Deluxe Redux

I’m on the heals of purchasing my Whiskeytown - Stranger’s Almanac Deluxe edition. I’ve picked up quite a few of these recently and it got me thinking about the whole notion of the deluxe package re-releases. The industry standard seems to be taking a single disc album and remastering it, then packaging it with a bonus disc of related goodies and extensive liner notes. The two disc packs tend to cost what you’d expect for a double cd.

On top of my Whiskeytown deluxe edition, I’ve been replacing my Cure collection with the deluxe versions and my feeling have been mixed.

The benefits are clear.
1. More is more. With a collection like mine, I am clearly a fan of more.
2. In most cases, the bonus material can help connect the dots. Skeletal versions of songs can build an appreciation for the song writing process or even draw your attention to parts of a song that you never noticed. They can also reveal some of the connections to the previous work.
3. In best case scenarios, there are a bunch of songs that just hadn’t seen the light of day since they didn’t fit into the direction of the album. Stranger’s Almanac fit this case. Whiskeytown actually had a whole album worth of demoed songs that they brought to the study and decided not to use. Awe yeah, a whole extra album with the album.
4. If you wait long enough, you can pick them up used for a reasonable price. Most of the Cure packs I picked up for ten to twelve bucks.

There are drawbacks.
1. In some cases the bonus material that has been scrounged from the cutting room floor might have been left there for a reason. Some of the bonus material on the early Cure album bonus disc is just hard to listen to.
2. Other times, most of the bonus material is stuff that is already accessible. Nine Inch Nails made a deluxe version of The Downward Spiral and the bonus disc was almost entirely made up of b-sides and songs from soundtracks. Most nin fans that would buy a deluxe package would have had these things, so it seemed pretty pointless. I passed on it.
3. In the worst case scenario, the bonus disc is just the album again, but mixed in 5.1 surround sound. I don’t know a single person with a player that would separate the channels properly in order to enjoy this bonus.

Overall, I’m for the format. Like I said, more is more.