Bob Dylan: "Trouble No More 1979 - 1981" - The Bootleg Series Vol. 13

Bob selling records and record company making money, what hypocrites. How dare they make me buy this!?

 

How reliable is Importcds? For folks in EU / UK, it'll work out at around £120 / 120 Euros with taxes included. That's a cool £40 cheaper than Bob's website. Is San Diego worth £40 alone?

 

Do they really just charge your credit card when items are shipped? Because I think I've just been charged!

 

On secondhand market, probably.

 

I live in Brazil and the last time I bought from them, the item arrived a lot earlier than any Amazon orders I have ever made. I was very happy with their service.

 

Hope none of this is as LOUD as the Pepper remix.

Oh no! wrong thread....

 

For anyone STILL querying the whole "the San Diego CD is not showing in my basket and / or in my order confirmation email", I have contacted Sandbag again to get further reassurances regarding the orders without San Diego showing and received this reply:

"The "Option" was visible for some but it makes no difference as all pre-orders for the deluxe set will include the bonus CDs."

So, finally, case closed?

 

I'm picking up my calculator -- just for a second! -- for a little perspective. Sure, there's some sticker shock at first, but back in the late-1990s, when CDs were still selling great and prices had come down from their early high ($18-20) to about $13-15 for a new CD, box sets were simpler and usually worked out to a couple of dollars LESS per disc. So a 4-CD box set would list for around $60 and sell for around $50. Well, BS13 has twice as many CDs and a DVD -- so figure this would have cost about $120 in 1999, and would have been considered outrageously expensive. Which is why they wouldn't have released it this way in 1999 -- instead, they would have trimmed it down to 4 CDs and a DVD, so they could sell it for around $75-80. It STILL would have been considered an expensive box set back then.

The market has changed drastically, obviously. Labels have to sell stuff that can't be torrented and make the physical product desirable -- hence, the books and ephemera. Still, if you go back to what an 8-CD / 1-DVD set would have cost in 1999 ($120), throw in an extra $20 for the books and packaging, and you're really not paying that much more (at Amazon or Bullmoose) now than we would have 20 years ago. Yeah, the Dylan Store price is more -- they are always going to charge list for their own product, no discounts -- but you get a really good collectible (San Diego, on 2 CDs, not MP3s), and if you want this collectible that bad, then you're a big enough fan to weigh the importance of that extra cost. I don't like the extraneous stuff that inflates the prices of these sets that we want mainly for the music, but I've accepted it as a reality of the foundering physical music market. If you really love music, and you love physical media, it's hard to argue against the current box set model -- they're doing what they have to do to survive.

What made the Deluxe Tell Tale Signs a rip-off and the recent Deluxe BS sets NOT rip-offs is the quality of the extraneous books. The TTS book was a completely pointless collection of single sleeves that had absolutely no relevance to the BS8 set. Sony and Dylan Inc. just said, "Here's some dumb book we put together, if you want that third disc of music, you have to buy this $100 book." It was brazen and borderline abusive of the fans who had loyally supported Bob for (then) over 40 years. The books in the recent BS books are at least on-topic, very nice to look at, and informative. Not perfect, no, but I'm definitely glad to have them.

One complaint I do agree with, however, is about the 2-CD version of BS13. In the past, the 2-CD set has always been the "official word" on that particular project; even with the largest deluxe sets (BS 10-12), you could arguably get all (or about 95%) of the most important material on the 2-CD version. I'm sure that discs 1 and 2 of BS13 are going to be a terrific live representation of the gospel period -- and for manufacturing purposes, having a "universal" disc 1 and disc 2 makes things easier for Sony. But this omits the studio stuff altogether, meaning that -- at the very least -- one of Bob's greatest songs of the period ("Yonder Comes Sin") isn't represented on the 2-CD version. In a perfect world, the 2-CD set would have included a best-of disc for the studio / rehearsal stuff, and a best-of disc for the live stuff -- with most (if not all) of the new unreleased songs included. I understand why they're doing it the way they are, but for the first time the two-disc version of a Bootleg Series is a throwaway.

