exclusive opeth album

[ozric]

firstly, sorry if i mislead you with the title...

The other day a mate of mine was telling me about how some old rock band his dad listens to (forget the name) offered their fans an 'exclusive' album (a couple of songs maybe), which he happened to get a hold of and its worth a fair bit today. Basically what happened was, the band had a bunch of material that they didn't want to release on a large scale, so they gave fans the opportunity to pay a set amount, and once the band received enough interest in the idea to make the whole thing wortwhile, they released a VERY limited edition record to a couple of hundred fans who each paid about $40 each iirc.

The reason i mention this is because i wonder if a band such as Opeth, or any band really, would be interested in such an idea. I know that i'd be extremely interested in receiving a record of this nature, and there's definitely potential for the band to rack in some money, not that money is of much interest to opeth. if 2000 people agreed to pay $40 each, that'd be about $80,000 (net) for the band. Thoughts?

 

[Ɛnslaved]

Interesting idea but man,we are in 2000s,not in '70s or '80s.We got internet,remember?There is no "exclusive" or "unreleased" material for a known band like Opeth now and it is not going to be likely from now on.It is enough to record a lame ass demo in a lame ass studio now.It can be leaked now or tomorrow.Eveything is one click ahead of you.Even though your idea is realized,someone will surely leak the tracks to sharing networks or HTTP pages and you will play miserables towards this.People generally do not wait for original release now, they download when the material is leaked and again, many of them do not buy the original release.We do not celebrate the "release of original albums" but "leakage of upcoming albums" now.Pity.

 

[ozric]

i hear what you're saying, but the reason i find it appealing is not because of hearing the music so much, i understand that people are gonna leak it, it's that you would own a piece of memoribilia that you could say you personally contributed to (money-wise), and it would be very collectable

 

[Prophet178]

I doubt they would ever do that. Especially on a label like Roadrunner. Doing a "collectors only" type thing wouldn't be very profitable for a major label like them. They are all about getting the music out there as much as possible. So by limiting the press and raising the price, the only people that will be interested are the people that are huge into the band already.

Also with the internet today, the first person to buy it would have it up on the net for everyone to consume.

 

[murderedbysound]

Bands do that with Vinyls. I have a small collection and so far the lowest number of production of an album or whatever is about 500. Opeth did it with the Still Day Beneath the Sun EP (1250 or something on black vinyl and 150 on gray?) Even though you can get the special edition CD of BWP and get those 2 songs I personally find it much more enjoyable having it on vinyl.

Even in the digital age labels and bands still do it. It may no be as..obvious but they do it. I think now that they have a bigger label it might become easier versus one like Peaceville.

 

[Prophet178]

Almost all vinyls today are limited presses because they are more expensive to press and distribute than a CD. I'm pretty sure the Watershed vinyl is limited to only a couple thousand pressings.

 

[grey knight]

Ignoring the stuff about Roadrunner...

If they released something like that, they could include some cool artwork, to make people interested.

 

[Kenneth R.]

try to torrent a vinyl on the internet.

you might get some fucked up rip of one, but it's not the same thing at all. Exclusive is still alive and well - and its name is LP.

 

[Prophet178]

The only people that buy vinyls are the people that love music or are collectors. That is why almost all vinyls today are limited pressings of a few hundred (small bands) or a few thousand for larger bands. I'm a big fan of vinyl, I buy all of my music on vinyl, but for the record label its all about profit, and doing an exclusive rarities collection just wouldn't be worth it for them.