The music industry is forever trying different avenues in order to make people buy their artists’ albums. In all honesty, I prefer having a solid product rather than one that exists almost entirely as a clump of zeros and ones that no one can see.
I like having sleeve notes, and what is almost like a keepsake in the form of the plastic casing. The album cover is an art-form - buying music off the Internet as a download pretty much renders it pointless.
What I don’t like - and I mean really don’t like - is where a record company releases different versions of the same album. It is an insult to my intelligence where a record company thinks I might buy more than one in order to have “the set”, if only so that I have every single colour. Furthermore, a record company might release “CD” and “CD and DVD” versions; the latter with a DVD containing a load of rubbish really. I have to say, that works. Each time I’ve been offered a choice between the “CD” and “CD and DVD” options, I have gone for the DVD option. Indeed, I have always been disappointed with the poor quality of the content. But I make the same mistake every time.
And I have done the same: buying Dream Theater’s new album Systematic Chaos. Can’t wait to get it, but I reckon I’ll be disappointed by the DVD add-on.