Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

One nice thing about film score collecting that appears to be going by the wayside is the fact that it was a sufficiently small market to avoid some of the more irritating tactics that surround film franchise merchandising -- there would be a single release of a film's score, but that's pretty much it. This has started to change in recent years, though. For instance, the soundtrack release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was fairly irritating. The score CDs featured four different covers, which was fine by me, as I don't care much about such things. But then different releases of the score, sold at different outlets, included different "extras" on the disc. If you bought the thing at Wal-Mart, you got a screensaver or some such thing; however, if you bought it at Target, you got an extra track of music. (For me, music's the thing, so that's the version I got.) Another example was the score release for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which the "normal" releases also had multiple covers (I got Saruman, simply because that's all the store had the night I bought the thing), as well as a "special" release in a leather-backed case that came with some other goodies (I don't know what), but no extra music.

And now the same sort of thing is going to be the case with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, with a normal release and a "deluxe" release and then a "limited" release only available online. What's particularly galling in this case is that the more expensive versions will include the extra track of music, but not the "normal" release -- but of course, the running time of the normal release will be the same as the other releases minus the "bonus track". Asking score collectors to pony up an extra $10.00 just to get that extra track is, well, kind of mean. I'll be getting the "normal" release. (Info on the various releases of The Two Towers can be found here.)