Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (01/07/87)
Really-From: William LeFebvre <phil@rice.edu> It's a conspiracy, I tell you..... I decided to visit one of my local record/disk stores today just to thumb through the compact disks. Actually, I was looking for one specific disk (which, of course I didn't find) but in the process I had the shock of the month. This particular place is better stocked with KaTe Bush CDs than most any other store in Houston (which, unfortunately, isn't saying much). So, when I found myself in the vicinity of "B", I decided to see what they had. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had several copies of "The Whole Story". I looked again, and sure enough, there were the gorgeous eyes of the heartthrob of most everyone on this list staring up at me from the front of this compact disk! I was elated. Not having seen ANY KaTe Bush disks recently, I thumbed through the remainder of their collection to find, much to my continued surprise, that they also had several copies of "Hounds of Love"! "Oh happy day" said I. I began to think about just how much money I could get away with spending today. That prompted me to look at The Price! I about shook the building off its foundations with my thunderous roar of "WHAT?!?". Picking up "The Whole Story", I discovered that it was stickered at a whopping $21.99. "Well maybe, just maybe, this disc has more music on it. That would explain the higher price." Nope. No chance. "Well maybe, just maybe, this specific disc has, for some insane reason, a consistently higher price." I looked at "Hounds of Love", and my unbelieving eyes saw a price tag that said $20.99. Now I KNOW that I have, in the past, seen that disc for the standard rate (on the order of $15). "Well maybe, just maybe, this store has raised all its prices to the ridiculous figure of $20+." Nope, most other disks were their customary (for this store, at any rate) $14.99. I left the store with empty hands and heavy heart. So what gives here? Was what I saw a bunch of imports with some insane import fee appended to the regular price? Or was it, in the style of certain nighttime soap opera writers, all a dream? Just what does EMI think its doing? These discs are more expensive than the ones from DMP!!! (DMP = digital music productions; they put out Flim & the BBs, among others). I am very distressed about this. I do not yet have my own copy of "Hounds of Love", relying on the occasional borrowing of a friend's disk. And I was quite seriously thinking of getting a copy of "The Whole Story". But at that price, I honestly don't want to. It's not that I don't think its worth it---it is. But why encourage such outrageous behaviour on the part of certain record company executives? Has anyone else experienced this great travesty? Has anyone else noticed that IED doesn't hold a monopoly on weird line breaks? William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>