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Comment by dehrmann | Hacker News Reader

To be blunt, there's a lot of it and it's not actually that valuable. We've had CDs for 30+ years. If there's an album UMG thought it'd be worth digitizing, remastering, and reselling, they'd have done it by now.

Humanity generates information (works of art included) faster than it can be reliably archived, and as that information ages and no one is interested in it, it becomes less relevant. Maybe it's a bit nihilistic, but I've come to accept humanity only has finite memory for a cultural canon, and things will drop out of it over time.

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>"To be blunt, there's a lot of it and it's not actually that valuable. We've had CDs for 30+ years. If there's an album UMG thought it'd be worth digitizing, remastering, and reselling, they'd have done it by now."

This is not even remotely true. Albums are re-issued and re-released all the time. Often times there will a renewed interest in an artist or their work from a death, some current artist sighting them as an influence or an artist making a comeback. Master tapes are the most valuable asset a record label has. It is also not uncommon for albums to go out of print for a period and then be released again many years later. And albums go out of print for all kinds of reasons. David Bowie's classic RCA catalog(Heroes, Low, Lodger etc.) were all out of print in the 80s and 90s. They weren't available until Bowie got the rights to his masters back - something called a "reversion"in recording contracts. So a record label could have ownership of the masters for 30 or 40 years before they revert back to an artist. After which an artist will likely reissue them since they generate income.

> Albums are re-issued and re-released all the time.

This is a tactic to stay on the charts and drum-up sales.

On the top-50 albums right now, many of which have spent YEARS on the chart,

- Queen: Greatest Hits I II & III: The Platinum Collection

- Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: Greatest Hits

- Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys

- Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

- Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon

https://www.billboard.com/charts/top-album-sales

>"This is a tactic to stay on the charts and drum-up sales."

Uhm yes it's a business, it's called the "music business" for a reason. What's your point? To my point - Queen is there because there was just a huge biopic movie that won 4 Oscars. There is also an Elton biopic that was just released. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had a big summer tour planned that was just cancelled. And Bob Seger is currently on tour. That's traditionally how the music business worked - artists toured to sell records in the markets they were playing in. Pink Floyd being on the charts is nothing new either. It's a constant. They have been on the top 200 for Dark Side since it was released in 1973[1]. And it spent decades on the chart before there were any reissues of it.

There is also no shortage of long tail content that sells well to diehard fans but not enough to chart. Visit Rough Trade Records in Brooklyn/London or Amoeba Records in SF or LA if you want to see just how big of a business "specialty" reissues are - most of which will never show up on any charts.

[1] https://www.billboard.com/articles/events/greatest-of-all-ti...

They may not have been financially valuable to UMG, perhaps, but I would argue that other value was still lost

In total agreement. Much of the material by artists in the 40s and 50s may be of interest to a small portion of the total population of music lovers today but that does nothing to diminish its worth. You don't like Duke Ellington? Fine. Charlie Parker? OK. Their works, none-the-less, are still an integral part of the musical fabric and history of this country and, actually, the world. They deserved much better care. Now, those original recordings are lost forever. It's like driving a stake through the Mona Lisa or knocking the head off of Michaelangelo's David. Yeah, there are replicas around but that, in no way, soothes the pain.

Yeah, most b-sides are b-sides for a reason.

As a counterpoint, here are the B-sides from that British quartet of yesteryear, most of which were only released as singles (until the discographies were published decades later). Some of these are better than the A-sides. YMMV.

P.S. I Love You, Ask Me Why, Thank You Girl, I'll Get You, This Boy, You Can't Do That, Things We Said Today, She's a Woman, Yes It Is, I'm Down, Day Tripper, Rain, Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane, Baby You're A Rich Man, I Am the Walrus, The Inner Light, Revolution, Don't Let Me Down, Old Brown Shoe, Come Together, You Know My Name

Well-illustrated point. And, 'Rain' might be my favorite Beatles song.

The Anthology series is also a really good example of using archive material effectively. For example, you can see how songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and Day in the Life evolved over multiple sessions.

There's actually no shortage of B side tracks that went on to became of the most famous, favorite and popular songs in rock history. Sometimes even eclipsing the A side. [1][2][3]

Everything from Elis "Hound Dog", The Smiths "How Soon is Now" to Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What can I do." B-sides are/were often a chance for an artist to release something the record company rejected for the album but the artist really wanted to release. B-sides are actually often things for the fans.

[1] https://ultimateclassicrock.com/b-side-big-hits/

[2] https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/25_of_the_...

[3] https://www.radiox.co.uk/features/x-lists/b-sides-more-famou...

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