Hear Music or Hear Money

This may be old news to some, but a couple of weeks ago Starbucks’ record label Hear Music announced that it will be re-releasing Paul McCartney’s latest album Memory Almost Full with new tracks and a DVD.

I understand that Hear Music isn’t the first label to do the re-release thing. I mean, what respectable record label wouldn’t want to add some outtakes that weren’t good enough for the original release and dupe people into purchasing an album again. The label knows that true fans will be compelled to repurchase the album just to get these “special” reissue tracks and the DVD.

I don’t see anything wrong with re-releasing music that is thirty years old that has been completely remastered or was out of print. There is some added value in either case and many people are willing to repurchase an album that they think will sound better than the original, or that has not been available for a while. The original in Hear Music’s case, however, is only four months old. If the new tracks are so great, they would have been on the original. As for the DVD, how many times will you really watch it?

This is precisely the type of thing that propels people to steal music. If I had rushed out to buy this album when it was first released, I certainly wouldn’t be waiting in line to buy it again. I’d be waiting behind the screen of my computer watching the new tracks download…for free.

I hope it’s the label and not McCartney that is behind this re-release. You’d expect it from a record label in the twenty-first century, but who knows.