WDW or DL Forever via iTunes or Disney.com

[DisneyMuzik]

I was just thinking how I missed out on the whole WDW & DL Forever opportunity because I did not happen to visit the parks when this was going on. If I did, I did not know about the entire concept. If only this opportunity was available now, how many of us would be walking out of the parks with stacks of CDs!

I don't recall the specific reasons why the concept was scuttled, but how cool would it be if Disney resurrected this concept via iTunes or their own web site. Anyone think this is remotely possible?

Should I start the petition? ;D

 

[Rich T]

As I understand it, the "forever" concept was scuttled because it wasn't a financial success. For one thing, it was too complicated for the average park goer to bother with. It was also rather expensive: Your CD's playing time could run anywhere from an hour to a couple of minutes, depending on which 10 tracks you picked. The sound quality and audio levels varied wildly from track to track.

Park music on iTunes would be a dream come true, but I don't think we'll see it in the original "forever" format again.

The good news (on the DL side, at least) is that, between the Musical History of Disneyland and the park Pirates and Mansion CD's, most of the best music from Forever is still available, and in a much more polished presentation. Really, except for some of the area music tracks, I haven't listened to the forever discs since those official CDs were released. Times have never been better for Disney park music fans. Take my word for it--I'm ancient--T'wasn't too long ago that there was *nothin'* available. Zip. Squat. Okay, there was that minute-long mono version of "Yo Ho" on the Disney Greatest Hits CDs...

If park music ever does appear on iTunes I will buy every track available. Here's hopin'.

 

[kirky99]

I thought I read somewhere that legal is mainly the reason. There were a lot of edits on what was available, and unavailable, and then available agian. It makes sense. Legal being mostly copyrights, etc.

Much of what was availalbe IS out there though, check out Rodentsections.

You are right, many of us would be very grateful if it was available again, but sadly, we are a very small number of paying guests, not enough to sustain the effort and cost with making that a reality again I fear.

 

[jonyyeh]

If you don't have the Musical History of Disneyland CD set, I recommend still to buy it, even though it has been out for a couple of years and therefore not many places have it in stock and/or just have it at the list price.

I was looking at YesAsia.com and they have it for $49.99. They also sell some albums from the Tokyo Disney Resort.

http://www.yesasia.com/us/a-musical-histor...-0-en/info.html

Although I wish songs from the Disney Parks were available on iTunes. I hate to buy another CD again, especially if I have most of the songs on it already. Unfortunately, there are always new songs from the parks that every Disney fan, including me, wants to have.

 

[eyore]

For those outside the US, The Musical History of Disneyland is a bargain.
It cost me (with P&P) around the same price as a Disney DVD here.
It's my pride and joy (along with the official DLRP hard-back book on the park) and well worth the full price.

 

[The Trout]

Musical History is a bargain and sounds fantastic (not just content-wise, but the fidelity is outstanding as well). If only that vinyl that came with it sounded half as good as the CDs...

I remember being obsessed with the Forever tracks when they first came out. I was still in high school and could only visit Disneyland once a year, but I managed to get one disc each trip before it was shut down. Of course, now we have FLAC copies of pretty much everything. Bravo, internet - bravo!

The quality does vary wildly on it, though. There are some tracks that sound like flat transfers from the master tapes (ie, you can hear tape hiss, which I actually prefer to the alternative) and some tracks that have been absolutely drowned in NoNoise (not just a little but a LOT - that 1955 announcer guy sounds like he's drowning in a fish tank). And then there are the levels, which are all over the place (Dear DLF guy - it's called the "normalize" function - use it). Then there are tracks in mono at DL but stereo at WDW or vise-versa, or tracks that have SFX in with the music while others don't (indicating that the latter is from a lower-generation source and not just an area loop dub). And THEN there are the dubious fades and edited content. AND THEN...

You can pile on the complaints, but it was what it was for the time and you'll never see anything like it again. I still love that content, however marred some of it might've been. And there's more tracks that sound great than sound bad. The gold to crap ratio for DLF is probably 4:1.