ton of Sony releases in the last 30 years so I guess I feel strongly on this issue.

  9. Reading through these comments is appalling….what a picky bunch of negative ungrateful crybabies – YIKES!!! I for one would actually RATHER have new/updated remixes & old demo versions than the original 80’s extended/12″ versions, which are completely useless to me. But that apparently makes me in the minority. As a DJ and remix collector, the 2014 remixes are much more preferred than some moldy oldie 12″ remix from 1983.

    Thank goodness this little niche website doesn’t reprepsent an average cross-section of the normal music-buying public. Nervo’s mix of Time After Time is hot (I did a “full vocal” re-edit for X-Mix, out next month in the US) and Bent Collective’s remix is decent. Of course ballads work great as dance remixes, why wouldn’t they? I say, if Cyndi herself stumbled across this article and read all these whiny Debby-Downer complaints, she’d probably cancel the whole release!

    1. Well, you’ve certainly established your bias as someone promoting your little niche DJ service re-edit, but I too enjoy the newer remixes when they’re included IN ADDITION TO the vintage material.

      It sounds like we’re all fans (to varying degrees) here and much of the negative comments regarding the 2014 remixes has come from the lack of vault material.

      Oh, and it’s people like the ones here, posting their equally valid points of view, who are interested enough to take notice of a re-release of this nature. This superior “normal music-buying public” of which you speak is either going to skip this set out of lack of awareness of/interest in an expensive 30 year old record and, if anything, most will probably just download “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (legally or not) and call it a day.

  10. Even a price of £5 would be at least £6 too expensive for what must be the most pointless Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc ever!

    NO ONE CARES about demo, live and modern remix crap, when there’s so much 7″, 12″ and b-side stuff!

    NO ONE!

  11. And it bears repeating, all the missing tracks which should fit across 2 CDs… get rid of useless demos:

    Girls Just Want To Have Fun [Extended Version] 6:08
    Girls Just Want To Have Fun [Fun With V. Knutsn – Instrumental] 7:10
    Girls Just Want To Have Fun [Extra Fun] 5:05
    Girls Just Want To Have Fun [Video Version] 4:20

    Time After Time [Single Version] 3:52

    She Bop [Single Version] 3:38
    She Bop [Special Dance Mix] 6:18
    She Bop [Instrumental] 5:20

    All Through The Night [Single Version] 4:29

    Intro 0:19 / Money Changes Everything [That Version] 6:04
    Intro 0:19 / Money Changes Everything [This Version] 5:29
    Money Changes Everything [Live Single Version] 4:13
    Money Changes Everything [Studio Single Version] 3:59

    I’ll Kiss You ?:??

    When You Were Mine [Single Version] 4:00

    There was a promo vinyl single of “I’ll Kiss You”, but I don’t know if it was edited for the vinyl single release.

    C’mon Legacy! Change that tracklisting!

  12. Well, it does include some demos, a non-LP B-side, an appropriate live track, and the best contemporary 12″ remix of the bunch, so it’s not like it’s completely bereft of material suitable to a re-issue like this, and I’d like to own that material. But it’s still outrageously priced ($42 in the US), and for that money, it should have had a lot more, and I won’t be buying it because of that.

  13. Well, it’s not the the price tag! Why can’t they just amend the tracklist instead of adjusting the price? Even if this reissue is free I still have to think about it. Since we all (I assumed) kept/keep buying all kinds of reissues/remastered/expanded/super deluxe editions, I/we don’t have much space left for all the CD’s! I just want to have them once (twice tops). So record companies only have once & max twice to do it right.

    GM’s Faith wasn’t perfect! But at least it was a better attempt than this Sony USA project. It has the harder to get single B sides (instrumentals/live/some mixes)! I’ve got them all from his CD singles. I still bought it just because they were all collected together on 1 CD set!

  14. I predict you’ll find this in the cut out/bargan bins for $3.99 within a year or so. All those copies will then be gobbled up and it will be an out of print collector’s item. :). And who knows. Maybe for the 45th anniv., we’ll get a 5.1 version with all the mixes that were not included on this one. I mean, that’s the way it works, right? Just wish for it, and eventually the ever so sensitive record companies will come through for the fans.

