Label Threads The Official Varese Sarabande Thread

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

They reissue things sometimes. They've released their deluxe edition for Star Trek 2009 twice. They released a complete edition of The Matrix after a previous deluxe edition. They also did the same thing with The Omen for its 40th anniversary. On top of all that, they've technically already reissued the deluxe edition for Starship Troopers on LP.

[Andy 4,138]

Good examples. I want to believe that Starship Troopers is of the same caliber of marketability and sales. 

[Jay 37,369]

 

1 hour ago, Andy said:

I would LOVE Starship Troopers reissued, because I’m a dumbass and slept on it when it was out the first time. 
 

But isn’t a reissue of that highly unlikely? Does Varese own it in perpetuity?  Why would they want to put it out again?  Who is steering the ship at Varese nowadays?  Is there someone passionate about this stuff, or is it just sort of inherited from Robert Townson? 
 

I want to believe the edition @Jay is dreaming of will become reality, but Varese doesn’t seem to reissue things once they’re OOP. 

 

It's not likely, no.

 

And I'd assume they have perpetuity rights, they just reissued the Deluxe program on vinyl last year

[Andy 4,138]

What a waste. 

[Marcus Stöhr 34]

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY it is - will be released also digitally tomorrow:

 

39 Tracks / ~82 minutes

 

https://www.fmdb.net/releases/36cad9b8-ffb2-4571-9a8b-d7e305e97953

On 06/10/2022 at 5:16 PM, Jay said:

Death Becomes Her could be coming to digital on Black Friday when the vinyl edition drops.

 

Took only a couple of months but the digital comes friday courtesy of Back Lot Music in 24 Bit / 96kHz: https://www.fmdb.net/releases/01218f1b-2b50-46a1-b89c-58da29bebb10

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Is that the actual cover?  It's certainly minimalist.

[Holko 9,529]

Even if I really don't like the lack of title on these, at least it's not crap! This is one way to get rid of fuckups, don't add any text or make any changes to good art, then it can't be ugly text and ugly changes. Like not joining cues and therefore eliminating the possibility of wrong or phasing joins.

[mstrox 6,651]

It’s a poster from Mike Mignola (Hellboy’s creator and artist) himself.

 

[Tallguy 3,398]

Kinda makes me want to watch Atlantis.

[Edmilson 7,466]

3 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

Kinda makes me want to watch Atlantis.

If I'm not mistaken, Mignola did help create the art of Atlantis.

[Tallguy 3,398]

1 minute ago, Edmilson said:

If I'm not mistaken, Mignola did help create the art of Atlantis.

 

Production designer. Absolutely.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

14 hours ago, Andy said:

Good examples. I want to believe that Starship Troopers is of the same caliber of marketability and sales. 

 

[Holko 9,529]

5 hours ago, Holko said:

at least it's not crap!

nevermind, they added crappy black bars to the sides

[Faleel 5,355]

...sigh...

 

"Match color" exists is photoshop people!

[Andy 4,138]

It makes a big difference when it’s printed. Especially if one black has a bit more gloss than the other. 

[Richard Penna 3,694]

If you look at the cover more close up in an editor the original poster image is more of a dark purply/black gradient. It's not as simple as just making the black bars match its colour - it isn't just one colour.

[Faleel 5,355]

22 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If you look at the cover more close up in an editor the original poster image is more of a dark purply/black gradient. It's not as simple as just making the black bars match its colour - it isn't just one colour.

Feather! Content-aware fill!

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

12 hours ago, Andy said:

It makes a big difference when it’s printed. Especially if one black has a bit more gloss than the other. 

Christ…intrada 

[crocodile 8,017]

I was just checking the Varese website and it suggests I should go to the international store. And, surely enough, the European site seems to be alive, although it looks slightly more simplified and contains only the products from some time ago. Odd.

 

https://intl.varesesarabande.com/

 

Also, at the bottom of the page it says this. Have I missed something?

 

 

Karol

[Holko 9,529]

Yep same for me. Getting to the bottom of the page is a challenge though when it keeps autoloading the items!

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

14 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I was just checking the Varese website and it suggests I should go to the international store. And, surely enough, the European site seems to be alive, although it looks slightly more simplified and contains only the products from some time ago. Odd.

 

https://intl.varesesarabande.com/

 

Also, at the bottom of the page it says this. Have I missed something?

