Bonus tracks, special editions, box sets: your thoughts?

[Trollheart]

I'm talking here about albums that are specifically released on the basis of one or two tracks being new, the likes of a greatest hits compilation with one new track or two, or a live album with one or two new studio tracks. The Eagles spring to mind, but I'm sure there are many others. When you see a "new album" announced and then realise it's exactly the same as one you have but there is one or maybe two new tracks on it. Or remixes of your favourite stuff. Or re-recorded, double Dolby mega-enhanced-whatever-the-**** versions. How do you feel? Do you want to buy them, think they're a ripoff, buy them even though you feel they're a ripoff or ignore them?

Sort of case in point currently: Pink Floyd's "new" album. I know it's being discussed in the PF thread but this is not just about that album, though it does illustrate the point very well. Is it right to ask your fans to pay for a bunch of material that wasn't deemed good enough for your last album, but now you want to cash in on it, and then as Gilmour says, "Pink Floyd is not in my future", so there'll be no more? Is that not a two-fingers to the fans, who were told a new album was on the way?

And then there are those "definitive editions" of their albums, with like ten discs per album, costing a king's ransom. If you're considered a true Floyd fan, maybe you feel you have to buy them to have them in your collection, even though they're bank-breakingly expensive.

But as I say, this is about more than the pink ones. Many artistes release several versions of albums --- different covers, different track on the Japanese release, another on the US one etc --- and as I say there are many GH compilations that you wouldn't buy but then there's a "new track" stuck on it so that they can tempt you.

Does anyone have opinions on how this is done? Does it annoy you, are you bothered? Do you grab every single new item from your favourite band, even if they release the same album in, say, a blue, a red and a green cover? I'm just wondering how people feel? I mentioned years ago how annoyed I was that the then-recently-released "Eagles' Greatest Hits" was exactly --- and I mean to the track --- the same as the last one, and yet people were expected to buy it. Am I alone here? Do you all think I'm making something out of nothing as usual, or does anyone else get annoyed about the constant moneygrabbing tactics of labels and maybe artistes, who seem to want to squeeze as much money out of their fans as possible?