  16. It’s great to see everyone here on a unified front. Sony, you need to learn a valuable lesson from this. When reissuing something as classic as this from an artist who has a huge cult following, you need to do it right.

    We all agree that NEW mixes are totally wasted on a remaster from the 80s. NO ONE CARES. Did you hear that and see it. NO ONE CARES. Does that make sense to you? These new mixes are not going to make the song rechart so give it up. If you haven’t taken it to press, it would be very wise to start over and give us the original 12″ mixes and single versions we all know and love AND expect on this remaster of this caliber. Did you have some idiot little Generation Y’er, who knows nothing about Cyndi Lauper, putting this together as some sort of apprentice-type job. It seems so. You guys are the big guys but you need to take a lesson from some of the smaller record labels who are doing this successfully and who are providing amazing sound quality in addition to ALL the mixes we want.

    I guess when it all comes down to it, I won’t be buying it either until I can find it much later for a price that I think it’s worth….which is far from what you guys want for it. Just repulsively sad, Sony greedsters. Sad that we are all compelled to skip it.

  17. 30th Anniversary – great! I am in my 40’s now, I do not want or need Cyndi Lauper paper dolls, postcards, or other ephemera at this point. I am not cutting out pictures from teen mags. 30 years later, it is the original music that we want. A new remix is understandable, but multiple mixes by people barely alive when the original came out? Let some new band to a proper cover in their own style, or if Cyndi wants to do a mix — I am all for it.

  18. Agree with the overall sentiment. The price was never the issue for me. It was the content. I would have gladly paid the higher price (maybe even a bit more) had the content been complete. If it would have replaced my 12″ singles and the previous CD issue, it would have been a instant purchase. As is, it replaces nothing in my collection. Although the “Faith” reissue of a few a few years ago wasn’t perfect, it was at least close and should have been the model they followed for this release.

  19. I would imagine that the main drive behind the ‘new’ mixes is the incredible success and popularity of the remixed reggae style ‘girls just wanna have fun’ in the 90’s….not that I’m in favour, but in context their rationale suddenly makes some sense..they obviously hope lightening will strike twice!

  20. A price-drop does not make up for the huge amount of missing material that *made* the ‘She’s So Unusual’ era.

    Expecting original 7″ and 12″ mixes and music videos to be collected on expensive anniversary sets isn’t asking too much of major labels such as Sony who own and store master copies of these materials yet withhold them while repeatedly trying to milk consumers.

    I’m not going to pick this up either which is a shame because, with a minimal effort, it could have been an essential release.

  21. The Prodigy did the same with their The Fat Of The Land remaster – “new” remixes added.

    This sounds like a Cyndi-led initiative that Sony is forced to go along with.

    Too bad that the majority of her fans will NOT be buying this and that it’ll be a loss for Sony.

    Bring on the b-sides/remixes/Goonies and you’ll make lots of $$$ and keep the fans happy.

  22. “Why in the world do artists/labels bother with “new” remixes of old tracks? They’re universally terrible”

    I think it’s to appeal to the ‘yoof’ market, or else to appear not dinosaur like as new remixes (wrongly) are thought to make an artist modern, trendy and generally ‘with it’ ….

  23. The other comments here raise an important issue for me. Why in the world do artists/labels bother with “new” remixes of old tracks? They’re universally terrible.

  24. Now, where is that chap to come up with a defence of this cr*p when you need him! He was very vocal on the previous threads :)

    Sorry whoever you were, but you have been been found guilty of being wrong. Sony lowering the price is an admission of guilt that they have ballsed this up and that it won’t sell to almost anyone. The idea of putting in a card to access the missing 12″ mixes on the internet is brilliant – again you fail miserably Sony to save the day for your (and Cyndi’s) benefit.

    A(nother) truckload of product nobody wants is your fully deserved fate for being so stupid. Anybody know the telephone number of a good plastic recycling facility? Or maybe a landfill?

