It happened again: I bought an album, only to find out that there are some bonus tracks on iTunes. And while previously I didn’t use iTunes by choice (I got my reasons, but I won’t bore you with them), now that my PC runs on Linux I can’t use it, even if I wanted to.
Once upon a time, Daniël Lohues, the artist in question, wrote a chorus that goes a little something like this:
Als je ontevreden bent
Als je ontevreden bent
Als je ontevreden bent
Doe er dan iets aan of ga weg of zo
If you’re not satisfied with something, either do something about it, or go away or something. Since complaining on my website didn’t really help the last time, I shot his management an email, stating my objections to bonus tracks and asking if they were planning to release these tracks through any other service that people who can’t or won’t use iTunes can use, like 7Digital or so.
I send that mail friday evening, and I got a response on sunday evening. I didn’t quite expect that. I was told that, from a fan’s perspective, my complaints were valid. But also that from the producers’ point of view there are valid reasons to provide bonus content, but they wouldn’t bore me with the details. And I can see that. It’s not that I object to bonus tracks per se, it’s just that I’m one of those types who think that if a track is released, I should be able to obtain it some way, geographical and technical restrictions be damned. And as a service, they would mail me the bonus tracks. Which they did. Now that‘s customer service I can get behind.
Daniël Lohues’ new album Allennig IV is out now, and he is on tour until May 26. For tour dates, see Lohues.nl