Personally I don’t think it would shatter your opinion the tracks I have heard so far as very good. I don’t see (or rather here them) as rejects.
Still, of course fan or not one is not compelled to be completist but for me an opportunity to access a set of unreleased album projects from one of my favourite artists is very attractive.
If you have access to streaming the release is on Spotify (and others probably) to hear if you like it or not and you can also buy a twin LP or CD that is a selective release of the set.
When it was announced I said the price was too high. If however the vinyl box was <£200 I would likely begrudgingly stump up.
I think it is an experience piece and from streaming so far I suspect I will play the records a fair bit over the coming years, after paying just £190 for the set…
I have no idea if they will but it is possible they will release the 7 albums individually at a later date too.
It is on the expensive side just now the cheapest I have seen is around £260 for the LP set in the UK and not much less for the CDs. Some are chancing their arm and have put them up on Discogs north of 600 euro!
Multiple examples of where that simply isn’t true. It’s open to the management of an artist to price limit future product within reason. His management chose not to do it. That’s a choice which reflects on the artist one way or another.
Personally, I’m not going to hold an artist worth millions to some weird standard about being a working class hero but, for me, his ethics became questionable at minimum over the canoe incident. I didn’t see the point in getting worked up about that though as the harsh reality is that the standards set up to Born In The USA/Nebraska were exemplary and they’ve really not been afterwards so not buying the majority of stuff since has been a pretty easy choice informed by quality control rather than ethics.
I enjoyed Tracks but, being honest all these years later, I’d be hard pressed to say there’s maybe two or three songs I’d go back to and play. The Promise carried much more weight for me.
These albums were unreleased for a reason. The revisionist history around them is fascinating but the level of acceptance of obvious BS is astonishing.
At the time, Springsteen referenced at least three of these seven. He was very clear that they were binned because they weren’t good enough. Sensible thing to say to big up what he did eventually put out in some cases but also clearly true given the content of Tracks and certainly what I’ve heard so far on this new one. Entertaining? Yes of course. Up to the standard of what he put out at the time? Mixed. Several 90s albums were awful for example but what’s here is different and not necessarily better.
The moment Sony puts these out he can’t possibly stick to the “not good enough” line as that’s very obvious litigation waiting to happen. Thus the only reason these were not put out back in the day is now suddenly down to his and others creative decisions. Yeah of course mate. Of course.
Bruce, I would imagine, has bigger things to worry about. In recent years. The Broadway shows were a specific reaction to struggling to get gigs in the US given the climate. Currently based offshore of Monaco and using that for European and other gigs. There is a real concern that his return to the US may involve detention and harassment.
One can only listen to the music and judge by that criteria. It is the only thing one can do i am not concerned by the ins and out of the person or the music business other than we should not forget that it is a business so Sony and indeed the artist will care about the bottom line. Sony will have decided on the price but as I said above I am not saying Springsteen was not involved or did not benefit. Springsteen may have stated what he wanted but Sony will have put there margin on top. It simply is true in this case even if not for others.
I have no idea what the “canoe incident” means and don’t need to know for instance.
I really doubt that there would be any grounds for litigation on a subjective view of “not good enough” plenty of artists have output dud albums and many will again do so.
Mike Batlan would beg to differ. Part of a two person claim which went to court and was settled for an undisclosed amount alleged to be $325,000 and with a gagging order forbidding him or anyone else from speaking about it during his lifetime, but, allowing Bruce to talk about as much as he wished and to claim it was nothing like what happened.
All very well documented over the years but mostly on Springsteen sites where threads on same are generally locked and disappeared.
The litigation, which has been enacted by others previously, would be around his comments undermining market value.
Varies between artists saying “don’t buy this, it’s sub-standard” and statements which have an indirect impact.
You might want to check out the cases where record companies have sued artists on exactly that basis. Sometimes they have won and sometimes not but there’s no doubt it’s a winnable argument as many record companies have won the argument several times over the years.
I am lucky as I got the Hires files sent to me by an old friend who works for the record company whom I worked with many years ago. Personally IMHO and I am a big Boss fan I wouldn’t lay the cash out to buy it as there is a reason why unreleased trax lie in vaults. This release just confirms the reasons why. Possibly there is a single cd set in amongst all of the trax but I don’t think I would even buy that. For me the fire went out of him a lot time ago. Just my twopence
