FEATURE:
3×3 = Nein!
IMAGE CREDIT: Capitol Records
Is There An Overkill of Unnecessary Reissues, Special and Anniversary Editions?
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I remember an article…
from The Guardian back in April. They were reacting to the fact that there were a spate of five-year anniversary released. Should the minimum length of time an album has to mature and age is ten years in that sense?! I agree that a ten-year anniversary edition is okay. Most albums released from the past five years are not that epic in terms of getting an anniversary edition out! I guess there is a need to reaffirm that excellence and maybe introduce the album to new listeners. Is it a case of cashing in and devaluing something that could be quite significant? The fifth anniversary have taken advantage in the continued rise in vinyl sales:
“Keen to make the most of a seemingly steady revenue stream, labels have begun increasing production on limited and deluxe repressings of popular albums. Anniversary reissues – once only common to recently remastered records, or albums several decades old – are now becoming popular for releases that are just five years old, such as Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy, Phoebe Bridgers’ Stranger in the Alps, Lucy Dacus’ Historian and Idles’ Brutalism. They’ve all been repressed in coloured formats or with alternate sleeves in the past two years, often at a slightly increased price point to standard black discs.
It’s in keeping with a frantically shortening nostalgia cycle that’s seen frenzied media coverage of supposed emo and “indie sleaze” revivals and music publications churning out cheap anniversary content – although these repressings seemingly offer little to the consumer other than a coloured disc. But Hannah Carlen and Ali Murphy – marketing directors for heavy-hitting indie conglomerate Secretly Group, which released Bridgers’ album – insist that fifth anniversary pressings allow artists to “give new fans something, and say ‘you’re welcome here too – you don’t have to be a day one fan’,” says Carlen.
Bridgers’ album hadn’t been repressed on coloured vinyl – demand for which vastly outstrips black vinyl – since 2019. In the intervening years, she broke through to the mainstream with her second album Punisher and found a swathe of new fans thanks to collaborations with Taylor Swift, SZA and Paul McCartney. Last year, it was rereleased in a run of 10,000 “galaxy-coloured” records. An anniversary “acknowledges that there’s been a lot of new fans over that span of time, and maybe they haven’t gotten access to something special, or when they’ve looked for it on eBay it’s $200,” says Carlen. (Original coloured pressings of Stranger have sold for upwards of £600 on the vinyl resale website Discogs.) “We don’t want to relegate people to a crazy inflated secondhand market.”
PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels
Lawrence Montgomery, managing director of Rough Trade record shops, concurs: anniversary pressings with alternate covers or vinyl colours, he says, are in tune with “demand from customers for unique vinyl pressings”.
“I think it’s about the reaction to streaming and digital consumerism,” he says. “Streaming is really good for vinyl sales because people can discover artists much more easily than they could in the past – when you then want to buy something to reaffirm your love of an artist, you want something more special.” During Covid, he says, many consumers began to use money they would have once spent on gig tickets on vinyl; at the same time, collectors have become “very savvy about finding what the best variant in the market is”.
In a crowded market, a limited edition repressing can also help a record get noticed by music shops with limited stock space. With a different barcode and catalogue number to a standard repressing, distributors can resolicit it for distribution. “The timeline of a record has changed so drastically,” says Ali Murphy. “Twenty years used to be the span of time in which people were celebrating a record, and now it’s got so much shorter, not only due to the quickness of everything coming out.”
For millennial music fans, the boom in anniversary content may feel like an exploitation of their recent youth. But Montgomery says that a younger contingent of fans is rivalling audiophiles and DJs as a significant market for vinyl, thanks to pop artists like Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey, who turn their albums into collectibles through the release of multiple alternate album covers or disc colours, and #VinylTok, a TikTok tag that creators use to showcase their collections and obsess over special editions. “We’ve done really well this year with Boygenius, Lana Del Rey, Caroline Polachek, Taylor,” he says”.
