Wild Life / Red Rose Speedway Price and Shipping Thread

Another excellent reason to offer everything in an official download

 

Except for Wings Over America Archive set all my McCartney Archive sets were purchased by me for well under $100 Cdn. Starting with Flowers In the Dirt Archive set they are now costing about $200 Cdn and over?
Sure I don't have to buy them most here will say and I most likely won't. I'm glad that Yoko has made the Imagine set reasonably priced and I hope she continues to make future Lennon sets affordable to us fans.

 

I will have to wait for a huge price drop on the two boxes as they are way too expensive. Most of his boxes I got with a good discount.
I don't see a discount coming on the big box so I have to copy/download the live cd later.

 

Bingo!

 

That's fine with me. I already preordered. However, I am worried about how long it will take me to get the box. 12/7 is my birthday and if I could have ordered through Amazon, I would know I would have a nice birthday treat! Oh well! I just hope I don't have to wait too long. I can't wait to hear that extra Wings live disc.

 

The Amazon UK price for the RRS box seems to have dropped by a whopping £5 to £159.99 (so far). Although I preordered both boxes, I am considering switching to the 2CD for RRS - not sure yet. (I always liked Wild Life and think I would regret it if I passed on that box.)

 

I'm a huge McCartney fan.

Case in point - I actually bought the Pipes of Peace Deluxe set.

This, though? I'm with you. These prices are nuts and I can't get on board to support this nonsense. Wild Life is a turd and RRS isn't that much better. Then you pay the extra $100 for 20 live tracks and another book. Paul certainly isn't setting the prices here, BUT, it is his name and face on the cover and for him to be so disconnect with the pricing that he either doesn't know what it is or doesn't care really sucks.

I can't get behind this one and it may be the first of the Archive series that I pass on. I hate that, but at some point Joe Schmoe Regular Fans have to take a stand. WE are the ones that kept McCartney going, not the bozos that have enough bread to sit in the front rows at his shows to text, drink, and not pay attention.

 

I do agree with you on the pricing, but why would you want the deluxe set of Wild Life anyway if you think it’s a ‘turd’?

I’m buying it because Wild Life is possibly my favourite McCartney album, and I love RRS too.

I’m a huge Bowie fan but I’m not a great fan of his 80s stuff so I passed on the new Loving The Alien box, with no regrets.

I don’t get why people are upset about the pricing of albums they think suck!

 

Just because I don't like the album so much doesn't mean that I wouldn't want it in my collection. I have already said that I'm a Paul fan. There are a few moments on WL that are okay for me and same for RRS. For that and the fact that I'm a completest with his releases, ESPECIALLY being that this is a series, I want it.

For these prices, however, I may be bowing out. I hate that but I think enough is enough for me with these.

 

Don't know, but DHL is one of the best couriers in the world. It is owned by Deutsche Post (German state post office) and their tracking is impeccable.

 

Fair enough - i’m a completist myself, but I have my limits and I certainly wouldn’t pay hundreds of bucks for an album that I thought sucks, anyway.

 

There are some Joe Schmoe regular fans who love these albums above all of his and see the value in these expanded sets. Some who work hard for our bread and choose to spend some of it here. Many who pay attention at the shows either in the front row or up in the nose bleed seats.

There are cheap options for 95% of the music and this Schmoe loves the books and artwork and support all the artists who contributed to make these.

Just a matter of choice and priorities where our money goes. There’s so much music out there to choose from. These will find a market or they won’t. But I suspect they’ll eventually sell out.

 

Good point.

 

I definitely think they need better solutions for other regions of the world. You'd think that if the global reach of Capitol Records was good for something, it would be good for managing this aspect of things. Just out of curiosity: I assume there's nothing like a customs union in the southern cone, is there? So Capitol would want to consider separate merch centers in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile... Is there an Australia/New Zealand customs union?

 

Ok, Wings 1971-73 boxset ordered. As someone said over here, I both hate and love myself right now...

 

First of all I've never bought stand alone downloads. I only d/l after buying the associated box set (or vinyl release)..and only when high res d/l is offered. Point is, if a high res d/l is available , I never pay the CDs. Also wont play the CDs if as with the Imagine box all is available in high res on the Blurays. The CDs are moot. If they are going to include discs they should at least be SACD or Bluray. Or make ALL the material available on vinyl (which they did up to Flowers in the Dirt, except for video content, Bluray/DVDs could easily be included with the vinyl) . I bought all the Archive releases on vinyl, until Flowers cause you couldn't get all the audio material on the vinyl release. I never play the Flowers CDs as you get the high res d/l.

