Limited edition digital bonus tracks are increasingly becoming a prevalent marketing gimmick in the metal industry and Black Label Society‘s new album “Engines Of Demolition” is the latest looking to benefit from it. A pair of bonus tracks, “Broken Pieces (Unblackened)” and “Back To Me (Unblackened)“, have been included with a digital deluxe edition of that record. That version can currently be pre-ordered, but will only be available to purchase until 12:00am Thursday, March 26th, with the album itself releasing right afterwards on March 27th.
Lamb Of God recently made a similar play with their “Into Oblivion” bonus track “Wire“. This marketing tactic has rubbed a few the wrong way however, given that bonus tracks had previously largely been reserved as incentives for physical products (or sometimes retailer-exclusive variants.) Markets like Japan have long-since benefitted from that value-added bonus, though in that case, the incentivization arose from additional costs associated with domestic production of physical product.
Black Label Society haven’t skimped in the physical product field either though, with an alternate pair of bonus tracks, “Name In Blood (Unblackened)” & “Lord Humungus (Unblackened)“, being included on a bonus 7” that comes with a limited edition vinyl pressing of “Engines Of Demolition“.
With digital being the most prevalent format in which music is consumed, the logic is sound. Where as it takes 1500 on-demand streams of songs from a particular album to count as 1 unit moved for charting purposes, it only takes ten permanent track downloads from an album to reach the same 1 unit certification. Thus, by adding a bit of FOMO ahead of release, labels and artists are able to rack up that ever-coveted higher first week chart position with minimal cost/risk.
However, fans who diligently pre-order physical copies of albums early on tend to feel burned by these limited time digital marketing ploys. With vinyl copies commanding a higher price point than a digital download, some fans expect to be given the complete package — even if the bonus material exclusive to other formats arrives only as gratis digital downloads with their physical copy.
Generally these bonus tracks do tend to emerge on digital service providers months or more after an album’s release, but not without initially creating some division amongst loyal fans.