There does seem to be an increase in reissues. The anniversary releases are predictable I guess, though there are also the special editions and different-coloured vinyl options. When we get good news about vinyl sales, of course that will compel artists to reissue albums and deluxe versions. You wonder how much it is to do with satisfying demand from fans and artists taking advantage on a willing revenue stream. It is mainly something that major artists do. If the five-year anniversary gap seems a little exploitative and far too premature, then how about a third anniversary?! Even though I have nothing but love for Paul McCartney, the fact is that he is reissuing his 2020 album, McCartney III, has caused eyebrows to rise:
“Paul McCartney is set to celebrate the third anniversary McCartney III with the limited run vinyl version of McCartney III — 3×3 Edition, to be released December 15 on Capitol Records.
McCartney III — 3×3 Edition will be released in three randomly distributed configurations, each featuring one of three unique combinations of multi-color vinyl and prints of Paul’s handwritten draft lyrics or of his hand-drawn album artwork sketch: the Tri-color vinyl + “Pretty Boys” lyric draft; the Three-striped vinyl + album artwork sketch; and the Swirl vinyl + “The Kiss of Venus” lyric draft.
Additionally, all copies of McCartney III — 3×3 Edition will feature new cover art and will include a poster of Ed Ruscha’s hand-sketched draft for the original McCartney III album artwork.
Originally released on December 18, 2020, McCartney III is the third in a trilogy of home-made self-titled albums that began with Paul’s milestone 1970 solo debut McCartney, and continued in 1980 with the bold, experimental McCartney II.
All three albums were written, performed, and produced by Paul in varying states of isolation, all showcasing his unique creativity and inspired spontaneity. Recorded in “Rockdown” in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, McCartney III saw Paul turn unexpected time on his hands into an opportunity to get into the studio on his own. An intimate and revelatory record, McCartney III features Paul’s melodic gift at its forefront throughout. Upon release, McCartney III charted at No.1 on both the UK’s Official Album Charts and Billboard’s Top Album Sales Chart”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels
Out today (15th December), I guess there is something convenient if you missed the original release. Order details are here. I am not sure how long stocks will last but, only three years after its release, is it a step too far?! The excess of only giving a three-year gap before reissuing an album! It has been a busy year for Macca-related content. The Beatles’ final single, Now and Then, came out earlier this year (and made it onto vinyl). There has just been the fiftieth anniversary reissue of Wings’ Band on the Run. There are always reissues in McCartney’s world, however the short time between his most recent studio album being released and then reissued without much extra seems a bit like a cash-grab! I know that he is a prolific artist who always wants to bring in new fans. I wonder whether the release of the 3×3 album is taking things too far1 It is not only Paul McCartney who is fully riding the opportunity of the vinyl wave. Alongside fifth anniversary reissues comes the ever-growing cycle of special editions. Extra tracks and some added artwork. Maybe adding to an already-successful album. There is the issue of overinflating the market. Maybe newer releases get overlooked. Smaller acts might not have the option to put out their album on several colours of vinyl. There is a collectability to having various reissues and colours of vinyl. I can understand why a new studio album should have a few physical options, though artists putting out recent albums again seems excessive! In some incidents it is a case that the original pressing has limited availability and there is a demand for a new pressing.
A group like De La Soul who recently reissued their back catalogue after a contract/label issue that also meant their music was not available on streaming platforms. Steely Dan put out their albums recently too after scarce availability. Kate Bush did likewise in 2018. There was some criticism this year after she reissued her studio albums again; this time with different colours and designs for each vinyl. It also came with a Baskerville edition of 1985’s Hounds of Love. Many fans feeling it was her capitalising on the recent success and new fans after the success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and its appearance in Stranger Things last year. Even if many fans are willing to shell out money for special editions or reissues of albums that are quite new or already been released and are available, there is a worthiness of reissues when there is availability issue or an album is harder or more expensive to find. I hope that there is not a trend of artists putting albums back out after only a few years or so. There is a limit of vinyl manufacturing plants and resources, so there should be priority for new artists and ensuring original material gets out there. I agree that big-anniversary albums are worth a reissue. I struggle to find much value to fans when an album gets an extra lick of paint or some extras. Even if the songs are remastered, is there much of an improvement on the original?! A lot of fans will buy the 3×3 Edition from Paul McCartney but, considering there was also the McCartney III Imagined (other artists tackling its songs) in 2021, it has provoked some backlash! Let us hope, next year, that we see fewer unnecessary reissues and more space for new artists and their albums. I fail to see why any new reissue of a new album offers something…
THE original doesn’t.