Tag Archives: Digital download

Flowers In The Dirt – What Could/Should Have Been

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As you’re no doubt aware, the deluxe Archive Collection box set of Paul McCartney’s 2017 re-issue of Flowers In The Dirt created quite an angry response amongst many fans and collectors.

The issue was around his decision to include a whole CD’s worth of B-sides, remixes and single edits, and three cassette demos as downloadable content only. No physical CD would be included in the four-disc set.

Well, no doubt many who purchased the box set have taken that download code provided and created their own CD burns to put inside the box. Here’s a look at the three CD’s and one DVD you do get (click on images to see larger versions):

And here’s what could have/should have been – one disc for the thirteen B-sides, remixes and single edits plus the three cassette demo songs:

Plus on the official Paul McCartney website there are a further three exclusive downloads (‘Distractions (Demo)’, ‘This One (Demo)’, and ‘Back on My Feet (Demo)’) not included in the box set at all, so why not a separate disc for these songs too?:

Call us pedantic and old-fashioned for wanting tactile, hard copies of this bonus material. And call us fussy for creating our own matching labels, but discs V and VI will now be filed inside our Flowers In The Dirt box alongside the other content provided in physical form to create a complete set. They’ll be in their own paper sleeves:

McCartney’s ‘Flowers In The Dirt’ Deluxe: There Will Be NO Extra Disc

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When Paul McCartney announced that the deluxe edition of his forthcoming Archive Collection re-issue of Flowers In The Dirt would have a disc’s worth of bonus material as a digital download only, all hell broke loose amongst his fans.

Social media went troppo, and a number of petitions sprang up to try to have that decision re-considered by Paul and his management team. Leading the charge was Paul Sinclair who operates the very informative and interesting site, Super Deluxe Edition.

Paul Sinclair was eventually approached by Scott Roger, McCartney’s manager, who explained the reasoning behind the digital download idea, and confirmed that despite protests, there would be NO physical disc containing the bonus tracks. You can read the full report of their exchange at Paul’s site.

Along with many thousands of other collectors we’d like to register our disappointment in that decision.

Loyal and serious collectors like physical product, end of story. All officially released content associated with significant re-issues such as this one should be physically included in the box set. Completists and avid collectors are the reason that box sets like this exist in the first place. As Paul McCartney says in this clip promoting Flowers In The Dirt, “You can’t ask for anything more than that, man.”

Four discs in the box, and another CD’s worth of material on a hard drive somewhere else is wrong. It is an “Archive Collection” after all. Yes, many will download those bonus songs and burn them to a cheap recordable disc so that they can have the full collection in one place, but they shouldn’t have to do that. It just doesn’t cut it and cheapens McCartney’s product and his legacy.