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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
News Reissue! Repackage! Repackage!
Posted by on Wed, Jan 23 at 11:11 AM
Pitchfork had news this morning of there being yet another Elvis Costello reissue for his classic album This Year’s Model. Yes, you read that right: another Elvis Costello reissue.
I’ve long thought that Costello has more reissues than any other musician, well, ever. It seems like every year there’s a new version of one of his albums being released with a few new, unreleased bonus tracks. And in terms of different versions of a single album, the only thing that seems to come close to This Year’s Model is Germ Free Adolescents from the almighty X-Ray Spex. If memory serves me right, there’s at least six different versions of both of those records floating around.
Is there any way to prove that Costello is the most reissued person in music? Can anyone think of any other musician that even comes close? So far I haven’t been able to find any concrete evidence on the subject, which means that, being the music nerd I am, I think about it more than is probably healthy.
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Costello is reissued so much because he actually owns the masters to his recordings. That means, every time he signs to a new label/distributor and the previous label/distributor's license expires, the masters go with him. He was originally under contract to CBS (CD issues #1), went to Warner and assigned his CBS catalog to Rykodisc (CD issues #2), once the Ryko license expired, he licensed his catalog to Rhino (owned by Warner / CD issues #3), signed to UME and once the Rhino license expired attached the catalog to his new home (CD issues #4). It's definitely overkill, but it's also the end result of "artist empowerment" or whatever we're supposed to support as fans.
Working at a record store in the late 90s - mid 00s I'd say that Johnny Cash and Miles Davis certainly had the most compilations, re-packages, first-time-on-CD releases, box sets, etc. As far as a Costello-esque re-release the entire catalog of original albums ad nauseam, my money's on David Bowie (original CDs on RCA, mid-90s reissues on Rykodisc, early 00s reissues on EMI), although he's only been re-released three times compared to EC's four.
I need a life.