The disappointing and baffling thing is, the reason labels do this is because THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE. A large number of fans will buy this material, even though it represents NOTHNG NEW. Consumer psychology fascinates me.
You can also go to iTunes and listen to dozens of copies of the same track, and notice how much they vary and how awful many of them sound.
A lot of this is "public domain" material that is being repackaged and released in areas of the world where copyright has expired. But what is even more astonishing is there are companies paying Sony/ATV enormous licensing fees for the rights to use the same old tracks that any fan can get free off YouTube or a multitude of other sources!
There's an old saying "there's a sucker born every minute" and that must be true. How else to account for the sales success of the rehashes of Jim Reeves' old hash?
I don't want any part of that and I have built my label, VoiceMasters, on the premise of offering fans something they haven't heard before. I've produced some CDs (not only on Jim, but on Patsy Cline, Bing Crosby/Rosemary Clooney) for a UK company that likewise is more interested in offering the fans over there something fresh. That's the whole fun of this work -- discovering new material, new diamonds in the rough -- and sharing them with the world.
Of course, it's very expensive to do this and time consuming as well. It would be easier just to pay the steep prices of Sony/ATV and re-release the same old Reeves product and probably cash in. But that's not my philosophy in life... That's why I have to laugh every time one of those characters who like to nip at my heels accuses me of only wanting to PROFIT on Reeves. Now that truly IS funny.
This is only JANUARY and already there are scores of repackagings available on Reeves. iTunes came up with a long list of public domain artists whom they will not allow you to promote; but Jim Reeves and other country artists are not on that list. So it's a free-for-all. (BTW, my company has NEVER put anything online for download, either on iTunes or Amazon). Look for more and more lame repackagings of Jim's music but BUYER BEWARE.
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