Does anyone else think the Pink Floyd Early years box price is...nearly criminal?

I cancelled my pre-order when I found out there were no marbles or scarfs. IT DRIVES ME INSANE THE INCONSISTENCY IN THESE REISSUES CAMPAIGNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Seriously though, it is an expensive item but for what you get it seems worth it. I'm only a fan of the Syd PF so too much prog for me on this set, I'll wait for the individual first volume. But I'd imagine if you were a fan of the whole period concerned it's enough content to make you come.

Think words like 'criminal' are out of place for first world problems like this tbh.

 

Bet Dave can hear tha Cash Register..

 

I can't afford it. But I would absolutely buy it if I could. No question...

So, for me, I don't think it's 'too expensive' as such. One really needs to look at the enormous amount of work that has gone into this thing ('our' Ron could give you chapter and verse on that I'm sure - and probably will once it's released...). This has been an intensive labour of love from start to finish and is something to be cherished. Such work comes at a price. It's not just the band/record company that have put this thing together - it has also taken a lot of work from a lot of other people and it goes way beyond the usual lazy reissue/re-tread that most bands routinely trot out.

Also... IMO it's grossly unfair to complain about the price of this because you may already have a lot of the material already. We all have it. Almost none of us has paid for it. And that's fine in the spirit of 'fan-to-fan free trade', but this is a band we love choosing to release a load of stuff and, for once, actually getting paid for their work...

Is the price too high? - No, not when you consider the work that has been put in.

Will I be buying it? - Sadly no. Not unless I reorganise my priorities. And that's not something I'm prepared to do on this occasion. (Though if there was to be the mother of all vinyl box sets...? I'm glad that's a moral nightmare I don't have to navigate! I still want those damned 7" singles though...!)

 

It could be so nice, the content is amazing, but to pay so much for what some call an artefact, I'd want something that looked nicer up to the Storm standards he had set.

And the little toy van......

 

Really? You expect bands to lose money by putting out deluxe archival releases priced that are priced below cost if you are to deign to purchase them? Not going to convince many bands to do that.

Since you proclaim yourself rich enough to purchase this, today would be an ideal opportunity for you to give that money away as a gesture to someone who is not.

 

Not even for 83 CDs of the complete 'Get Back' sessions? With a book?

 

Nope.

 

I loved Floyd so much through the 70's until, around 10 years ago or so.
Mostly, I find them too much of a downer these days, I would rather hear Gong.
I collected Floyd seriously for years and have mostly complete Japan presses, quad pressings etc. and little things like the orig 7" of See Emily Play are treasured possessions, as is the mono Saucerful.
With all my other obligations this is too steep to go for. More power to those for whom it's no biggie at all....
Will probably get individual volumes eventually.

 

Without knowing the cost to assemble this stuff, I'm certainly going out on a limb here, but I'd definitely call this set overpriced. Calling it "criminal" is elevating a luxury item to a necessity and I can't do that, but it's definitely vastly overpriced when you consider the competition - i.e. other boxes geared towards the "hardcore" fan who still collects boxes like this.

King Crimson has released several box sets, some of which have higher disc counts, and all of them have been below $200. I'm not sure how this set really warrants being more than double that barring the inclusion of vinyl singles and ephemera (which, frankly, I could have done without).

Just my take. I'll keep an eye out and hope it becomes available between $300 and $350, which is my absolute "tap out" point for this. I'm interested, but they definitely priced it out of any range I'd entertain.

 

Everybody will buy this box for the only set that was only available in this set, the rest will be release individually next year.

The fact it's this box have a conceptual price.

 

A little pricey to hear a remaster of "Bike", which kind of sums up early Pink Floyd
Now, a nice, AAA vinyl box of Meddle through Animals would be worth the cost...with a 7" single of "Bike" included...

 

They can ask what they want, but like an earlier poster said, if it doesn't sell the prices will come down ... and waiting is an option. What I find completely ironic is this product and past product comes partially from a man that disses capitalism, Roger Waters. With his ticket prices and the prices for these sets he comes off the king of capitalism ... imo.

 

It's not worth the money to me personally. If they are trying to gauge where the supply curve meets the demand I think they may have overshot the target.

It is for well-heeled hardcore completists only.

