“Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !”  The Smiths – Paint A Vulgar Picture

Oooh shiny packaging!

What do you do when your customers move onto an entirely different model of consuming your product?

If you’re a record company, you scratch your head… refuse to let go of the past… and re-package existing product.

Sounds like a cynical cash-grab?

More like a last-ditch attempt to squeeze extra profit out of their talent.

Either way, for music lovers of my generation?  It works!

Record collectors of a certain (ahem) age love packaging, get a kick out of reading lyrics, and long for the days of a tactile experience with their record collection.  Sad but true.

It’s a damn shame to walk into HMV or any big record store and see the CDs and vinyl filed away in a darkened corner.

But for a few years yet, there exists a rabid “tribe” of nostalgia-hungry geeks who want their old favorites repcakaged and recycled.