As I said I bought the Flowers set (at $118) although I thought it ridiculously expensive. Prices for the new sets are an outrage! ( again for a bunch of CDs I'll never play!) Not to mention coming after the Imagine and White Album sets and right before Xmas. At least they could have held these until early 2019. As a 1st generation near completist, it would hurt not buying these but I may have to draw the line and may have to resort to other mean of obtaining the material. Thanks for the knife in the back Paul, after supporting you and spending thousands $$ in the last 50+ years!

 

This isn't a comment on McCartney box set per se but these sort of box sets in general. I just bought a Whitesnake box set covering their acoustic recordings.

Lovely set, nice box, hardback book with great pictures (maybe could have done with a bit more info in it), Lyrics book and a poster.

However : It has 5 CDS worth of music - most of it previously unreleased (with the inclusion of a previously released Japan only album) and a full length DVD. As a WS fan there are some magnificent gems on it.

Now before I get a flood of comments, I get Mr Coverdale isn't as popular as Mr McCartney, but the set was £45.

Now they could have shoved more paraphernalia in there and added more bucks, but as a set it focuses mainly on the music and performances without skimping on "nice to haves". As a fan I view this is a great priced affordable quality set. It means I get to enjoy this beautiful set of one of my favourite bands and also have money to still support other artists and purchase other music. There was no massive bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when I ordered it, or guilt that I was spending money that I should/could be spending doing things with my family.

I can't help but feel sorry for Beatles fans this year as, musical riches aside, you have been shafted financially with little care for spreading the releases out to spread the cost, (and personally I'm not convinced your getting value for money). However, more importantly, as some of you have mentioned, there is nothing worse than when the artists you have supported for decades starts releasing sets that don't fit into the family budget, and you have to start leaving behind material as it's no longer feasible.

 

I d spend $399 on the Wings box (and I did) before I’d spend 45 pounds on a Cloverdale product.

 

Dude, that's not even close to the point here.

 

Here's a personal speculation. Let's say that a distribution company says that they'll handle everything -- printing, qc, returns, distribution, warehousing, logistics, negotiations with vendors, marketing, teaser videos, web-design -- everything post-design -- and they'll guarantee MPL a minimum of $750k of clear profit, say, if they just leave the details up to them. The distributor makes the calculation that high-end products are where one finds the profitable ideal on the curve of demand and price and they estimates what the market will bear for such a premium set. And there it is. The question presented to MPL is: do you want us to write you a check for $750k or do you want to handle this yourselves?

Yoko & Co, as we see, made a different calculation for the Imagine set -- though it may be material that Imagine, Lennon's most popular album, occupies a different (potentially more widely-selling) position in the marketplace than Wild Life/Red Rose Speedway and also has a different (less varied) set of potential ancillary material (hmmm... how many versions of Crippled Inside will people really want?); also, the McCartney Archive series is a series and not (so far as we can tell with the Lennon re-issue) a one-off -- and that may also have some influence on pricing strategies.

Just thinking, RH

 

Flowers was the 4th archive collection release where all the audio could not be found on the 2LP edition, not the first one. Not sure if you also bought the deluxe for Ram, Mc II and WOA, but those all had exclusive audio content years before the FITD box.

Edit: ALSO, the download cards included with your Archive 2LP sets were for 320kbps MP3, certainly lower quality than the “useless” CDs in the deluxe boxes, or the high res downloads in the deluxes as well.

 

I wish they had super deluxe vinyl boxes.

 

You make a number of valid points except:

Ram- all the b-side/outtakes were include with the vinyl. I bought the mono vinyl separately and I already had an original Thrillington.

MCII- all b-sides/outtakes included with vinyl.

WOA- not really interested in additional live tracks, besides I think I've got the Cow Place show as a bonus CD (maybe Target exclusive?)

The earlier editions may have been mp3 but seems going forward (starting with Flowers) the d/l is high res. I really didn't care what the d/l format was as I had IMHO the superior format, vinyl. If forced to buy the CD/DVD/ BR deluxe sets because audio content exclusive to it, if the d/l is high res, yes the CDs are useless.

 

“An outrage for a bunch if CDs I’ll never play “

Funny comment

 

I guess the extra disc, the dvd, and the book in Wildlife is worth about $130 ($150 for the deluxe minus $20 for the 2CD set), so adding a 3rd LP, a dvd and the book would add about $150 or so to the $40 LP set. So, $190 for 3 LP Wild Life vinyl, DVD, nice books...oh and hi res downloads. Worth it?