SINGLES GAME

Following on from your excellent article on the revival of vinyl, I would like to comment on the marketing ploys of the record companies. Over the last 18 months or so, the trend has been to release two different seven inch versions of the same single, plus a CD. There are none available on DVD. In my opinion you could not beat a great song with a great video, and you could get both together on the DVD single. After the multi-format excesses of the 90s, a good percentage of singles were released in a nice mix of the three chart-eligible versions, namely a CD, a 7” vinyl and a DVD (though sometimes two CDs and one vinyl). Three completely different and unique formats in my opinion it worked well.

Now record companies have decided we don’t need DVD. I love the 7” format, but I think releasing two different versions is taking the biscuit, especially as some releases are struggling to have enough B-sides to cover all formats, so they release the one-sided etched version to compensate. This tactic is aimed squarely at exploiting the collector in my opinion (with vinyl being the minority format as opposed to the more widely used CD and DVD formats). Another problem is the availability of the vinyl. My local HMV and Virgin don’t stock them, and most of the small independent record shops have closed down.

Recently I experienced the ludicrous situation of buying the current Queens Of The Stone Age single in my local HMV, with a ‘Buy all 3 formats for £5’ sticker attached to the CD. Just one problem – the other two formats are vinyl and they don’t stock vinyl. I had to get them by mail order. So it begs the question, why are record companies releasing singles in three formats, two of which you have to go to great lengths to get hold of? No wonder singles are struggling to sell.

by Alan Bain
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