So Long, Bob  | |
| The Death of the Album? | |
| My Practice of Zen in the Office | |
| My Blank Pages | |
| Classical Confusion |
HOW DOES IT FEEL... TO BE DUMB? by Adam D. MillerBeing There readers will have probably noticed by now that I am a very big Bob Dylan fan. Not big in the sense that I own all of his albums, but big enough that when a new Dylan release, whether it be a collection of brand new material or another chapter in his Bootleg Series, comes out, I’m gonna go get it, and be one of the first in line to boot. With Martin Scorsese’s Dylan documentary No Direction Home set to be televised and released on DVD in September (plus a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival a few weeks earlier that I am desperately hoping to attend!), the good people at Sony decided to make the film’s soundtrack, which largely consists of rare live Dylan recordings and studio outtakes from the years 1959-1966, available on CD as No Direction Home: The Soundtrack – Bootleg Series Vol. 7. So I had it all planned out – I would stop at HMV on my way home from lunch, and if the price was right, snag a copy for my collection. A quick glance at the new releases, and No Direction Home: The Soundtrack was eerily absent from today’s new releases, which also included Kanye West’s Late Registration (the massive ad at the front of the store told me). A bit frustrated, I walked over to the ‘Dylan, Bob’ section in Pop/Rock, which is where I saw the dreaded sign that read something like “HMV Canada is committed to fighting against exclusive deals by artists and therefore all products by this artist have been pulled.” Okay, so it probably didn’t say that, but it was close. Great. So you’re going to punish young music fans eager to purchase a copy of Blood On The Tracks or Freewheelin’, just because Dylan’s people decided Starbucks could have exclusive rights to sell The Gaslight Tapes, a much lower profile release than today’s No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, the latter of which could be sold anywhere. This wasn’t the first time HMV Canada has taken it into their hands to be a music retailer vigilante. A few summers ago, when Best Buy and Future Shop had exclusive rights to a special DVD box set by The Rolling Stones, HMV pulled all of their products from their shelves. I understand HMV is trying to make a statement, and I’m all for that. I’m certainly not in love with this Starbucks deal, though I could go on and on about why I think exclusive deals aren’t such a bad thing. But who ultimately benefits from the boycott of an artist’s product? Certainly not HMV, who is basically telling the hundreds of Dylan fans eager to purchase a copy of No Direction Home: The Soundtrack “we don’t want your money, go somewhere else.” And certainly not the customer, who is the one who should be catered to by these companies that are just as corporate as the entity they are against. HMV does not have the right to complain about what’s unfair. Once HMV stops charging $24.99 for a single disc CD, then they can talk about what’s unfair. Luckily my workplace is close to several other record stores which had No Direction Home: The Soundtrack prominently displayed up front. But I have to wonder how many other Dylan fans went into HMV with a sense of excitement that was only extinguished by that little yellow sign in the “Dylan, Bob” section. Will I boycott HMV as a result? No. I am always out to find the best price, and I will go wherever I can to get it; but playing crybaby is not going to make a dent in the music industry as much as offering product at a reasonable price is. |  |
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