BULLETIN: Read Update at Bottom of Page!

OK, so it's not the end of the world or anything. I'm a big fan of Brian Setzer. From the early days of The Bloodless Pharaohs, the Stray Cats, and especially now fronting the Brian Setzer Orchestra. I've bought all the records CD's, video's, even DVD's. I like his style. I like his music. I like his guitar playing. So imagine my thrill when I spied his Christmas CD "Boogie Woogie Christmas" in the stores for the 2002 Christmas season! Of course I bought it. And boogie Woogied my way thru the holidays last year.

I was boogie woogieing my way thru THIS Christmas season when I happened to pass by the holiday CD rack at K-mart. There in broad daylight plain as day was Brians Christmas CD again...but THIS time with a little sticker on it that says "Bonus Track Available ONLY at K-Mart, "Run Rudolph Run". Now for just a millisecond I was happy to have found another Setzer Christmas track. But only for a millisecond. By the second or third millisecond my thrill had turned to anger. I just BOUGHT this CD last season..paid full list price, and NOW I can buy it AGAIN and get ONE more song? I felt ripped off. Betrayed. Victimized. Now, to tell you the truth, I don't know if I'm mad at Brian, his record company, his management, or the K-Mart big whigs. All I know is I feel like I got ripped off for one song. I vowed right then and there to NOT get sucked in and buy another CD to get this track. I went on line, trying to find one of those nasty illegal download sources where I could score the track for free. No dice. Seemed no one else had it either.

THEN I was walking thru my local Target store. There was Brians Christmas CD again. With the bright neon green bonus track sticker. I said to myself "Self..wasn't that track only available at K-Mart?" Upon closer scrutiny I see it's a DIFFERENT bonus track..only available at TARGET! What the hell? You have to buy a different version of the CD in every store on earth to get all the songs? Now, I'm REALLY torqued off. How many other "bonus tracks" can be out there? Maybe it's never ending! Maybe it's a new plan to bring out the same CD every season with a new track? Don't know. So...

I waited till Christmas Eve afternoon, went to each store and bought each CD, on clearance. 40% off at K-mart! I have taken those two bonus tracks are you can download them right here, right now for your own enjoyment. MY suggestion is you BUY the CD, then download the tracks and reburn the whole darn thing as a complete CD with all the tracks. It's not like they're really a bonus. The original CD is rather short, plenty of room for more tracks. I think it's just a sales gimmick. Well, I'm not falling for it. I gave the two extra CD's I bought as Christmas gifts, and hopefully everyone else will grab these downloads before the corporate monsters come and get me.

I have not been able to come up with a defense for this marketing plan. One very good friend told me it was perhaps a way to fight illegal downloading of CD's. That by offering bonus tracks it would encourage people to buy the CD in a store. OK, I could believe that if the SAME bonus tracks were available at ALL the stores, and that ALL the retail CD's had the same bonus tracks. I've seen plenty of CD's being sold that have bonus tracks, or even a bonus CD with live tracks, or perhaps a bonus DVD even, which just might get people to buy in the store. But to offer after the fact, bonus tracks, different in different stores, is just a poorly planned marketing gimmick that is going to do nothing but torque off fans.