I Think “Luxe + Reduxe” Is A Cute Name For It, Honestly

Hey, it looks like I got what I was hoping for with the Pavement S+E reissue – it will be a double disc, presumably with the album on one disc, and the bonuses on another. That’s great. What’s better is that if you act now, and order it from Matador’s direct mail order you’ll still get it for single-disc price rather than double-disc pricing. I’m assuming the material that “has been available on bootlegs” probably means that Matador got the rights to the early Peel Sessions that were on the Stuff Up The Cracks cd, which would be great. I’d like to have nice, clean hi-fi versions of “Circa 1762”, “Kentucky Cocktail”, and “Ed Aims”, myself.

This news comes courtesy of Dr. Funk, and I’ve got to say I agree with him about the way this is being sold:

You know, I’ve never understood when labels have done these two disc sets of the hits+rareties. Presumably, the hardcore fans already have the commercially availble stuff, yet are forced to pay a higher price than they should for the rare stuff they want. Any newcomer who wants to see what all the fuss was aboot will skip it, because they’re not gonna want to pay a higher price for something they’re unfamiliar with. Thus, you’ve lost most of yr audience. I’m using the idea of a greatest hits package in this case, but I think most Pavement fans would rather fork over for a single disc of rare stuff, rather that re-pay for the first LP, the EP and two early singles, and anyone who’d like to hear S&E will just buy the mid-price version, wouldn’t they?

Right. I think Matador is just planning on milking the Pavement catalog for a long time, and starting off with re-packaging the albums with extras, and then later on they’ll get around to releasing separate compilations of b-sides/rarities. The Pavement catalog of non-album material is pretty big, and I know that there is a deep well of unreleased material out there as well. They can be putting out a new Pavement (re)release every year for a decade and a half before officially running out of material.