Thursday, September 28, 2006

Scissors cut from FYE

In what would seem to be more of an own-goal than a wise move, Scissor Sister's new album Ta-Dah has been dropped by US retail chain For Your Entertainment and its parent organisation Trans World Entertainment.

Trans World have thrown a little hissy fit after Jake Shears singled out the chain for criticism on overcharging - he pointed out that their $18.99 price tag on the Raconteurs album was a little steep at a music industry conference.

TWE CEO Jim Litwak has been hoping for a "sorry":

"All [Scissor Sisters’] had to do was pick up the phone and talk to us. But they didn't elect to do that. We were ignored, and he made those comments. So who's the injured party here?"

Who is the injured party here - that's a good question. We notice with interest that FYE's response to being questioned about the high price of a CD on their shelf was not to justify the price by demonstrating why it's a fair rate, or to shrug and say "if you don't like it, don't pay it", but to have a childish tantrum and choose to drop one of the major releases of the second half of 2006. At a time when customers are choosing to buy online instead of in stores, mainly because the range of stock online is so much wider, is it really wise to send out press releases bellowing "we don't even have some Top 40 albums in stock because the artists dislike our ridiculously high prices"?

Yes, Litwak. You're the injured party. Because you've shot your own bloody foot off.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The amazing thing about this is when jake shears complained about fye in rolling stone he mentioned that fye is a store that cares nothing about music. That is inaccurate and false. Transworld is one of the last remaining music retailers that specializes in music! The alternative is to buy cd's at best buy, circuit city, and target, etc who care absolutely nothing about music. They mark cd's down and lose money on them only to mark televisions and other electronic devices up 200 or more percent than what they purchase them for. They do not usually even have a person to work in the music section and hire people to come in on the weekends to alphabetize them. If distributors would mark down prices, then all the now bankrupt music stores would still exist and fye's prices would not have to be as high. The employees at fye love music and work there for that reason alone, not because they get paid well. Music piracy is the real reason for all of these problems and instead of jake shears applauding the people who steal music he should be blasting them. If you can get a cd for free then why pay for it? The people who download illegally wouldnt buy the cd regardless of whether it only cost 5 bucks or 15. Telling fye and their employees to bathe in their own excrement really pissed off everyone and the people that work there that would have bought and would have helped push their new cd as they did their old one now say that mr shears should go take a bath in his excrement!

Anonymous said...

To the above comment:

Don't talk shit all your life.

Now, that meeting of PR directors won't meet by itself. Run along, dipshit.

Anonymous said...

Well people wouldn't download so much if the CDs weren't so expensive in the first place now would they (best to inform cinema chains about this too)?

Sorry, don't have the time to waste writing a novel-sized reply.

Twat.

Chris Brown said...

'Course, if the Raconteurs had more than one good song we might not have had to have this argument...

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