I'm a Sarah McLachlan fan. I've seen her in concert a zillion times, I own her records, I am a member of her fan club and was even when you had to pay for it--hell, I even have a piece of her art work tattooed on my thigh. But I honestly feel like boycotting her upcoming album, Laws of Illusion*.
When the album was first announced, I was told that I would get a pre-sale code for Lilith Fair tickets if I pre-ordered it from www.sarahmclachlan.com. So I did. The pre-sale code was essentially useless for a variety of reasons I won't get into. In the intervening time, advertisements indicated that Amazon and iTunes were going to offer exclusive tracks, so I contacted the sarahmclachlan.com people. I explained why I wanted to cancel my pre-order--that I wanted the extra tracks. They canceled it with no problem.
Today, I saw an ad claiming that you can get an extra track available nowhere else by pre-ordering the album on sarahmclachlan.com.
Really? I mean, come on. So, as a dedicated fan who wants all of Sarah's music--someone who doesn't pirate (a.k.a. steal), someone who supports the artist in a way that makes her and her label money and ensures the continuation of her career--I'm expected to buy the album three fucking times in order to get all the tracks? Because, as you probably know based on your own mp3-buying experience, the exclusive tracks are typically packaged as "album only" and can't be bought as individual tracks off of iTunes or Amazon.
I get the idea behind it. It's a selling tool, something created to claim market share. Buy your music from __insert store name here__! We have stuff the other guys don't!
But the only people who end up getting screwed are the fans.
And, really, what can I do about it? Send an email to Nettwerk (Sarah's label)? Like they're going to care.
Not cool, Sarah/Nettwerk/iTunes/Amazon/whoever else. Not cool at all.
*Isn't that such a great title? It's sparking story ideas in my mind.
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