 

I can't help but wonder why they didn't break this into 2, 3 or 4 sets.

 

It's expensive, very expensive.
Whether it's "criminal" or not, I will be able to give my opinion after I get mine.

 

It's a bloody travesty!

(I always wanted to say that...)

 

I doubt Roger has anything to do with the pricing for this set. His involvement probably extends to approving the contents and collecting the money. But he's not the one saying, "This needs to be priced at $500."

I checked his ticket prices a couple of days ago for the upcoming ATL area concert next year and the prices seem pretty reasonable by today's outrageous standards - $55 to $155, or something like that. I could almost afford that.

Personally, I'm no fan of Roger's politics but let's not blame him for things that either aren't his fault, or aren't unusual.

As for the pricing, I'd be terrifically pissed off except for the promise that they're going to release sections of the box set individually. That at least gives me a shot at owning some of it. But it's their product and their business how they want to price it. If they end up with a crapload of them not selling, then maybe we'll see price cuts in the future. Special stuff is always expensive.

 

This set really puts an unusually big emphasis on the video content. I'm sure that they went to considerable expense to hunt down and restore those clips, but as neat as it might be to see, I have to wonder how frequently I will go back to revisit such stuff. I wish that they had been a bit more generous with the audio only content, with a few glaring omissions that are frustrating (missing Syd era tracks, Saucerful in mono, 5.1 mixes). I got a decent pre-order price from AmazonUK and I keep my eye on the exchange rate, hoping for the best. Criminal? No. Exorbitant? I think so, yes.

 

I think it's a terrible precedent. Music should not be priced out of the range of the masses, unless you're some Sheik paying for a private concert from Beyonce.

 

$384.80 shipped from Amazon UK

 

Assuming the exchange rate holds steady. I hate to profit at the expense of our British friends and I hope that their currency rebounds. . . after the box set is released!

 

Well, you get 26 discs plus 6 cd singles for £376 if you get it from Amazon, averaging about £15 per disc (excluding the singles), and I believe 7 of them are blu ray, which I assume would be more expensive than the average CD. Basically you would be paying the full price for each disc; the CD equilavent would be deluxe editions with extra tracks. I wouldn't call it criminal, but usually box sets offer a cheaper price than buying individual discs. Clearly, this is not the case here, but I would suggest those Bob Dylan Bootleg Series sets, which included one extra disc, and sold for about £80, were criminal.

 

I'm not saying he makes the decision on prices, no way. But, he could have put a word out against the high priced PF merchandise, ticket prices, etc. (if he is indeed a anti capitalist) and at $699 list/$571 street price I find it hard to believe that appeal was made or even attempted. I hope you don't think these guys are totally blind to what they charge for this stuff ... not in this day and age.

 

I don't think they are blind to it, but the idea that Roger Waters would put out an APB warning about pricing of the work of his own band is ridiculous. The prices are what they are, if you don't want to pay it, don't buy it. That's what I'm doing, can't afford/won't buy. We can all make that decision for ourselves, we don't need Roger Waters to point out that a box set is overpriced. As for his "anti-capitalist" bona fides, that's his problem. If he was really-o, truly-o anti-capitalist, he'd give away all his money and live in a council house, but few people are that consistent.

 

Throughout the last 40 odd years lots of fans have bought the catalog multiple times,and made them very very very rich with the possible exception of Syd Barrett whom(and/or his estate they "only" have made rich).

I know for a fact that David Gilmour has given a good amount of his income to valuable causes.Good on him!

Now someone in the Floyd camp comes up with the idea of that box set.

It is calculated that at the current price(say €450.- on average) about 5000 will be sold.Assuming that distribution channels have to pay about €350.- an income of about €1.750.000 will be generated.

Now imagine the same item is sold at half price,but if 15000 are sold to customers an income of €2.625.ooo will be generated even though costs before pushing the item into the market remain unchanged.The profit is generated by maximizing sales by lowering customer price.Their risk is that they'll have to sell more before entering the profit area.

The whole concept of ie.Ryanair,Jet Blue etc is based on this business model.

A band of Floyd's stature should be aware of that,and they should be aware that the route I have just described will get them an untarnished image of caring for their fans'wallets.