Wherefore art thou, Frazier Chorus?
Posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 11:16pm. #
Frazier Chorus was a pop group from Brighton, England. A pop group without a drummer, bassist or guitarist, they unusually instead utilised flute, clarinet, bongos and hush-hush vocals. – Wikipedia
For some reason, this evening I remembered this band, who sang a song called “Dream Kitchen” in 1989, reaching, golly, number 57 in the hit parade. They released one album, called Sue, which, on reflection, I’d quite like to buy (since I’m one of those odd people who like buying albums, rather than singles).
The album came out on Virgin Records, who are owned by EMI. EMI have a contract with iTunes, but unfortunately, that clearly doesn’t extend to the long-tail of content in the back catalogue, so it’s nowhere to buy on iTunes (and thus, in my experience, nowhere to buy on any other download store, so I’ve not bothered, particularly as I have an iPod). Amazon.co.uk wants to relieve me of £43.96, and that’s for a used copy, so nothing would go to the band even if I was mad enough to buy it at that price.
The “illegal”/”legal” mp3sparks.com to the rescue: downloading the entire album for $1.88 (a DRM-free AAC file at 192k). Nothing’ll go to the band this way either, of course (mp3sparks.com claims different, naturally): but when the record company makes it impossible to buy stuff in their back catalogue, what else should I do?
(Any of Frazier Chorus who read this, do get in touch, and I’ll send you a cheque or something.)
Photo: Kasper Sorensen. Used under licence



