Amazon to Start Pressing Universal’s Catalogue on Demand

January 21, 2011 By Mike Duquette — No Comments

Here’s some interesting news from the too-rarely-reported business side of the catalogue world: Universal Music Group is going to start pressing out-of-print catalogue titles through Amazon’s CreateSpace self-publishing and on-demand services.

Similar to Warner and Collectors’ Choice’s Tartare program, the UMG/CreateSpace partnership will see the label licensing its out-of-print content to the online service’s Disc on Demand program. Each copy of an album under this program is made direct to order, allowing a quicker, lower-risk method for Universal and other labels to get their titles out there.

A press release indicated that some 3,000 titles will bow through the service in the coming months. The release promised artists “from Chuck Berry and B.B. King to Judy Garland and Patti LaBelle” and specifically mentioned Louis Armstrong’s Back Through the Years: Centennial Celebration (2000) B.B. King’s Take It Home (1979), and greatest hits titles for Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty.

Time will tell as to what this news means for catalogue fans, but The Second Disc remains hopeful that there will be some benefit for us from this new deal.

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Mike Duquette
Mike Duquette

Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, having written at and worked for all three major catalogue music labels and contributing to Allmusic, Billboard, Discogs, City Pages and Ultimate Classic Rock. He's penned liner notes for Verve, Chess, Mondo and Soul Music Records.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.

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0 thoughts on “Amazon to Start Pressing Universal’s Catalogue on Demand”

  3. Don

    It might be good for getting some out-of-print titles, but it’s a further nail in the coffin to the idea of a quality physical product (ie, a CD that isn’t simply burned on a CD-R and that includes good liner notes, artwork, etc.)

    Reply
  4. Bill Janowski

    Exactly – I prefer the ‘quality physical product’
    over a made-to-order CD-R anytime.

    Any idea what the prices will be on these releases??

    Reply
    1. Don

      Yeah, I have a feeling that people who would happily accept a CD-R probably don’t care much about the physical product anyway. So why not just offer these as downloads?

      Reply
      1. Bill Janowski

        I guess it all depends on how much ‘physical’ CD’s versus downloads they see a demand for.

        I’ve never bought a download (either single or album), but have heard various pros and cons on it.

        I’m guessing it’ll depend heavily on the pricing.

        Reply
  5. RoyalScam

    I’d much prefer FLAC downloads with pdf artwork of out of print titles. I’d make my own CD-R’s on Taiyo Yudens and burn them as Enhanced CD’s with the pdf as a data file.

    Reply
  6. Bill B

    This might not be a bad deal if they concentrate on out of print cds. I can understand everyone’s fears that it may undermine true releases of physical product but the movie industry is already doing this with obscure movies that would never have been released due to lack of demand. So, if done right, you will have access to albums that you otherwise would not have been able to get.

    http://www.wbshop.com/Warner-Archive/ARCHIVE,default,sc.html?src=GGLHMOD

    http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/columbiaclassics/the-films/

    Reply

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