[MattS76]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

No! That is the oft-sited reason for not remastering Mirage. But that is a bunch of bullsh*t. And it drives me crazy that people justify it. No one expects a 30 year old album to sell an unreasonable amount of units. Your are right - the long shot is that Rhino (a great label) or some company like that obtains the rights. It's really sad that some outside entity would care more and take better care of their musical history than they themselves and their own record company would! It pisses me off. Fleetwood Mac is not chopped liver! Fans deserve and should expect better. They remain a hugely popular band, with a very long, outstanding legacy. There are bands of their ilk who have had every album in their catalog remastered, often with dozens of bonus tracks.

Just as a random example, The Byrds are one of those bands. Every single album they recorded (many many more than Fleetwood Mac) were re-released. Sales figures were not the main objective. The objective was to honor a seminal, historic band by making their catalog of music available in the best manner possible.

Then again, there are many lesser known bands and artists, with significantly smaller fan bases, whose albums are deemed worthy of re-release, even if their market base is severely limited.

But Fleetwood Mac is not that kind of band!!! They have a f*cking world-wide fan base. And even if a fraction of that fan base purchases a 30-year old re-release of a previously recorded album, there is going to be an acceptable profit margin. Certainly remastering, manufacturing, distribution and marketing factor in. But that's nothing compared to the costs inccurred in recording the original work.

There is absolutely no practical reason or justification for Mirage not being re-released. I think, for a band of their stature, Fleetwood Mac's catalog has been poorly mismanaged. The blame falls mainly on their management and their record company, but the band member are also somewhat culpable. They remain insultingly ambivalent.

The record companies only care about the pop kids. Any kind of music worth listening to gets the short end of the stick.