Tas wrote:I find most of your coments a bit odd, but non-the-less i respect your view.
I'll try to clarify my thoughts by commenting on your comments:
1) The change of booklet cover
As you say unforseen circumstances made the change.
2) The idea of getting it outside the Scene
It's simply not gonna happen... I've argued to myself that it's possible, but i'm just fooling myself to think otherwise. Circumstances changed, noticing this is a c64 product afterall i found if i made it not look like a c64 product then the result would be counter productive.
Fair enough, given that change of focus I think the cover is a reasonable choice. I still have to say I preferred the first one as I'm partial to simple/stylish covers (I liked the cover design of e.g Galway Remixed or Instant Remedy a lot), but with the C64 fans in mind as the main target group, the current cover is alright. As I said, I thought the goal was to get "outsiders" to buy it, which of course in this case isn't applicable anymore.
3) PPOT v Remix64
I'm not gonna coment, as the feel of ppot's is completely different to remix64. From what i have seen PPOT's booklet is humorous and at times so is the music where remix64 is very serious.
That's true, and I guess this could be a very intresting debate about what approach is more successful, but that's something different indeed.
4) Geeky look
Strange how you like the icons, but not the cover as they are basically more often than not snipits of the front cover. How you like one set and find the other set geeky is a bit strange.
Well, once again, I was of the belief that the former goal of reaching non-C64-fans was still applicable. I consider myself a big C64 geek, so I'm likely to like the icons bits, which I think work fine in that regard. Apart from that, I feel that little things inside of the booklet are much less inm-your-face as a whole cover, but again, that whole point is kind of moot due to the sort of changed target group.
5) Stories.
They are scene setting stories, the stories help set the scene of the each individual track. The idea is that if you read the booklet while listening to each track then it helps paint a picture of what the track is about. The music on v2 movie styled and the booklet places the story to the movie. Since when you wrote about this you havn't heard the CD so it won't make any sense at all.
By now I've listened to the CD as a whole, and while I appreciate the professional work done by the arrangers, I sadly still aren't too fond of the results - I'll be honest and say that part of this is likely due to the (for me) very obscure selection of tracks and the rather drastic re-interpratations some of the more well-known songs received.
Anyway, since the whole story idea is again mentioned in point 7, I'll put all my thoughts about that particular subject down there.
6) Info's.
AS you say the info is on the remix64 website, no point in repeating whats there in the booklet. The CD page is an addition to the booklet with all info's there which are relevent. We created that page cos we could make a more detailed analysis of everything. Putting this sort of information in the booklet would have made it much briefer. Our idea is that you can learn much more by reading a proper account of the CD from the website instead of tiny snippits.
I understand your idea, but I'll have to point out that I find it unlikely that every listener is sitting in front of a computer when the CD is playing..
7) It's not your cup of tea
Strange, sounds like you've made your mind up about the CD before listening to it. Even more strange is that the booklet tries to involve you more with the music. The stories are part of the experience, you should listen to the CD and read the stories simultanously. Somehow then this meaningless stuff then makes sense
.
I'll admit that my initial impressions of the CD were based on the MP3s from the website, but that's why I explicitely not talked about the musical content in my prior post.
As for the stories being part of the experience, I'm sorry to say, but this just doesn't work for me. I now have read the excerpts next to the music and most of the time I still wonder what it's all about. Especially on tracks I can associate with the games they're part of, even if the actual music deosn't sound very familiar anymore.
I'm a strong believer in the idea that music should be able to stand on its own without the need of explanations of what it should invoke in me - that's why I often feel soundtracks fall flat unless you explicitely remember the connected movie-scenes and why I thought the whole storyline thing from BIT3 was kind of pointless (something I believe I've even argued about a bit with Chris, who obviously has a whole different point of view).
Again, this post is not intended at all as an attack, but rather is to express my (most likely not shared by many others) opinion. And despite my personal lack of enthusiasm, I still wish you all the sales success in the world for the CD, in the hope that there might be another one coming up that I'll enjoy more (that's selfish, I know, but hopefully not unreasonably so).
