Out This Week / on 8 December 2017

This is the ribbon running across the top of the A&M Carpenters forum. I couldn’t see any posts related to exactly what. This would be coming from the forum moderator:

“”We have received word that UMe is aware of the problem with the Carpenters vinyl releases, both the box sets and the individual LPs, and has offered a solution. To receive a replacement, send a proof of purchase to UMGCustomerSupport@umusic.com. UMe prefers email, but those who prefer phone contact may call 1-800-288-5942 to speak to Customer Support.””

Apparently quality control was asleep at the wheel – surprise! – on the Carpenters release and are already making arrangements for replacements. Both the box sets & individual album releases are affected.

Contact them: UMGCustomerSupport@umusic.com

@Howie – there’s a really weird thing that sometimes happens on Amazon where a release will be available for pre-order for months then all of a sudden (just about the time I finally make a decision!) a week or three before the actual release date it starts showing as unavailable. Then on the release date it becomes available again (this cannot guaranteed). This has happened to me for a couple of the Bowie 7″s and, most recently, the Nine Inch Nails Not The Actual Events CD.

£64.47 plus free UK standard delivery Howie

https://www.speedyhen.com/Product/The-Beatles/The-Christmas-Records/22174761?awc=7017_1512492024_61265a54fed86bd94368e4951f6b5b3e&utm_source=Affiliate_Window&utm_medium=Affiliate_Marketing&utm_campaign=6717

Does anyone know if the Beatles Christmas fan club box is sold out? Not available on Amazon, HMV or the Beatles store. Have these really sold out on preorders?

I am torn with the Donald Fagen. I have the CD set (turned up today) and I do want the Vinyl set BUT just about everything I have ordered from Amazon recently, launch price promise notwithstanding, has gone down in price shortly after launch. It’s only a fiver here and there but it adds up and a fiver is a fiver. So it one of those gambles, if I had jumped in on announcement date it would have been £73, now it’s £77 and it’s a gamble where it ends up next week £87 or £69….. what to do?

I heard Mathis’ rendition of “O Holy Night” on an online music streaming service over the weekend, and I was enthralled. His vibrato is intoxicating (think Karen Carpenter), his pitch is near perfect, and his sense of timing is impeccable. I’ll be checking out more of his stuff.

Don Fagen – looks like a great set! I love Karmakiriad.

I must have had the Johnny Mathis boxset ordered from every Amazon at one point or another before settling on Italy. I just need to make sure all previous orders were definitely cancelled.

Regarding the Johnny Mathis box set…but i only want the unreleased Chic helmed album lol.

The problem with these enormous “every single album made by an artist that made scores of albums” box sets from Columbia is that it’s basically impossible to verify that there’s nothing wrong with any of the discs in the set before the return window ends. You can physically inspect them; but listening to 68 discs of Johnny Mathis in two weeks, or even a month? Not going to happen. And if, three months down the road, you do find a flaw, what can you do?

I’ve been tempted by some of these in the past; but this concern always ends up turning me off.

I agree as to the artistic merit of classical Roy Orbison, and orchestral Aretha, and whoever else they’re dragging into the virtual studio, but the curmudgeon can rest assured it’s also a way of (a) keeping a heck of a lot of very professional musicians in employment, and (b) lowering the need for their being publicly subsidized.

Also the physical release of Thom Yorke’s last album.Only took 3 years.