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So I guess no one is interested in Le Coppie. That's sad.
No response from GDM, no response from the board.
The only thing I don't understand is why the LP is selling for 300 Euro if no one is interested...
All of this is so easy to understand. For the most part, you won´t find the real "hardcore" collectors of old and top rare Italian LPs from the 60s/70s here on this board! I know a few of them personally quite well for many years and I also know at least two persons who have the rare LE COPPIE LP in their collection - and who would buy it again at any time because of its high value and because it quite simply is therefore an excellent trade item.
But as I said: These are long-time collectors who collect such things since decades and who don´t post on this board at all. These LP collectors also won´t pay for any digital downloads of the LP albums. That´s for sure.
What do you think how many people will buy digital downloads of these GDM (or rather RCA) items like LE COPPIE at all? I would say these will be very few people - no matter if the title is offered lossless or not - and it will certainly not be commercially profitable in any way for GDM. However, on the other hand the big problem nowadays is that for such old, rather unkown Italian RCA scores (for example also Teo Usuelli´s very nice LA SUORA GIOVANE is among them) it is much too expensive for a label to produce a regular CD anymore. It also seems that neither Beat nor Digitmovies were interested to release LE COPPIE on CD. And we all know that GDM is not willing anymore to lose any money on such titles from the RCA vaults. Therefore they just try these digital downloads as it doesn´t cost them too much - only mastering has to be paid and fees to the digital platform iTunes - , but as soon as they see that everything was in vain they will stop the trial again. All of this is quite clear. And it is also clear that you won´t get any reply from them. They just do what they want and nothing else.
I myself don´t need any digital download of LE COPPIE anyway as I have an LP rip on CDR for a long time.
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So I guess no one is interested in Le Coppie. That's sad.
No response from GDM, no response from the board.
The only thing I don't understand is why the LP is selling for 300 Euro if no one is interested...
With many albums on my wish list, an Alberto Sordi comedy is never a priority (speaking for myself). Most (non-Sordi) titles by Piccioni are must-haves for me, but I can live without Le Coppie.
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With many albums on my wish list, an Alberto Sordi comedy is never a priority (speaking for myself). Most (non-Sordi) titles by Piccioni are must-haves for me, but I can live without Le Coppie.
In fact, what is at stake here is a bit more than only the singular case of Piccioni´s LE COPPIE. GDM apparently has put more than 10 additional titles from the RCA catalogue only on iTunes just a few weeks ago. So the tendency is clear: No longer a CD release for such scores from the old RCA catalogue which no other label wants to release and which too few people would buy on CD, but only digital downloads which is the much cheaper solution for GDM. However, in my opinion probably even fewer collectors will be interested in buying these old titles as digital downloads than as regular CD because there is no kind of decent promotion for them and most people know almost nothing about these scores. An absurd situation. Only time will really tell during the next few months if GDM will maintain this direction or not.
And we are talking here also about some previously completely unreleased titles. Two of them which might be interesting for ZardozSpeaks for example are: Savina´s IO TI AMO from 1968 and Fusco´s DOMANI NON SIAMO PIU´ QUI from 1967.
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By the way Stefan, do you have any idea why nothing by Bruno Nicolai has been surfacing for quite a while, be it in Italy or for instance from Kronos Records? Do you know if any titles have been reserved meanwhile? There’s indeed plenty of topnotch stuff that still needs to be released on CD, not only film scores like L’ALPIN L’E SEMPRE QUEL but also library albums such as CIVILTA DEL MEDITERRANEO to name but one. Are the potential sales in the case of Nicolai considered too low as well? Just wondering…
Laurent, I have also been wondering why no more Bruno Nicolai titles have been released after those attempts by Kronos (with two Nicolai titles) and Edipan (also with two Nicolai titles) about three years ago. After ELEONORA nothing did appear from Edipan on CD anymore which is odd. So this must have been a real commercial failure for them. But it is also obvious that something like ELEONORA simply does not appeal to the usual genre fans. Nicolai certainly sells quite well if we are talking about titles from the popular genres like western, giallo, horror or spy movies, but as soon as you leave that comfort zone, things then look quite different. I suppose that this might explain why labels are still reluctant to release such fine scores as L´ALPIN L´E SEMPRE QUEL, L´ARMA MERAVIGLIOSA or CIVILTA´ DEL MEDITERRANEO (this is not one of the library albums, but music from a TV series by Folco Quilici from 1972-1976). Above all the ALPIN score is excellent and one of Nicolai´s best. But the key issue as always regarding Italian soundtracks is: It simply doesn´t belong to any of the genres which are most popular among the collectors, instead it is just music for a TV documentary. And therefore you may not even break even if you try to release this score on CD. Difficult to say if even 300 copies of it could be sold.
Almost all Nicolai titles from the CAM catalogue have long been released on CD. There is only one title left there which has indeed been reserved and which is a comedy. This is IL CAPPOTTO DI ASTRAKAN from 1979 and it could be that it may still appear either from Beat or Digit in the near future. However, I just see that the co-publisher of CAPPOTTO is Cristaldifilm (Vides) - so there might be some additional problems in releasing this score.