    1. Dear Sony,

      Considering the feedback here it would be wise to fix the track selection by including all the 7″ and 12″ mixes. However, I understand, too, that you are just a record label in a struggling music business. Has this release already gone to the presses? Perhaps it’s too late now to adjust anything. A suggestion for next time: ask for fan feedback first if you cannot put together a comprehensive track selection or a listing of mixes that the fans actually want. If licensing or sourcing master tapes were the issue, then please say so. I doubt that is the case, however, since all 12″ mixes have appeared on CD from masters previously, except for maybe the dub mixes.

      As for a download card to access the missing 12″ mixes and versions … that would be better than nothing provided that the mixes were available in a lossless format. However, I like physical product, so I would still much rather have them on a physical release.

      Oh well. I may buy it anyway if I can find it less than $15. I really don’t think that it’s worth more than that with the current track listing. I would gladly pay $25 or more for a track listing like the one that I had suggested.

      For now, considering the price point and track selection, it looks like I won’t be taking part in this 30th anniversary celebration. I’ll pass.

  25. I’d consider this for a REASONABLE price, particularly if it had the ORIGINAL remixes. I have absolutely NO interest in 2014 remixes. Currently US Amazon shows this at approx. $20.00, WAY too much. Pass.

  27. Sony & Cyndi STILL seem to be missing the point. £15 would still be too high a price tag with its current track list. LISTEN TO THE FANS…we’re the ones who would potentially be buying this, not the younger demographic they seem to be trying to capture with ‘trendy new’ mixes. I agree about Bargain Bins…seems this is destined to visit that arena on release!

  28. Lords of Record Companies: A HIGH price “VERY EXPENSIVE” 2-CD’s, and they add nothing new. Some remixes that are not worth it and devoid of issues maxis (12″ inch). Price in Euros in France and Germany spend 55 Euros, you think that someone is going to spend the big bucks for an album that does not provide no nothing new and good?
    I think other issues and or put down their price in half or will sell very, very few. Thans.

  29. I buy expanded reissues due to them having original content added, such as 12inch versions of the time, B-Sides, live and demo tracks – NOT new remixes and updated remixes that are nothing to do with the original or as good!

  32. Still too expensive (at least on the US Amazon website as I write this). Sony continues to disappoint. Oh well, hopefully I’ll find it in a bargain bin someday. And from fan response it looks like no one is going to buy it anyway, so I’m sure it’ll be in bargain bins in no time.

  33. The Bent Collective Radio Mix of Time After Time actually works well but i’m still with everyone else on here – I won’t be purchasing this edition due to the lack of original 12″ Versions and missing tracks. I also don’t understand why £21 for a 2xCD set?? Wasn’t George Michael’s Faith 2xCD remaster around the £10-£12 mark when released? (or now £1.99 in HMV)!!

  35. Why does Cyndi insist on turning “Time After Time” into a dance anthem? The song doesn’t work as a dance song. It’s been remixed before and those mixes fell flat. The original is pure perfection.

    I would have preferred the 12″ mixes, or a live album (from the time period) at least. Even a DVD with the videos and a making-of documentary.

    1. I suggested that already to Sony. I don’t know why they aren’t doing it. This is very much a US-led project, Cyndi’s ‘vision’ etc.

  37. Sorry to hijack this thread Paul, but could you find out what is happening with the Nick Drake – ‘Five Leaves Left’ pure audio Blu-ray.

    It looks like it has missed the release date again for about the third time and I was wondering what the issue is with this particular disc.

  40. Why, SONY did not change the tracklisting as well? It’s a shame… We all want the original extended mixes from the PORTRAIT 12inches ; nothing is provided but useless 2014 REmixes…
    At this hour, Amazon.FR did not change the price, it’s still 56 EUR! :(

  41. I should add that I would also expect that the standard edition to be a 2CD set for that price. It’s a 30 year old album that I’ve purchased 3 times already (vinyl/CD/CD reissue with bonus live tracks). I’d like to hear the demos but am not paying £20+ for them.

    I’ve heard one of the 2013 remixes and it’s as bad as was expected.

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