Herb Alpert Is... CD and Vinyl Box Sets

We should be glad this isn't one of those silly Super Deluxe editions where it has three CDs of music, seven CDs of studio outtakes, demos and poorly recorded live gigs, and three DVDs of nearly identical concerts and a couple of official music videos scattered among all three so you can't watch them all in a row. Or Super Ultra Deluxe Premier Platinum set that also includes the above but with five LPs of the music and twelve of the outtakes, etc.., and BluRay discs that mirror the DVDs.

Exaggerating of course, but so many of those box sets out there now are pure silliness and from personal experience, I barely make it through two or three of those demo/outtake tracks before I put something away and never listen to it again.
 
Once again, Amazon continues to "under"whelm. I got a notice today that despite paying the full $99.99, and being a Prime member for a couple zillion years, my HERB ALPERT IS... CD box set won't be delivered until Tuesday, October 6th.

Fail.
 
Not surprised, although just about all of the Prime shipments I've had in the past few months have actually come a day or so early. In fact, some of the 2-day items ended up coming the next day. Yet a few others had delays that seemed unreasonable.
 
I got no such notice....... yet! Well, I just looked on Amazon and it says the package will still be released on Oct. 2, but "we will email you when we have an estimated delivery date." That's comforting.

I have noticed that the whole "two day" thing about Prime is pretty much gone. They blamed it on the pandemic to start with and now they just sort of phased it out. It's just like the post office. "Your two-day delivery will be there ... in five days!"

I will give credit where it's due though.... when the recent Fleetwood Mac box set was announced, I ordered it right off of the Rhino website. But then for some reason, on Tuesday of release week they emailed that it would be backordered for an unspecified time, so I canceled that order and went to Amazon, where they not only got it to me on release day, but for $4 cheaper than Rhino was charging.
 
I've found it depends on the items, and their popularity. The common items are arriving here quicker than ever. But others sometimes have an unexplained delay. I even noticed in the past year or two that Warehouse items will take an extra day or two. The odd thing is that for a micro-SD card I ordered, they shipped it overnight by UPS. They had to have lost a lot of money on that part of the order. And I didn't need it all that quickly either--it's just one of those odd Prime situations.

In the past, I'd complained about them missing the two-day delivery and they'd refund part of my Prime fees. But without that guarantee now, it wouldn't do any good to complain.

Unless I need a critical tool or part for something I'm working on, I don't really care how long it takes to get here, as long as it doesn't stretch out unreasonably long. (Like the six weeks of delivery time back in April and May--they got no business from me then, as I bought from eBay sellers and got my items within a week.) I figure I've been on this planet several decades--why should I care if something takes an extra couple of days to arrive? Nobody's going to die if my record doesn't show up on release day. 🙂
 
I am a little disappointed. I wish the LP book was included in the CD version. I really don't like the minute books included in CD sets.
 
I got a notice today that despite paying the full $99.99, and being a Prime member for a couple zillion years, my HERB ALPERT IS... CD box set won't be delivered until Tuesday, October 6th.

The CD set is currently not available at Amazon, so I purchased mine at Oldies.com for $91.00 and free shipping. I would rather have the large book, but can't afford $300 plus.
 
The Amazon "Autorip" files are numbered the way they would be on the vinyl - on five discs, even though I ordered the CD set. So I assume that the vinyl versions and CD versions will both be the same.

Amazon probably had to put a hold on more orders - maybe they're selling better than expected!
 
I realize that the bindings and color printing for the LP-sized book can be expensive (since it appears the LP jackets appear to be bound into the book), but even if we valued the "book" part of the vinyl set at $100, that's still $200 for five records. Unless they're 200 grams and pressed at QRP or RTI (these would be top quality, pristine pressings without a flaw), I can't see $40 each for a record. My Stevie Ray set from Analogue Productions I think had cost that much ($40+ per LP), but I had a couple of gift certificates that made my cost negligible. (Analogue Productions owns QRP--Quality Record Pressing--and recently also purchased the legendary The Mastering Lab and moved it to Kansas.)
 
Haven’t received an email from Amazon so I logged on to check status. Just says “not shipped yet.” Guess I won’t panic yet. :cool:
 
Out of all of the CDs I've ever ordered from Amazon (probably about 30 or so in the past 10 years, I'd guess) this is the first one that hasn't arrived on release day. Of course it happens on one of my most anticipated titles. I guess I'll just blame it on Covid like everything else.
 
Finally got my notification that my discs are shipping. Should be here by Thursday. Lately my Amazon packages are showing up a day or so early.
 
I can see both sides on the cost issue. $322.98 is a car payment. But it's also $26.25 in 1969 dollars, and if anything of this type had been available then, it would have been the deal of the century.

Still, it's money a lot of people can't spare or justify for entertainment.

Amazon is now showing its price for the vinyl set as $255.67, with 3 new for $237.28 and one used (Really? Already?) at $237.11.
 
A lot of "used" or "collectible" product on Amazon is new product that is miscategorized--some do it just to get more attention for their listings. And Amazon has no way to report them...
 
If I asked for a price match:

- they'd probably deny it or charge me more!
- it would delay my shipment by six more weeks!
- it would probably arrive damaged!

:bangwall:
 
Well, the set has arrived - Surprise! Early on, Amazon said it would be on release day and then that fell by the wayside. Then they said Tuesday, and later upped it to Thursday, so I wasn't expecting it at all. But here it is.

The CD set is quite an elaborate package. The whole set is contained in as outer box with a plexi-glass type window on the cover. Dark, smoky clear plastic with the HERB ALPERT IS... logo on it.

The contents come out as one block with three fold-out digi-pak trays containing the three CDs. On the facing "page" is a pocket containing the very fat 178 page booklet.

Very, very nice.
 
Finally, an answer to something I've wondered for a number of years now. I've wondered why the track "What Now My Love" always sounded a little "gritty" for lack of a better term. Herb answers it in the liner notes that he had taken home a demo recording of the song that wasn't recorded at the "professional" speed, but liked the groove so much that it became the released recording and won a bunch of Grammys.!
 
I remember reading that about "What Now My Love" -- they couldn't recreate the feel in the studio, so they used the demo. If you listen closely, you hear the pitch wavering all over the place in a few places (especially if you listen for the guitar early on in the piece).
 
I got mine yesterday too (CD set) after getting a notice from Amazon that it wasn't showing up till Thursday. Very impressive set, one of the nicer box sets I've seen, packagewise. I would love to buy a full size version of the book without the LPs.
 
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