solve me the riddle: why does some japanese releases got bonus tracks that other countries dont?

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what's so special about japan that they get the privilege?

― fantas, Monday, 20 February 2006 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's cuz CDs cost way too much there and they give incentive to purchase.

― bumsnuff, Monday, 20 February 2006 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

If I recall correctly, the reason is that Japanese releases traditionally came after US and UK releases, so it was a way of convincing domestic buyers in Japan to wait for their releases instead of buying imports.
That's why when you see UK issues of things that have already come out in the US, there's often a bonus track or two.
It has the bonus effect of inducing a lot of completist knobs to shell out for import releases.

― js (honestengine), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Mark P. explained it here already.

― StanM (StanM), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Because they're generally released later in Japan and the Japanese labels don't wat people buying imports do they?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

CDs in japan are really expensive. if they don't offer exclusive bonus tracks on the japanese releases, japanese folk will just buy the much cheaper imported versions.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

D'oh- beaten to it.

I wrote: Their economy is such that an import will be cheaper than a domestically licensed and released version- this means that the domestically licensed release needs an extra something to make it worth paying more for. That's why.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

or perhaps their favoring of asymmetrical aesthetics (as opposed to western art) leads them to want to unbalance albums by tacking on unrelated bonus tracks at the end.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:40 (nineteen years ago)

The fact that imports are cheaper did my head in when I first started buying records in Japan. I'm a big fan of the bonus track though.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 00:20 (nineteen years ago)

Why are japanese pressings so damn expensive?
The Japanese don't deserve bonus tracks, do they?

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 00:31 (nineteen years ago)

a lot of cds with vocals (ie, non-instrumental) released in japan also have decent lyric translations which are sometimes incentive enough for purchase of the domestic product over the import.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 00:40 (nineteen years ago)

Consider how densely populated that tiny nation truly is, and you'll understand the compulsion to cram as many songs as possible onto those little shiny round things. (I could speculate further that said overpopulation was the catalyst to the nation's obsession with/talent for miniaturization - cars, consumer electronics, etc. - but I'd just be talking out of my ass. Socialogists can work that one out.)

― Myonga Von Bonsai (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 07:31 (nineteen years ago)

a lot of cds with vocals (ie, non-instrumental) released in japan also have decent lyric translations which are sometimes incentive enough for purchase of the domestic product over the import.

I've always wondered about this ... thanks.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 07:46 (nineteen years ago)

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