Hahah. Here's one comment I made when listening about what I think is my favorite track on the new album: Count Back from TEN Seriously, it feels like 2003. It's Saosin through and through to me in this song. This is what made me first start writing about the band, the back and forth, the chaos and the control, the loud to the soft. The opposing beauty in Anthony's vocals and the crashing instruments.
Damn, sounds rad. I only just now realized those two tracks are only for the Deluxe edition, which seems to be digital only. That's a shame, if so, for the CD/vinyl. Especially since "Control" doesn't seem like a particularly amazing closer.
I honestly can't see why they wouldn't just make one version. Maybe if the deluxe was 16 or 17 songs, but not for 13.
It is super weird if the label specifically wanted less. Then again, Epitaph did the same general thing with Sleeping with Sirens last album where there is the standard with 13 tracks, and the "deluxe" with 15. Only difference is Target was given exclusive rights to have a CD version of the deluxe, and this is digital only.
One possibility is that the running time with all 13 tracks would make a double LP all but required, which probably cuts into profit margins for vinyl by a nontrivial amount. And then they don't want to de-incentivize physical buyers from choosing the vinyl by having the CD sitting next to it without missing songs, so here we are? Or maybe that's just my bias to blame all our ills on the vinyl fad, since it already annoys me in other ways (like further justifying insanely compressed digital masters since "audiophiles can just buy the vinyl"). But that's for another thread. ;) Some sort of exclusivity deal with Apple (barf) was my first suspicion, but it looks like all the digital retailers have the 13-track version, thankfully.
I figured it was probably something like that. Like, they want to keep the standard album shorter so that excess tracks can go onto a deluxe version that costs $2 more.
I doubt the vinyl thing is it. You can fit a lot on a single LP these days. Jimmy Eat World's Invented is a 51 minute album, and was released as a single LP. And this is going to be 39 minutes standard, and 47 minutes deluxe. I think it really does come down to the label wanting to squeeze as much money out of the release as they can, which I don't entirely blame them for with how much harder it is to sell records these days.
To get better placement on services you usually have to give them exclusive songs. It's how you get promoted in stores more, digitally and b&m. It also allows you to hit certain price points certain places and then charge a little more to the "die hard" fan. But, by and large, it's the carrot used to get a place to promote your album more because you gave them an "exclusive."
Yeah, that's true too. Would this apply here though, since the bonus content is available on all digital platforms? I imagine you know a lot more about industry stuff than I, or most to all people on this site.
Probably. Offering something over the physical product is usually what they're looking for, that would be my guess at least.