i tunes
- Thread starter cop4ever
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merlinjones
Member
I'm hankering for a new batch too. What's the story here? - - It's been over six months it seems. Even if they can't get any "special" titles out right now, I'd love to get my files on some additional LP reissues before some crazy executive comes in and ends the whole thing (if that hasn't happened yet).
Any news? Anyone?
Any news? Anyone?
diegorivera2
Member
Someone hinted some time ago that Randy might have been 'muzzled' with respect to his posts here. Can anyone confirm? I'm not ready to think that Randy's abandoned us quite yet.
Steve LeVine
Member
That is a pretty unfair statement about a guy who has done a hell of a lot for disney music fans in general.
merlinjones
Member
>>I have to think they're just not seeing the return or else this stuff would be flying at us faster than we could track it.
Gurgitoy2
Active Member
The thing is, even if the iTunes catalogue and High School Musical have nothing in common, the executives will still use the same reasoning to continue, or discontinue both.
Disney (and other companies) have done this in the past. They put out a product that they feel has very limited appeal. They don't advertise it, they don't make it easy to find, and yet they still treat it as if it's on the shelves for every eye to see and they figure that since it's not selling well, there must not be the interest to invest further in it.
It's a very illogical way of doing business, but it happens constantly, much to the frustration of people who actually want those products. So, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Disney management is looking at the iTunes releases and saying "oh well, we tried, and it's not selling as well as the High School Musical soundtrack or the Disney Mania albums." Over the last decade or so (maybe even longer) Disney has not shown that it has real respect for it's back catalogue, whether that be films, soundtracks, whatever. Yes, there have been people in the company who care, and moments of thoughtfulness, but when it comes down to it, Disney is never consistent with their product, and rarely approaches anything with preservation or celebration in mind.
As for Randy's lack of posting. He's done a great deal for Disney music fans over the years. Certainly, there have been some QC issues, or subjective opinions on his work, but overall, he's done a lot more than the company ever would have if left to marketing, that's for sure. I would agree that he is probably discouraged from posting anymore though. I'm frankly, surprised that he did post in the first place, as that's kind of uncommon. So, he may be reading this stuff...just not participating....I don't know.
Disney (and other companies) have done this in the past. They put out a product that they feel has very limited appeal. They don't advertise it, they don't make it easy to find, and yet they still treat it as if it's on the shelves for every eye to see and they figure that since it's not selling well, there must not be the interest to invest further in it.
It's a very illogical way of doing business, but it happens constantly, much to the frustration of people who actually want those products. So, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Disney management is looking at the iTunes releases and saying "oh well, we tried, and it's not selling as well as the High School Musical soundtrack or the Disney Mania albums." Over the last decade or so (maybe even longer) Disney has not shown that it has real respect for it's back catalogue, whether that be films, soundtracks, whatever. Yes, there have been people in the company who care, and moments of thoughtfulness, but when it comes down to it, Disney is never consistent with their product, and rarely approaches anything with preservation or celebration in mind.
As for Randy's lack of posting. He's done a great deal for Disney music fans over the years. Certainly, there have been some QC issues, or subjective opinions on his work, but overall, he's done a lot more than the company ever would have if left to marketing, that's for sure. I would agree that he is probably discouraged from posting anymore though. I'm frankly, surprised that he did post in the first place, as that's kind of uncommon. So, he may be reading this stuff...just not participating....I don't know.
Dr. Know
Member
I used to have high hopes that Randy would find a way to serve the geeks as well as the general public, and for awhile he seemed to be making strides in that direction. I have been generally disappointed in the releases of the last couple of years (post-50th anniversary Disneyland set), and it has been frustrating that he took leave of this board without so much as a statement that he could no longer post here. Consequently, there have been endless unanswered threads directed to him. It would be good to know more about his situation.
I realize that I'm not a typical fan, and my interest is probably more specific and esoteric than most of the readers of this board. My main interest is music of the parks, not re-releases of old LPs from the Disney catalogue. Since the demise of the "Forever" system (which I don't think Randy had any hand in), there has been very little of interest coming through official channels, and third-party labels like Intrada have been unable to license any of this material. Disney is sitting on a goldmine of spectacular music written and recorded for the parks that may never see the light of day. I'm becoming resigned to being an unhappy camper.
Sorry if by expressing my frustration I offended you, but that's my personal view.
