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Night Sins by Mark Snow

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ty7du

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And it's strange NOT to make 1000 copies when you have the option to do that, if you're going for 500...the leap from 500 to 1000 CDs is not that great...so it's a wiser decision, business wise, I'd think.

And Alexander, thanks for moving the thread ;)

Mark, you've been de-thanked! That's a phrase I just coined, I'll be in negotiations with Webster for my cut for using it in the next edition of the dictionary :D

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  • Elders (Moderators)

My guess with "Kickboxer" is, that they wanted to wait, how the 500 units would sell, before making another 500 units. Pressing 500 copies instead of 1000 is cheaper I guess, so you don´t have hundreds of copies lying around, in case, they weren´t sold. Of course, they won´t tell that in the first place, so everyone acts fast to get one of the 500 copies. They also have Hertzog´s "Bloodsport", released some time ago, which also has an option for 3000 copies, but they didn´t press all 3000 copies in the first place. In their news section, they posted an update on this CD, saying that almost 2000 copies were sold of "Bloodsport" and that they now proceed to press the 1000 copies left.

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I shall consider myself dethanked Mr. JKG. :clapping:

Now this is something I thought of as a possible answer to the question of why Mark would use a company that struggles sell its material. Could it be that the arrangement between him and the company is a flat fee regardless of sales? Maybe the pay Mark upfront for the rights to distribute his music as then recoup the cost of that from sales. If that was the case it wouldn't matter much to him if a single CD sold as the money would remain the same.

In terms of why he would entertain a company that has a less than stellar reputation then I assume he may be unaware of it though I have a strong inclination to say that once he has his fee he may well not be too bothered what happens from that point on. How the customers are treated is beyond his sphere of influence anyway.

Eth

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I seem to recall one of the labels, perhaps FSM or Intrada, stating 500 copies was actually more expnsive than 1,000.

What it would come down to, basically, is the AFM re-use fees for the music. It can vary over certain aspects, and as I recall -- "Kickboxer" was mostly synth, so there's not many (if any) musicians to pay, so 500 copies can be a more realistic shot, especially for a though occassionally requested item, still one that is not going to move 5,000 or even 2,000 copies (even if done by Varese Sarabande CD Club).

Mark Banning has been designing art work for Snow promo for years now -- I assume they know each other; probably Snow's main reason for going the BSX route. It also may simply be because: no other label is interested in his non X-Files films scoring work.

Film Score Monthly will never do one by him.

Varese Sarabande, who notoriously holds onto the rights of most of the scores they released in the past, let BSX have "Jake Speed" -- which Varese released on LP back in the late '80's -- the only Snow score I think they ever released (so, they must not be interested).

Intrada's not interested either.

Perserverence Records might, but I doubt it.

In fact, I can't think of a single label that does limited editions, that would apart from BSX. snow just might not have a choice.

Let me clear BSX up a little: while it's iffy ordering from them, you can, however, order their CDs from places like the amazing customer service/warp speed delivery of ScreenArchives.com.

As for unsold titles from BSX, they seem to delight in choosing obscure/not-so-obscure horror scores that nobody and their grandma wants. No score releasing label can have most of their product unsold and stay in business. Snow's a popular iron that's hot right now, and it makes sense to hit it. At least they'll make some profit, track in new customers and maybe move some of their old stock, and hopefully show that Snow is worthy of new releases each year.

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  • Elders (Moderators)

Good point, that no other label is interested in Snow´s Non-Chris-Carter-Music (at least La-La-Land covered "MillenniuM", "Harsh Realm" and "The Lone Gunmen", with "The X-Files" soon to follow).

And I don´t doubt that titles like "Kickboxer" wouldn´t sell 3000 copies, it´s just the way the label handles it and in the case of "Kickboxer" it wasn´t very well handled, not saying, that there would be 1000 copies or just get the other 500 copies out as soon as the first batch got sold out, same with "Loch Ness". People had to pay three times or even four times the original price of the "Kickboxer"-CD on Ebay after the sell-out, which could all have been avoided, if Perseverance would have said in the first place, that there will be 1000 copies, even if they weren´t manufactured until a few months ago and as you can see, the title is still available, so everyone, who wanted one, can still get one, if he hasn´t already paid much more for the CD on Ebay.

And you are right, the titles, that BSX releases, are mostly very obscure, but at least Carpenters "Prince of Darkness" is a very popular score amongst fans and I think it´s very unlikely, that almost 3000 people would buy "Big Trouble in Little China", but not even 1000 people would do the same with "Prince of Darkness", for, amongst Carpenter-Fans, "Prince of Darkness" is often mentioned as the favourite Carpenter-Score and the complete score is really worth the price, not like some other expanded releases, where just more of the same music is on, in this case you haven´t heard the score, if you only know the old Varese-CD. Same thing with "They Live", I bet, if Varese had put that title out in their Varese-CD-Club, the 1000 copies would be long gone, you just have to look at the also obscure titles, that they sometimes put out with 1000 units, like in the latest Club-Release Doug Timm´s "Nightflyers" and they sold all 1000 copies.

Maybe, in the case of Varese, it´s just the other titles, that keep people buying the more obscure titles also, with all the buyers, that got the limited Goldsmith and Conti, also buying "Nightflyers" before it´s gone.

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