Day: July 6, 2006

This is why people pirate CDs

You can now PRE-ORDER the brand new “Barenaked Ladies Are Me” CD!

Order before Aug 22nd and receive as a bonus the “BNL: All New Revue (Live from the Glenn Gould Theatre)” disc FREE, which is a live acoustic version of the new album.

[…] These 13 songs will also be available digitally with a bonus of two tracks for purchase of the entire album. In addition, a 25 song package called Barenaked Ladies Are Me: Deluxe Edition, will be available digitally (album only). With the purchase of the Deluxe Edition, fans will be have the opportunity to obtain either two bonus tracks OR four bonus tracks for pre-ordering. Details on the digital pre-order to follow.

In addtion [sic], a USB stick featuring 29 songs plus other special content will be released Sept 12.

That means I can:

  • buy a 13-track CD today and get a CD with the same songs re-recorded live, but miss out on 16 songs plus “special content”
  • buy the same 13-track CD next month, but miss 16 songs, “special content” and the live version
  • buy a 13-track MP3-crippled FLAC version of the CD with two extra songs, but miss 14 songs plus “special content” and live version
  • buy a 25-track MP3-crippled FLAC version of the CD, but miss two songs and special content and live version
  • buy a 25-track MP3-crippled FLAC version of the CD, but miss special content and live version
  • buy a 29-track MP3-crippled FLAC version of the CD, get everything but the live version
  • buy the CD and the second (16-track?) release in 2007, get everything but the live version

Let me recap: in order to get all 42 tracks that are being released, I have to buy the album at least twice, and more than a third of the content will be at inferior quality.

Well colour me a little more pleased. According to their July 21 podcast, there will be a subsequent physical-CD release in 2007 that includes the additional tracks. Thanks BNL!

But wait, there’s more! From the BNLBlog: The best bet, frankly, [is] to download stuff (in high-quality flac format!) from barenakedladies.com… (emphasis mine). Good on you, gents!