Jim
WDWGuy08
Member
i agree dr. know im not upset with randy as i am the people who green light the score the execs and other people. they do NOT know what they are sitting on they could be making money and fans happy and earning more nd new fans of disney music. spend the money release the music you'll find it'll be well worth it in time.
TempoBayResort
Member
Hi, everyone. My two cents on the Randy Thornton thing:
Bill, "hero worship" was a great term. It bugged me when a lot of folks around here would "Praise Randy" every time we heard something about a good release.
Yes, Thornton knew more about the music than a lot of producers. But I think that whoever was at the record company in the capacity of "producer" would do just what any producer would do, and that's produce. When given a project to head up, a producer would do research. He (or she) would go into "The Vaults." We would get "alternate takes," and other "never-before" goodies. A producer might dig up some of the original performers, or perhaps a Sherman, to find out answers to mysterious questions, like why the violas were on the left channel. He might even go online to find us "geeks" and get our opinions. (There was no shortage of opinions here, for sure.)
Now, had this been a cool dude, he would have visited here more regularly, responded to more of our posts, and just been a friend. He didn't do that. He used this board to post press releases from his department.
I remember, years back, when he came on to say that The Mouse told him not to tell us certain secrets anymore. Puuh--lease. If he really liked reading/posting/making friends, he could have done so under a different moniker. But no, his name on here was RANDY THORNTON. Naturally, Disney didn't like that. Understandable. I feel that he could have contributed a lot to this board without telling everyone he was RANDY THORNTON. I personally was done with that guy in April '05 with the whole 50th box debacle. (Look it up on here if you don't remember the phone-order chaos that led them to cease taking orders for fear they would sell out before July 17.)
Sorry for the rant, but the real heroes in Disney music are the musicians, performers, and composers who CREATED the music, not the guys who hold the keys to it.
Bill, "hero worship" was a great term. It bugged me when a lot of folks around here would "Praise Randy" every time we heard something about a good release.
Yes, Thornton knew more about the music than a lot of producers. But I think that whoever was at the record company in the capacity of "producer" would do just what any producer would do, and that's produce. When given a project to head up, a producer would do research. He (or she) would go into "The Vaults." We would get "alternate takes," and other "never-before" goodies. A producer might dig up some of the original performers, or perhaps a Sherman, to find out answers to mysterious questions, like why the violas were on the left channel. He might even go online to find us "geeks" and get our opinions. (There was no shortage of opinions here, for sure.)
Now, had this been a cool dude, he would have visited here more regularly, responded to more of our posts, and just been a friend. He didn't do that. He used this board to post press releases from his department.
I remember, years back, when he came on to say that The Mouse told him not to tell us certain secrets anymore. Puuh--lease. If he really liked reading/posting/making friends, he could have done so under a different moniker. But no, his name on here was RANDY THORNTON. Naturally, Disney didn't like that. Understandable. I feel that he could have contributed a lot to this board without telling everyone he was RANDY THORNTON. I personally was done with that guy in April '05 with the whole 50th box debacle. (Look it up on here if you don't remember the phone-order chaos that led them to cease taking orders for fear they would sell out before July 17.)
Sorry for the rant, but the real heroes in Disney music are the musicians, performers, and composers who CREATED the music, not the guys who hold the keys to it.
You have GOT to be kidding, right? Please say you're kidding.
There are friggin' BEATLES albums that have never been released in a digital format, and you're upset because you don't have a box set of the unreleased Archer and Gile? I mean, forgive me, but are you NUTS?
Disneyland and Buena Vista released a lot of crap. They also released a lot of non-crap that doesn't appeal to anybody but a few thousand Disney maniacs. And you seriously expect a for-profit company to set their small staff (yes, Disney is still a small label) to work creating, not just reissues of this stuff, but reissues with BONUS MATERIALS, talking about VIOLAS ON THE LEFT CHANNEL, at a time when they're probably going insane trying to deal with the High School Musical madness? Making MONEY? So they'll be able to afford taking more losses on your geek fix?
You INGRATES! I'm sorry I'm ranting like this, but you are some selfish sonofaguns. HOW DARE YOU! Every major label released a ton of official Disney material, some of it fantastic, but you don't see ANY of that on the market, do you? It's not worth the trouble to them. Gee, why is that? Maybe they know there's NO MONEY IN IT? Maybe they're concerned about keyboard jockey geeks defaming them in public for not releasing more, more, more?