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Still no anwer from GDM... I guess it's time to move on to other things. No motivation anymore to listen those hundreds of GDM CDs that I bought knowing that they only see my as some money machine that is not even worth replying to. As some of know, I've been requesting this LP -> CD/FLAC for 10+ years.
I'm here for you!
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Still no anwer from GDM... I guess it's time to move on to other things.
I am not at all surprised about this as I had already written above. I don´t know what you did expect from GDM. Really hundreds of people would have to write to GDM and complain there - only then maybe something would change, but this will not happen at all as there are not that many collectors interested in such digital downloads of these Italian titles anyway. And if only a handful of collectors like you writes to them, it is more or less pointless.
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Le Coppie released from GDM... as lossy Itunes only files! What an insult to collectors. I had emailed GDM a long time ago about that. It would be so easy for them to add a lossless option, but I guess they don't care at all about their customers. Maybe time to find a new hobby...
This is very disappointing. I have certainly appreciated the physical, CD releases, even as the press runs have dropped from 500 pcs to 300 pcs and sometimes 200 pcs.
I have purchased, literally, maybe a half dozen downloads at most since they appeared on the scene, and only of titles that were not available in any other format. Three of these were Michael Cudahy's soundtracks for "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story," "I Am Divine," and "Wrangler: Anatomy of An Icon." I bought these from the CDBaby website as they were available in FLAC format. I see now that the CDBaby website has discontinued offering FLAC files and now only offers MP3s.
I don't care for MP3s, I don't understand the staying power of this lossy format. It seems like it might suffice for people who like to have music on for "background noise," but not a fit for "active listeners," which I assume would include most soundtrack fans.
As much as I love Piccioni, I don't think I'll be purchasing the MP3s -- for one, I don't shop on either iTunes or Amazon; and two, I think the lesser sound quality would just make for a frustrating rather than enjoyable listen. Frankly I would rather (and will continue to try) to track down the original LP, even if I have a drop some serious $ on it.
I'm assuming GDM already knows what the market is for these older soundtracks, but I hope this download-only release is not an experiment to gauge interest in this title. You won't get an MP3 download purchase from me, but I would quickly jump on a CD (or even vinyl) release.
I have a couple of tracks from "Le Coppie" on compilation CDs -- "Maryanne On Shore" and "Tumba Petticoat" are on a Japanese compilation called "Go To Slow Food: Music For Your Life" on the King/"re Musica" label (KICP 861); "Maryanne ..." is also on a Japanese compilation called "Italian Twilight Jazz-Bossa Lounge" (King Records - KICP 3215). Would love to have "Shake On The Boat"!
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Would love to have "Shake On The Boat"!
You can also listen to the complete track of "Shake on the Boat" on the BPM Score Music Series 3006 album "Italian Comedy 60s/70s" where it is track 14 with the fictitious title "Quick Beatnik".
All the tracks of these 27 BPM albums (with tracks from the RCA archive) are available online on the Universal Music Publishing website:
https://www.universalproductionmusic.com/en-se/search?vtag=1&vwave=1&vdesc=1&label=5
Two versions of the waltz main theme can also be found on the BPM 3007 Love Themes album with the titles "In a Whirl" (2:03 minutes) and "Love in Motion" (2:13 minutes).
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Thank you for the info, Stefan! And as luck would have it, I already own both of those BPM volumes! So I guess I can cobble together my own, very abbreviated version of the "Le Coppie" score.
I took a look at the GDM website and they don't seem to be promoting any CDs at all -- just downloads and vinyl. I guess I don't know where most of the expense lies in these reissues -- I assume there are licensing and remastering costs -- which I'm also assuming is an expense for a download-only release -- but is the cost of a limited run of CDs really that much more on top of the other costs? If not, it seems like some sort of "Kickstarter" campaign could be a way to go with these.
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I took a look at the GDM website and they don't seem to be promoting any CDs at all -- just downloads and vinyl. I guess I don't know where most of the expense lies in these reissues -- I assume there are licensing and remastering costs -- which I'm also assuming is an expense for a download-only release -- but is the cost of a limited run of CDs really that much more on top of the other costs?
GDM has stopped producing CDs for almost two years now. They even stopped their series with those double CDs of Morricone scores where at first 50 albums had been planned with reissues of 100 Morricone titles.
On their website they do not even promote the digital downloads of those old RCA scores which they have now put on iTunes at all.
And yes, of course the costs for pressing and licensing a CD - also the printing of a booklet - are much too high nowadays to warrant a CD production of something more obscure like for example Teo Usuelli´s LA SUORA GIOVANE. Simply too few people would buy such a title and a CD label couldn´t even break even if they tried to release it. It is therefore no wonder that GDM had stopped their series with old RCA scores which were limited to 300 copies and which they still produced in 2014. None of those titles sold out anymore.
I don´t know the exact details of the collaboration betwen GDM and Universal Music Publishing, but at least GDM manages their entire RCA catalogue - in almost the same way that they do the General Music catalogue - , and Universal Music Publishing will probably get a certain share of the revenues of these productions. But no matter how they deal with each other: In the meantime, for a profit-oriented label it has become simply too expensive to produce a CD with a title which won´t sell hundreds of copies. So it is much, much cheaper to put up such a title as digital download. That´s obvious.
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