VOLUME 2, WARM and THE BRASS ARE COMIN' on iTunes!

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First, I am glad that at least this way the albums (we all are missing and waiting for for such long time!) were released and that some people can have fun with it.

But as an inhabitant of country that has no reach to iTunes service at all (my flag simply is not among the flags that you could choose from, when signing up on iTunes) I am very very upset.

I think it is very very rude to ingnore that Herb Alpert has not only US fans but the worldwide audience. I have been buying every Shout Factory re-release, as well as the Montreaux DVD for my money and I think that releasing these three desired albums only for US audience is very very unpolite!

How could I get this music now?
 
lswilson99 said:
I feel left in a position where I have no option but to download these albums from iTunes just in case the CDs never materialise.
Len

Oh, you lucky guy! I feel left in a position where I have no option AT ALL, because my darn country (Slovakia) is excluded from any iTunes purchase! They sell f****g iPods here, but they excluded us from the iTunes music download.

That news will damage my weekend. Well seems I have to wait until some Russian music download site (legal or illegal) will stole it. That is the world, where I obviously belong, according to the iTunes guys. :thumbsdn:
 
They sell f****g iPods here, but they excluded us from the iTunes music download.
If they sell iPods there, I would think it's just a matter of time before the music will be available to you too. Remember, Shout Factory is not a major conglomerate and these things do take time.
 
Greetings A&Mers on the www. Peter I believe Montana Mike B. is on to something. Just as the world wide web allows us all to keep the A&M "dream" alive, it is likely I-Tunes will reach you soon. They are probably working out the legal and financial aspects of the business plan, and aligning that with your local laws, etc.
Like most of you, I love the CD format. Herb has given us those too. Like the great businessman he is, he is exploring his options, and the fact is that I-Tunes was an in$tant $ucce$$. I believe last year I-Tunes made around 100 million dollar$. It might even be more than that. If anyone has updated stats, please post them here, as it may shed insights into Herb and Shout!'s latest marketing decision.
Meanwhile "Let The Good Times Roll" as the late great Ray Charles sang.... :) :)
 
It's not about inevitability of format change or hostility to music dealers. If it were, the original dozen titles in the reissue series would also have been iTunes-only (and so would Rise, which is coming out on CD).

No...this is Herb and/or Shout! Factory making a distinction between releases..."worthy" and "not worthy"....and for the most part (certainly in the case of Warm), I disagree with and am saddened by the distinction being made.

---Michael Hagerty
 
I respectfully dissagree with you Mike, simply because if these 3 new re-issues were not "worthy" as you say, they would not have been re-mastered, and re-issued. Now I agree that I-Tunes does not sound quite as good as CD's. But "an imperfect something is better than a perfect nothing." I see I-Tunes as a retro/futuristic format. It is a bit of a "throwback" in terms of sound quality, yet it's futuristic in it's power of dissemination, distribution, speed, and for being an inexpensive format. It's a powerhouse distribution system. The Power of the Internet cannot be under-estimated. Why just look at this wonderful web-site that has helped keep the A&M "dream" alive and kickin'! Plus I have not seen any proof or evidence that Herb will not re-issue his catalog on the CD format we "purists" love. When TV bacame popular Hollywood was panicking that people would not go to the movies. This has not ocurred, not even after the VHS Recorder, or the DVD revolution. Keep the faith amigos.... :)
 
I have a quick question about the purchasing The Brass Are Comin'. ITunes wants me to download a 35MB file to upgrade to version 7 when all I want to do is download the songs to store on a CD. :goofygrin: Is this really necessary? Will I need some conversion software to convert the files to something that can be played by a conventional CD player. I have no interest in playing stuff on my laptop, that's for business.

Thanks for the comments in advance.
 
You have to download the iTunes software to buy music from iTunes. You can't just buy the digital music files...you need the software to play them and/or burn them to CD. BUT, you don't have to download version 7 if you already have a previous version of iTunes installed.

As for the file format, no conversion software is ncessary. You can select the format you want to use in the preferences once you are running the iTunes software...just select "wav" and then you'll be making CDs that will play on any player.
 
As was suggested in another (closed) thread, I sent the following "polite" message to Shout! Factory (to "General Information" and "Sales & Customer Support" contacts). Their 2 replies follow it below. While the first reply from "General" is short and sour, to my ears the 2nd one from "Sales" seems to offer at least a glimmer of hope:

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Hi,

I have been happily and eagerly awaiting additional Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass titles to be released (especially Vol 2), and was encouraged by the recent announcement of the availability of 3 new ones on iTunes. However, I have heard some discussion that these titles will not be made available on CD at all, but only in the iTunes downloadable format. If true, this is a great disappointment.

Can you please respond (and hopefully dispel my undertanding)?

Thanks,
Mickey

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Hi Mickey,
Thank you for your interest in our Herb Alpert catalog. These digital albums are a special release and there are no plans to issue these on CD.

Shout! Factory
2042-A Armacost Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90025

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Hi Mickey,

At the present time these releases are only available on iTunes. That said our A&R department is aware of the fact that many fans would like to see them released on CD too.





Staff edit: personal contact information edited out
 
Ah, a glimmer of hope. I'm holding out for a proper release on cd.

Thanks, herewegoagain, for doing what we all should have done a long time ago -- make our views known!
 
A chilling statistic I just ran across. NARM says in 2006, that 90% of all download-only (not available in physical form) albums sold fewer than 100 copies each.

I suppose we can hope that Warm and the others are the exceptions, but if not, then it's very likely that the music is being exposed to a literal handful of new listeners, if that.

Michael Hagerty
 
I don't think that's so chilling. There are many, many "little known" albums in iTunes, and thousands more on other download services...albums that nobody has ever heard of, albums that are ancient, albums that have never had and never will have any promotion whatsoever beyond the artist's own fan club. Herb Alpert is a high profile artist in comparison to the great majority of artists in any music catalog, online or physical. While the three iTunes albums are not among his best sellers in any format, I think I can feel safe in saying they're not in the dreaded below-100-copies category.
 
Peter said:
First, I am glad that at least this way the albums (we all are missing and waiting for for such long time!) were released and that some people can have fun with it.

But as an inhabitant of country that has no reach to iTunes service at all (my flag simply is not among the flags that you could choose from, when signing up on iTunes) I am very very upset.

I think it is very very rude to ingnore that Herb Alpert has not only US fans but the worldwide audience. I have been buying every Shout Factory re-release, as well as the Montreaux DVD for my money and I think that releasing these three desired albums only for US audience is very very unpolite!

How could I get this music now?

Even if you get access to iTunes you probably still will not be able to access these new albums because they are ONLY AVAILABLE in the USA on iTunes. I have access to iTunes here in England, but these Herb Alpert albums are not available to me. The only ones available to the UK are those originally issued on CD!!!!!
 
"Patience" is what we've been told: it takes time to work out licensing these downloads for other countries. If this had been an LP or CD release, it would have been much easier, as they are existing media covered under current artist distribution contracts. Since downloads, and other newer media (DualDisc, SACD, DVD-Audio) are considered "new" media not covered by these contracts, it takes awhile to cut through the red tape and get all of the paperwork in order.

So the sad thing is, we can't really say *when* these would be made available, but it has nothing to do with the label or artist "ignoring" or shunning non-US download sites.
 
Right. Since these are Herb's first (and so far, only) download-only releases, the contract terms would be different from the previous CD+download releases.
 
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...

This is so, COLD to all of us who were suckered into the CD revolution. We keep waiting for these albums to FINALLY become available on Compact Disc. I-tunes shmi-tunes, I'd like to spend less time at the computer, not more.
 
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