- Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:48 pm
#58119
I think there are pros and cons to RSD. I've read some pretty strong arguments for the stress it can put on stores, record plants, etc. At the same time, I'm happy to see people going to a record shop and buy some records, and not stream/steal their music. I wish most of the people returned and bought a few records throughout the year. I also end up getting myself super-hyped about a handful of releases and it is mostly fun waiting on the store opening and meeting up with folk.
I'm pretty gutted to miss out (when I do), especially when I see the records I want immediately on ebay. I can't complain too much though - those people were probably prepared to stand in a queue longer than me. There's a balance between making them too limited that it encourages outrageous flipping versus them being limited enough to make people get out of bed, but who knows how you'd work that out. There are usually plenty of leftovers of some titles, so it's obviously difficult. It doesn't take a genius to work out you need to press a lot of copies of titles by major artists, though in the main that seems to work out (e.g. Dylan, The White Stripes, Miles Davis).
One thing I've learned about Warners (re: REM, above), is that they tend to not be too exclusive - either there are plenty of them, or they seem to get released in another form at a later time. The only one I didn't get was when I paid over the odds for the REM CD that was in RSD 2013, and then it reappeared a while later for half what I paid. I think you can still get it off Amazon two years later.