 

$114 - isn't that pretty much where the final pre-release Amazon price settled for both the 6cd Cutting Edge and Basement Tapes?

Also, I just checked current prices for those 2 boxes on Amazon.
Basement Tapes - $80
Cutting Edge - $98

 

But it's NOT "greed" for fans to want things as cheap as possible? Got it.

 

I wouldn't buy the 2 disc version no matter what, so I don't really have a car in this race. That being said, I can understand the notion that the 2 disc live compilation captures the era best because Dylan was at a peak in public performance, and because it presents a cohesive whole (rather than a live/studio hodgepodge). I'd personally rather have 2 more discs of studio (even breakdowns and "rehearsals") than have Earl's Court, but the studio stuff would be new to me and I've already heard Earl's Court for decades (albeit in lesser quality).

 

That there is some weird, skewered equalization.

 

Great post and you've hit several nails squarely on the head here, Sean! One thing that puzzles me slightly though is that the "throwaway", all live, two-disc version provides the very same music that some people seem hell-bent (inappropriate use of phrase there maybe?) on paying 50% or more of the cost of the Full Monty set simply in order to get a vinyl copy of. I personally think the vinyl version this time around is a bit of a folly / missed opportunity.

 

hmm, pay extra for the San Diego disc with no less than $10.95 shipping = $185.99

or have it ship less with Amazon prime minus San Diego and pay $175.99...

a quandary

 

Camelcamelcamel.com can even give the all-time low price at Amazon for comparison:

Cutting Edge: (6 CD) : $63 (Nov 2016)
Basement Tapes (6 CD): $78 (right now!)

 

That's an easy answer. For non-US customers, thanks to ImportCds, the choice is now £40 difference, not $10.

 

I am pretty sure Importcds charges when you make the order, not when they are shipped.

 

Tax with Amazon? No tax with bd.com.

 

Probably, especially seeing as San Diego may not really be limited. However, I always worry how companies like Sandbag operate. You're getting the response from customer service. If San Diego is truly "limited quantities" like the site suggests and sells out, how will the people in order fulfillment know which orders get the bonus unless it's on the order number/receipt? I guess they could be given a range of order numbers to put the bonus in? I'd rather not chance that. The response I got from Sandbag in the US was that they cancelled my order. I then just re-ordered the set with San Diego added and showing on the receipt. I worry too much, but feel better doing it this way.

 

It's all too confusing. I'll just wait it out.

It's hard to take a hit right before Christmas.

 

I wonder if this decision was based on more than just production efficiency, though. It could very well be that the curators of this package really feel that the first two discs are the cream of the crop. It has long been conventional wisdom that the music of these years were better realized on stage than in studio. This is especially in regards to the Saved album, where the band wore out the tunes on the road, infusing them with undeniable spirit and conviction, before finally staggering into the studio too tired to fully recreate the magic.

Everyone reading this thread is well aware of everything I'm typing here, whether or not it agrees fully with our listening experience. Personally, I am far and away a studio over stage guy, and even in this period, I crave to hear the studio recordings on at least an equal level to the best of the live recordings. It looks like some others feel similarly, and I certainly empathize with the perspective of @cosmicdancer who expressed disappointment in the standard edition. But regardless of our individual preferences, I think it's reasonable to surmise that the producers felt that they were best serving the world by defining the live discs as the standard edition.

The real issue here is that there is so darn much good stuff available. It's an embarrassment of riches. It pretty much makes the curator's job a cursed affair right from the start.

 

That's what I was hoping for....

 

The number of items on the european store went from 80 to 323 in one minute.

THat's a lot of cancellations

 

i always use Paypal but they charge when i order, yes. anyway, they are great. shipping can be slower if you don't expedite it but the price difference is worth it!

 

When #PercySong and I are listening to our San Diego discs while downloading our free "John Wesley Harding" outtakes surprise double-secret-end-of-year-bonus, all you cheapskates will be foaming at the mouth.