 

 

Karol

 

As of February 2018, Varèse operates as a division of Concord Music Group's Craft Recordings label.[1]

[crocodile 8,017]

2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

As of February 2018, Varèse operates as a division of Concord Music Group's Craft Recordings label.[1]

Ah, that makes sense. I did not realise Craft Recordings are a part of Concord.

 

Karol

[Richard Penna 3,694]

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.

[Holko 9,529]

1 minute ago, Richard Penna said:

and UK, the latter being about 75 minutes from where I am right now.

Cool, can we the unworthy EU filth buy through you?

[Richard Penna 3,694]

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.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

Just a general aside, Presto seem to have a huge selection of Varese albums to download digitally at pretty decent prices too.. https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/labels/1473/browse?format=2

 

This includes Hellboy 2 https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9607338--hellboy-ii-the-golden-army

[ddddeeee 257]

2 hours ago, crocodile said:

I was just checking the Varese website and it suggests I should go to the international store. And, surely enough, the European site seems to be alive, although it looks slightly more simplified and contains only the products from some time ago. Odd.

 

https://intl.varesesarabande.com/

 

Also, at the bottom of the page it says this. Have I missed something?

 

 

Karol

Thanks so much for this. I just bought Hellboy II and Dragon 3, but there are also a few CDs here that are sold out on the US site. You saved me a lot on shipping!

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

For non-US customers, you might be wise to look at your options before ordering from the Varese international store. The new titles are an astonishing £27 rather than $25 (£20) from the US store. Charging over a third more from their international store seems pretty shoddy. I shall be ordering from elsewhere. 

 

(And as a very specific addition of insult to injury, for Guernsey, their international store doesn’t recognise Guernsey as a U.K. postcode, which most online stores do, and it tried to charge me £13.99 recorded delivery instead of a fiver for standard U.K. delivery. I’d have been a bit less pissed off if they had taken the VAT off as it’s not technically chargeable on Guernsey shipments but they didn’t even do that. A strongly worded email has been sent). 

Update. The automatic “we got your email” response directs you to their FAQ page…

 

 

[JTN 2,030]

I bought HTTY:THW through MBR, €34.95+€17 shipping=€51.95. Expensive, but DHL brings it to my doorstep in perfect condition, without having to deal with customs. 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

On 22/02/2024 at 6:53 PM, Holko said:

nevermind, they added crappy black bars to the sides

I dipped into this at Spotify and in the meantime I think, the composition of about at least half of or 70% of Elfman's scores he could leave to AI. He has a big repertoire of quite generic typical Elfman soundtracks and this is one of them.

I am not saying it's bad. It is even quite good, if there weren't these 30-40 other scores of his, that almost sound the same.

 

With Elfman and me it is an up and down. I am currently in a down.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

I've got the OST of this score. It was good enough to warrant a purchase. Barely. 

[Andy 4,138]

23 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

I dipped into this at Spotify and in the meantime I think, the composition of about at least half of or 70% of Elfman's scores he could leave to AI. He has a big repertoire of quite generic typical Elfman soundtracks and this is one of them.

I am not saying it's bad. It is even quite good, if there weren't these 30-40 other scores of his, that almost sound the same.

 

With Elfman and me it is an up and down. I am currently in a down.

Yup. Elfman on autopilot isn’t for me.  When he’s good, he’s brilliant. But I don’t recall that being the case here. 

 

13 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I've got the OST of this score. It was good enough to warrant a purchase. Barely. 

Thanks for the feedback.  I’m sure it’s a good score, but I’m not an Elfman completist, and I don’t need to spend money to add average music to my shelf. 
 

I remember absolutely loving the film though, more than the first one. So maybe I do owe it a listen at least. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

It's partly autopilot-ey, but quite polished. 

 

I paid next to nothing for it in a sale. Then it was worth it.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

5 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

For non-US customers, you might be wise to look at your options before ordering from the Varese international store. The new titles are an astonishing £27 rather than $25 (£20) from the US store. Charging over a third more from their international store seems pretty shoddy. I shall be ordering from elsewhere. 

 

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.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

On 23/02/2024 at 8:30 AM, Jurassic Shark said:

 

As of February 2018, Varèse operates as a division of Concord Music Group's Craft Recordings label.[1]

I just received this email from Craft.

