Newsletter
Subscribe to our
FREE newsletter now!

Find out more...

16/12/2005

Scrapbook - heavily discounted: no thanks

Borders is discounting the Dylan Scrapbook by 50% - in the week before Xmas, no less, it’s retailing the book at £15, half the list price.

Now, when it comes to Dylan, I’m a fairly serious book buyer. My groaning Bob shelf had 75 carefully arranged tomes at the last census; they seem to multiply when I’m not looking.

But I won’t be buying Scrapbook, not even at half price. It’s almost the first Dylan book in 35 years that I just haven’t fancied; I can’t see why anyone else would want a copy, either.

Facsimiles of ticket stubs? Rejected shots from album photo shoots? Prints of handwritten lyrics, in pop-up format. Why, fercrisesakes?

Scrapbook encourages infantilism – a return to the nursery - in a fan base which doesn’t really need much encouragement. It seems to me like an application of the old marketing theory - you could pack sh*t in a box, put Bob’s name on the box, and it would sell.

For just £5 more than the list price of Scrapbook, you can buy the latest Bob Lyrics book. Playschool artefact or masterpiece of the age? No contest. Here’s hoping nobody buys me Scrapbook for Xmas.



Gerry Smith

[Archives]

[The Dylan Daily Update]

Search entries:

[Daily Update]

[Archives]

Previous entry:
[Chronicles: Part 3 - Yes, but is it art?]

Next entry:
[More on Live at Carnegie Hall, 1963]