JulesRules
500 Club - QQ All-Star
And finally the confirmation that the stereo mastering was done for phone speakers. This is why I knew I needed the Blu-Ray.Sound and Vision article...
https://www.soundandvision.com/cont...s-fears-elevated-tipping-point-atmos-universe
The problem is that Paul likes to twist words around. I've learned not to trust him anymore. He's been gaslighting people on several occasions, like this: Real and fake signatures | The Tears For Fears ConnectionAnything else related to the specifics is conjecture; your attributing poor decisions to SDE has less basis in facts than any comments thanking them for making this happen.
Being able to read Paul's post and citing it does not make one a SDE apologist.
We do not know if it wouldn't have been possible to widen the scope of the limited releases. We do know that other labels are able to sell a standalone blu-ray or put it into a smart package (digipak) with a CD. Other labels are also able to put together a deluxe version with all the songs for the real fans ("Let It All Evolve" is one of the best songs on the album and yet not readily available in Europe and the UK). The real kicker for me was that me criticizing the label of not being able to sort this out themselves was interpreted by Paul as an attack on SDE. He villainized me for this, and that kind of behaviour shows that he's not being honest. He wants to be seen as a saviour without appreciating that his proposed solution came with a lot of hassle / a regular release available in other countries than the UK would've been positive for more fans. If he really has that much influence, surely he could have come up with a more ambitious plan that would e.g. involve mail-orders in other countries. But nope, gotta have the clout of being the exclusive vendor. Do you realize what's going on here?
It's not quite "We're only in it for the money" but there is a massive conflict of interest that's become hard to ignore. I don't fault Paul for getting an exclusive like the Go West set - a signed print is nice to have but hardly essential.
Get your facts straight. In what universe was The Seeds of Love from 2020, repressed last year, "light-years ago"? (Light years are a measure of distance, not time, btw, and there were only two previous surround releases!)Do you honestly think somebody else was going to release this if SDE didn’t? Like who? The label? I’d love to hear the names of some likely suspects.
It’s 2022. Those three previous surround legacy album releases were light-years ago in digital physical disc years. Almost nobody is doing physical releases of surround mixes these days. And the few who are still doing them are doing them as parts of big legacy boxes sets, not standalone surround releases of new music.
I'm pretty sure I already explained to you that Marillion managed to get a blu-ray out in addition to putting the surround mix of An Hour Before It's Dark on a CD/DVD edition and their own ultimate box set. Consider that the label is Edel, a much smaller company... you get the drift. And Steven Wilson has been offering his own albums on standalone blu-rays for a while now. All this without "oooh, limited, grab it before it's gone" and without tax issues slowing delivery and adding copious costs. Now a counter-argument can be made that Marillion's 5.1 probably doesn't appear on streaming services - I get that. But then again, neither does Steven's 5.1 of TTP, only the Atmos.
The fact that a lot of bonus material of limited or deluxe editions does not appear on streaming services (the three TFF bonus tracks are a case in point, but also a lot of the Jethro Tull bonus material springs to mind) doesn't seem to gel with your "ownership is being phased out" mantra.
We can be happy that this album was released and that the editions happened, but still concerned that this is not sustainable and that it shouldn't be encouraged to be carried out in such a suboptimal manner. (FWIW even Paul admitted that he's learnt from this episode, so there.)