Note the expiration date of the discount coupon😒

 

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Have you tried using it anyway?

[bruce marshall 1,315]

12 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Have you tried using it anyway?

Don't.

Trust.

Them.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

On 24/02/2024 at 6:30 PM, Richard Penna said:

 

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.

Yeah, their "newly launched" international score doesn't really seem to be working probably exactly. I decided to get Hellboy 2 from Presto as a download as it was less than a tenner and I can't say it's a top tier Elfman score for me so I don't think I'll feel like I'm missing out not having the CD. HTTYD3 will definitely be purchased but much more likely from Intrada or Music Box (if I can find enough things they have in store to order from the latter due to their "post-Brexit somehow how you need to order a couple of hundred euros of CDs due to VAT rules which don't apply to me because I'm in Guernsey but whatever" rule.

 

On 24/02/2024 at 6:30 PM, Richard Penna said:

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.

A third more? £7 per set for bulk freight? Seems unlikely to be that much. Given that they presumably ship in bulk and the amount online stores charge in postage is often significantly above retail postage (presumably to accounting for the "packaging" element of P&P) I can't believe it's anywhere close to that. I haven't actually checked but I bet the overall price works out the same if you order from the US store. Their older delivery people were crap* I certainly don't remember the store price or postage being so much.

 

*Having said that, I did well with several of the packages they failed to get correct as they didn't want me to send the wrong discs or duplicates back so I was able to sell them on eBay (for less than retail - I'm not a total bastard).

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

On 24/02/2024 at 5:41 PM, Andy said:

Thanks for the feedback.  I’m sure it’s a good score, but I’m not an Elfman completist, and I don’t need to spend money to add average music to my shelf. 

 

That's wise. What's your verdict on Dolores Claiborne?

[JTN 2,030]

I myself like it a lot.

[Andy 4,138]

2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

That's wise. What's your verdict on Dolores Claiborne?

Haven’t heard it.  I enjoyed Sommersby and thought Black Beauty was decent.  Two examples of non-genre Elfman from roughly the same era. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

53 minutes ago, Andy said:

Haven’t heard it.  I enjoyed Sommersby and thought Black Beauty was decent.  Two examples of non-genre Elfman from roughly the same era. 

 

I haven't heard much from Dolores either. What about Justice League?

[Andy 4,138]

It didn't leave an impression.  Could've been the theater presentation mix.  There wasn't anything in it that made me want to give it a listen on its own.  And it wasn't like I hated the film, it's just that the music felt very much in keeping with what other contemporary composers are doing.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Well, it's official now:

They really should stop calling it an "EU store" though as long as everything ships from the UK and everyone in the EU has to pay customs fees. The original launch was pre-Brexit, but for the relaunch that should definitely have been corrected or at least clarified.

 

And yes, the website UX is shit when you have to trigger the auto fetch of the entire list of front page articles before you can click on the FAQ link.

[Edmilson 7,466]

I thought Elfman's JL score was very underrated. Sure, it may be him on his autopilot action score (kinda like Age of Ultron), but I still think it was pretty decent. Nice themes, fun action and even some emotional moments.

[JTN 2,030]

9 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I haven't heard much from Dolores either. What about Justice League?

The Flash Theme is great.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Quote

tons of back catalog releases previously thought to be sold out

 

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.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

 

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.

So they charge less shipping from their US store to the UK than other US film music retailers which means it's cheaper than ordering from their UK store when you live in the UK? Well that's not madness at all... Might just do Intrada anyway as I expect the postage cost would become less ostentatious if I order a few things.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Yep, in the end the only actual advantage of the UK store for anyone is the quicker ship time if you're ordering something that's in stock.

 

At least one of my recent DEs says 'discs made in the EU' so unless their packaging is behind the times politically, they're pressing them somewhere in mainland Europe and shipping them over to the UK. If that's going to cause up to a month's delay and extra costs for every release, there's very little point of the int'l store for anyone who buys everything at release time (i.e. us).

 

Varese could alleviate these problems to an extent by doing simultaneous digital releases for everything where they legally can.

[Holko 9,529]

1 minute ago, Richard Penna said:

At least one of my recent DEs says 'discs made in the EU' so unless their packaging is behind the times politically, they're pressing them somewhere in mainland Europe and shipping them over to the UK.

Cool, even more of a fuck you to us!