Children's labels? Golden, Peter Pan, Bluebird, Capitol/Bozo Approved, Children's Record Guild, Hanna Barbera, SESAME STREET for cryin' out loud? All but one (Peter Pan) are defunct. All have material recorded at higher budgets than Disneyland Records ever dreamed of spending, with people just as talented, if not moreso, than the Disneyland staff folks. And it's GONE. You're never going to see it again ANYWHERE because there's no one like RANDY in a position to champion it and get it reissued.
You had NO RIGHT to expect that all this material from the Disney vaults would ever see the light of day. It makes no financial sense to even touch it, let alone remaster it and arrange for iTunes and Wonderland Music to sell it. But THEY DID IT ANYWAY, and it was because of RANDY. Yeah, that's deserving of some SERIOUS hero worship. I never would have dreamed he could pull it off. At a company run by Michael Eisner! Good lord, man, what WOULD make you impressed with the guy?
Yeah, it would be swell if they could make more of it available. There are a couple of titles I'm still waiting for, and I guess there's SOMEBODY out there who would even like a CD of that Music for Moonlight (or whatever it's called) accordion album. The guy's mother, perhaps. But damn if I'm going to sit here in my nice comfy computer chair and denounce Randy OR the rest of the Disney Music staff after they've done so much already. And you know, it IS the exact same company they founded in 1956, and there ARE still talented people there creating great NEW albums, and they DO care about the Disney fans. Too bad the Disney fans don't care about them.
Grrrrrrr! I'm too mad to even think of a good closer to this. Get REAL. Try to understand the GIFT this company has given you with the reissues so far. Looks like you didn't deserve it.
TempoBayResort
Member
I'm simply stating that if it were not Randy Thornton, it would be someone else.
And as for the releases being a "gift?" I disagree with that too. A company makes money by selling their product, so they sell their product. They hold back some material from this release, so they can sell another release a few years later. Did you ever buy a movie on VHS, then DVD? Then did you buy the Two-Disc special edition? Then you've proven my point.
Randy, or Bob, or Schlomo, or whoever is the "producer" at the time will put together a package and they will sell it. But I am not going to throw rose petals in their path for doing their jobs. I don't throw the word "hero" around that much.
And as for the releases being a "gift?" I disagree with that too. A company makes money by selling their product, so they sell their product. They hold back some material from this release, so they can sell another release a few years later. Did you ever buy a movie on VHS, then DVD? Then did you buy the Two-Disc special edition? Then you've proven my point.
Randy, or Bob, or Schlomo, or whoever is the "producer" at the time will put together a package and they will sell it. But I am not going to throw rose petals in their path for doing their jobs. I don't throw the word "hero" around that much.
Disney can money-grub with the best of them. No argument from me whatsoever. The later Eisner years were legendary for that. But I also know the realities of the music industry, and the economics of reissues of obscure material.
There was NO WAY they were going to make a significant profit on this stuff. NO WAY. They KNEW that going in.
In other words, YES! The company's work with these obscure reissues was altruistic. Because there IS no profit in this kind of thing for any record company that is also dealing in million sellers. In other other words, you do not allow employees to work on a project that is going to generate $5,000 when there are $100,000 or $1,000,000 projects that they could be working on. From an MBA standpoint (I have one of those, BTW) the reissue of this material in *any* venue was a disgraceful waste of company resources.
Anyone who says otherwise just doesn't understand the business side of the industry. That's why no other label will touch the treasure trove of Disney stuff in their vaults (IE everything Disney from before 1956 other than soundtracks). You got a gift, friend, whether you realize it or not, and yes, it was from that evil old Walt Disney Company. Whether it was throwing a bone to the most ardent fans, or keeping a passionate employee or two happy, or whatever the motivation, it COULD NOT have been profit.
That's why I'm so mad at you guys. Because I *DO* understand the economic realities at Disney, and what an amazing anomaly these reissues are! There are people at that company that totally "get it", and you're on here trashing them!
Well, that's what happens when you post mad - I didn't intend to say that. It's not that they CAN'T make money selling reissues of the stuff, it's that they can't make ENOUGH money to make it a worthwhile pursuit from a pure profit-and-loss standpoint. It's a low return, risky business for a division that has potential higher-return, less-risky projects that their staff could be spending their time on.
And yes, that may be why the well has run dry, or at least has been delayed.
