Richard Penna

Who had previously thought they were sold out - fans (I hope) or Varese themselves? Did they lose track or somehow forget about an entire stock of CDs over here? I feel for those who may have overpaid on Ebay, but at least those who missed out on either of the first two Dragons now have their chance. Credit to Sandbag - I just received (i.e., start of the working day here) confirmation that my int'l store order for HTTYD:HW is cancelled and the refund is on the way, so at least the people behind that operation are completent. Now just need to see when we all start getting shipping notifications from Varese. I quickly compared the final value of each order - my US order was a total of £28 (btw, how are they shipping a 2-CD set for £8 when Intrada/LLL charge a bit over double for the same service?) and my int'l order came to £32. Hence the all-in cost from the US is the same as just the product cost from the UK who want an extra £5 for P&P. The only way that would start to make any financial sense is if the UK product cost included first class postage. And for those in the EU (or, it sounds like, not on the mainland)... I empathise.

I fully understand and agree with that logic and I've moved a few tracks around on personal playlists in order to have a score start and end in a nice way. But by now surely Elfman understands that these albums are meant to be complete, with listenability as a secondary aim. If a track doesn't work in C&C order he should just put it somewhere else!

I'd instantly buy instrumental albums for my top 3 artists but it doesn't seem like releasing them is something most artists actively want to happen. In fact my current number one 'wanted' item at the moment is a CD single from the 90s which is the sole source of a couple of instrumentals I really want. It's a very strange antagonism that artists and publishers have towards letting us hear underscore in its raw form. I was extremely happy when Spectre didn't include Sam Smith's song, and instead included an instrumental reworking of some sort. Can't stand his stuff.

What's worse is that, as the screengrabs you posted suggest, their int'l arrangement isn't quite all glued together. There is https://intl.varesesarabande.com/ which is the branded front door, but it's run by https://intlstore.concord.com/ and the fulfilment is done by some company called Sandbag whose support page is just some generic ticketing system. It's also very unclear how you go about creating an account from the Varese front door - I think you have to go to Concord's site to do that. The old int'l store worked fine from a technical perspective. This is just bad design across the board. I've raised a ticket to cancel my current order and I've reordered from the US site. I was originally going to just wait for it but the whole sellotaping together of this process has irritated me. The price difference could maybe be explained by the cost of shipping over a load of units to the UK? (perhaps from mainland Europe) They're charging nearly £5 for only 2nd class delivery though, which itself is extravagant. No risk of customs of course but I can barely remember the last time they took any interest in a CD.

If there's evidence that the US store is definitely shipping them out now, I might summon the energy to try to cancel my UK order. It's hardly a grail release though so I might just live without the CD for a bit.

Shipping today.... from the US store? The UK one still shows March and because the int'l site sucks, I seem to have ordered without making an account with which to cancel it.

Directors should be as flippant and indecisive as possible to allow more alternates on expanded releases. This one's just selfish

https://www.instagram.com/johnj_powell/p/CrEKfUophH0/ Unless someone's really messed up, they're demos. Given the second score only had one alternate, it doesn't seem unfathomable that this one just doesn't have any.

I don't think this score has any alternate material (I absolutely bet the bonus tracks are demos) so any complaints won't have had any effect on this anyway.

Ordered - let's see what the new int'l store can do. The set is finally complete!

I found the BF-like urgency to buy somewhat petered out when I saw the ship date. I'll do it at some point.

I just think it's a bit repetitive, that's all.

The only problem with that is that you'd include the entire opening sequence again, to present a minute of alternate material. I personally think in this case that given there are only two alternate tracks on the set, it plays nicely how it is. But I agree it's not how most producers would do it.

I noticed that 'new stories' thing too. But that whole article is full of PR bullshit that doesn't tell you anything other than they're actively doing it so I wouldn't interpret it too literally.

I'm sure Powell's instagrams said there were demos, right? That's what I assume those are. They just haven't given Varese the proper info for any of it. I don't think the DreamWorks logo alternate bits were a mess though. I may be alone here but I liked the film version opening the album instead of that alternate one with the more sudden opening.

That's my thinking. If the previous operator suddenly went bust and no one in the UK was able to do something with the stock, maybe it just sits there until now.

The promo's 75 mins + the suite (6:40) plus the song (3:15) makes 85 mins. The previous two had roughly 20~ mins of demos so if that's still about the same, and they got the 2 hour total time right, that suggests around 15 mins on top of the promo and 18 mins on top of the OST. I recall someone mentioning an action sequence missing, could that be Dart Trap? I still haven't seen the film.

We got the first announcement well over a year ago. Unless they only told Varese about this 5 seconds ago, what an epic planning fail. And this, friends, is why the physical exclusive period for a modern score pisses me off so much. If they fuck up the pressing bit, no one hears it at all... no one outside of our crew (i.e. those that weren't necessarily going to buy the CD) can stream it and decide they like it and want to pre-order it.

We don't normally agree on these things, but this time... ... a physical-exclusive window when it's not even available for the first half... idiots! What a plan that was. Just put the damn thing up digitally for now. And no track times or indications of what the bonus tracks are. How long have Varese or the 5 Cats had to not screw this up completely? Sigh. Also, when you get that cover art blown up in your browser (i.e., default when clicked on), that pixelating is staring in the face. That's a bit rubbish really

Well this is going well already:

It's a shame warehouses don't generally do customer collections, like I've heard people popping to Intrada's old office years ago. I would literally just drive over there and pick it up.

One hour! Now have the decision of whether to order from this new international arrangement. I guess we'll see whether it appears later on.

Customer service leads to sandbaguk.com, or https://www.sandbagheadquarters.com/ Based in both US (L.A.) and UK, the latter being about 75 minutes from where I am right now.

If they go all the way it's going to be a huge project and the possibility opens of them looking for a composer who can commit to multiple seasons over many years.

If they stick with their normal schedule I believe it's approximately 6pm UK time.