I was listening to Sting’s “Mercury Falling” on the way to work this morning, and it got me thinking back to when the album first came out. When it was released I was in college and my friend Kim was spending a semester in England. I bought the CD here in the US and she bought her copy in the UK. She kept telling me how great and catchy track number 8 was and I couldn’t figure out why. On the US version track 8 is “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets”, which is a perfectly good song, but I certainly wouldn’t call it catchy. Of course it turned out the UK release had an extra song, “Twenty Five to Midnight”.
I think it’s strange that a lot of foreign releases have extra tracks compared to the US versions. Why is that? Is it because the record companies know that a good number of US fans will buy the US release and then fork over more money to buy an import copy just to get an extra song? Why is there never an extra track on the US release? If the goal is to make more money, why not put a different extra track on the US release so people in other countries will import it in addition to their own domestic release? Are Americans the only people silly enough to actually hand over the cash for an extra track or two?
Extra tracks on foreign releases exist for at least several reasons. First, it does indeed help spur US consumption of the foreign product. Second, it helps to identify a release in a distinctive way (for copyright purposes). Third, it is often (at least for smaller artists) a necessary part of the contract…that is, the foreign recording company wants something extra / special / distinctive to give them an extra ability to promote the album. And fourth (and no doubt not last), while the CD single has mostly gone the way of the carrier pigeon in the US, they are still widely produced in other countries (or at least they were until recently).
Comment by neonemo — September 2, 2005 @ 9:13 pm