There was never a rational *financial* reason to reissue this stuff (which is what I meant to say). That doesn't make it a bad idea, even for an MBA. A lot of businesspeople, Paul Pressler springs to mind, have an amazing ability to miss the forest for the trees, and see every little thing through the profit-loss microscope, but apparently the music division is a bit smarter. When your whole business model is founded on customer loyalty like Disney's, you sometimes find yourself doing things that don't deliver much or any profit, but make your most loyal customers happy. You replace the bulbs on Main Street before they burn out. You recall DVDs that went out with color errors that half the purchasers didn't even notice. Or you find ways to get your back catalog of recordings accessible for purchase. I don't know what the real motivation was for the reissues, but I tend to take Randy at his word that they are doing it because they genuinely like this stuff and want it on the market for the fans.
If that's the reason (and I can't think of another one that makes any sense), then it would be mighty stupid to start hurling insults at the folks responsible. But here we are. Peeing in the well. How clever of us.
Gurgitoy2
Active Member
This is one of the problems. It's certainly not made easy to find the albums on iTunes, it's not you. There is a list here somewhere, but it's buried under a bunch of posts.
As to Disney blessing us with the gift of music. I understand that it's not a money maker, and we're "lucky" to have any of it. The thing is, Disney could easily sell the rights, or at least distribution to a smaller company. They did this with their "B pictures" in the early days of DVD. Anchor Bay released a bunch of older, lesser known, or "bombs" from Disney. Return to OZ, the Black Hole, Watcher in the Woods, Something Wicked this Way Comes, etc. At a certain point, Disney realized that there was enough money to be made on this stuff, and yanked the rights back, and subsequently released some of those themselves. For a while, they were on a good run; releasing stuff that had never even been seen on home video. Then, it just dried up. They've done that many times. There isn't really a good reason they couldn't let a record lable, like Rhino Records, or another smaller company, release the old WDR back catalogue. Disney wouldn't have to have staff focus on this low-income generator, and they might make a tiny bit back while somebody else does the work. Heck, there are people that are preserving old films, just for the sake of it, not to make money. If Disney even let some of the fans get this stuff and preserve it themselves, that would work. Maybe not quite something like that MGM studio sale back in the 70's where movie history got scattered to the winds, but Disney could let outside hands deal with restoring and preserving their history. Heck, why not let the Disney Family Museum take a crack at keeping this stuff? There isn't an excuse to just sit on it, even for a business. Either make a profit from it, or divest it.
mmmfan
Member
For cschurr-This post details many of the releases on itunes. 
http://www.magicmusic.net/discuss/index.ph...g19894#msg19894
http://www.magicmusic.net/discuss/index.ph...g19894#msg19894
And while mmmfan was answering my question I was searching and reading all about the itunes release, omgoooodness, so much good stuff! Mmmfan thank you soooooo much for answering my question! (Can you tell I am so, so very far behind on my cds?) I did pick up Tubby the Tuba cd last year during my DL trip! That is one down!
I also searched for Randy's last posts and he hasn't posted for almost a year, which is really too bad, he always has gems to share. I hope the long absence means good stuff is coming (although I hope not, I'm missing too much as it is! ;D )
Thanks again to EVERYONE who has helped me on collection thus far! I have quite a few purchases to go through and still even more to aquire!
C
I also searched for Randy's last posts and he hasn't posted for almost a year, which is really too bad, he always has gems to share. I hope the long absence means good stuff is coming (although I hope not, I'm missing too much as it is! ;D )
Thanks again to EVERYONE who has helped me on collection thus far! I have quite a few purchases to go through and still even more to aquire!
C
Dr. Know
Member
Exactly. Years ago, Disney licensed several soundtrack titles to Intrada (for instance, McNeely's IRON WILL), but then pulled the plug. Intrada has done an outstanding job preserving, restoring, and releasing classic scores in limited editions ranging from 1000 to 3000 units. I understand that their inquiries into licensing Disney titles in recent years have all been rebuffed.
Steve LeVine
Member
Your registration says you havent even been on this board for a year but you are somehow an expert on Randy Thorntons posts? Nobody ever said Randy was a god but he has provided this board with a lot of great info and helped provide disney fans with a lot of great music. I dont think people who appreciate that are worshipping him as you seem to think. Do you honestly think he had anything to do with any phone problems you had ordering the anniversary set?