Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (11/08/90)
Really-From: nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@mitvma.mit.edu This will appear like heresy to some but I have to express my bad feelings about the new Box Set. I finally got my set - it took a week for the local store to get it. It seems people in the States had it before me! Now I have got it I find it hard to contain my disappointment at the way the package has been put together. On the plus front we now have all the B-sides and some other odds and sods collected together in one place and available on CD. There is a nice photo booklet but with the CDs this is so small as to lose most of its impact. Why could not the CDs be sold in a large format box. This was done with Bob Dylan's Biograph set. You get twleve stickers - well I suppose they might come in useful when my daughter gets to the age when she wants to decorate the fridge. Personally, one would have been more than enough for me. Then we have six albums which have not been altered in any way just stuck in a box. Must have taken someone a long time to think that one up. Since the CD format became popular there have been dozens of compilations, anthologies, special collector's editions of various artists and almost without exception they have included previously unreleased songs, remastered tracks etc. On this box set we have nothing new at all. The recently released Led Zeppelin set comes out much more favourably in this context (and no I am not comparing the music). The two new CDs come with no accompanying biography, discography, lyrics or explanatory notes of any kind. At the price the set is sold for this is really poor. It must have taken someone at EMI all of two hours to put this concept together. I will no longer have any qualms about buying from bootleggers as at least their money for nothing approach is out in the open. As you might guess I feel let down by the presentation of the set. No matter how good the music, there is no excuse for short changing the fans. If Kate really was closely involved in putting this package together then I think she has spent too long isolated and away from her fans. I was hoping for something really special but I am afraid for me this represents a wonderful opportunity which has been missed. It could have been SO MUCH better!! Sigh - I guess we will have to wait for the definitive Kate collection (along the lines suggested in Andy and Derek's letter to EMI) :-( So 10 out of 10 for the music, 2 out of 10 for the packaging. Feel free to disagree (and clearly many of you are pleased with the set) - these are just my opinions. You can always buttonhole me at the Convention. I will be the morose chap trying to sell 6 CDs :-) Neil -- Neil Calton UUCP: ..!mcsun!ukc!rlinf!nbc Informatics Department, NSFNET: nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, BITNET: nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@ukacrl Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX JANET: nbc@uk.ac.rl.inf England Tel: (0235) 821900 ext 5740 Damn fine signature, Diane!