I couldn't resist asking. Basically every band I listen to does Japanese bonus tracks, on almost every album; what's so special about the Japanese?

Well, they got wider eyes.

Because of exchanged rates and (I think) the long-term mess up that is their economy, it is much cheaper to buy an album from overseas and ship it to you in Japan than it is to walk to your local record shop and buy the same album there. For that reason, special Japanese editions are made to encourage them to buy from their own stores instead.

It's incentive for Japanese people to just buy locally as opposed to having albums imported. It's an economic thing.

I think it has something to do with release dates. Albums in Japan are released on later dates than Europe/USA so they kind of compensate that delay with bonus tracks.

Correct.

Alright, that answers that, then. Thanks guys.

But why does the BAND do it? To help out Japan's economy?g

Because they get paid for it, no?

That stinks, it makes perfect sense but I hate tracking down and finding those exclusive tracks.

More like the label gets paid for it.

Don't get me wrong, the band does indeed get something out of it, but it's the label who's most interested in moving the most copies of the albums.

And yeah, it can be a bitch to track down the exclusive tracks. Fortunately, many bands who do that usually release a compilation of them at some point, if they're around long enough.

I'm still plenty happy with that Japanese copy of Motorhead's Inferno that I found, though. Their cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is definitely superior to the original (which itself was a badass song).

They also benefit from consumers outside of Japan importing the album from Japan (to get those extra tracks) - though to be honest I have never done, I have never known anyone to do it, and I overall just have no idea how much of an impact this is; I'll just assume "some".....

As understandable as the logic is behind the practice, it is still quite unusual. And it makes me wish that bands would start releasing compilations of Japanese bonus tracks. But then would those have exclusive Japanese bonus tracks too?

This has bugged me for a long time now, and is the main reason why I will never go to Japan. Being a collector, I would spend way too much fucking money re-buying the albums I already have just to obtain that extra track.
But saying that, are these extra tracks any good? Are they just filler songs that weren't good enough for the album? Does anyone know of a Japanese bonus track that is as good as or better than the rest of the album? Just wondered, that's all.

This really annoys me. Cathedral have done it with (Correct me if I'm wrong) EVERY album they've done. It's even worse when labels like Daymare and Inoxia get whole extra discs crammed full of exclusive goodies.

all the sunn0))) reissues had full bonus discks are rare/new stuff and were worth it for those alone.

i find it easy to track them down, i wander to my local record store in shinjuku and buy them

I kinda feel bad for the Japanese. Most albums are too long for their style now anyway (45-50+ minutes), Japanese are maxing out the CD capacity. Overdoing it takes the fun out of music and makes a good thing get boring. Imagine if Reign in Blood was 70 minutes long.

The average consumer will look at it as "hey for 2500Y I can get 70 minutes of music." rather than 30 minutes of it. While I agree because thrash, punk, grindcore, etc are some favorite genres of mine that I listen to albums which I enjoy at the 30-35 minute mark, sometimes it's a downer to buy a 7'' EP for even $10-15 PPD when it's often only 8-15 minutes long to begin with.

As for the japanese bonus tracks, a lot of it is covers, filler, or songs that were released through obscure EPs and demos back in the day, perhaps live/rehearsal/demo materials too but I do not know. The Japanese version of Toxic Holocaust's last album included 666, which is a very common song on older recordings.

I think the japanese imports allow some fascination though with domestic collectors on top of the japanese market. With Japanese releases you have the obi-strip, bonus tracks, and for all I know the jacket/cd booklet (depending on format) might be slightly altered for the market. I don't own japanese releases myself, but I have considered trying to track down some japanese releases...such as Venom's first two albums, and some newer albums with japanese imports.

Yeah, 15 minutes is not really even worth putting it on the record player. I don't think I'd mind hearing 666 on the end of Overdose of Death, but I love Toxic Holocaust and it more or less fits the tone of the album anyway. What I don't like is when they throw on live stuff, remixes, stuff recorded with a totally different sound and it just ruins the structure of the album the band was trying to create. I don't think a lot of bands are prone to just throwing shit around and letting it fit where it lands. In order to rate the album you almost have to contextualize the bonus material as a different thing in your head.

¥2500 is like $32AU, damn that's steep. But after shipping costs and all that, wouldn't that be roughly the same price as buying from a store anyway?

If you're curious about how a certain bonus track sounds, there are actually a bunch of bonus tracks posted on Youtube. They're good songs most of the time though rarely amazing highlights.

This is an example of how not to post.

Yes, this is true, but it pisses me off. I realize it's an economic issue, but for completists like me it makes it VERY difficult to obtain all the releases because they become prohibitively expensive for guys like me to justify purchasing. Even first-run releases by awesome native Japanese bands like Onmyo-za are EXTREMELY expensive compared to a standard CD release price ($27 USD for a Japanese release, compared to $12-$15 for a std US release). I wish at least the record companies would give US & European consumers the chance to purchase the Japanese "version" at a slightly higher price, at some pre-determined time some months after the original Japanese release. That would be a nice compromise, even if we'd have to wait.

Of course, the argument could be made that the Japanese fans (except the die-hards) would just wait for the later US and/or European release & import that anyway

It's a rough guess. I'd have to check some Japanese distros again, but prices like that seem common from what I recall. I'm sure for them that is pretty much roughly the same price, it might even be more I'm not sure. But exactly the point as to why. I do recall that music is a lot more expensive for Japan, so Y2500 wouldn't seem farfetched to me if I saw it out there.

they have price fixing in japan for lots of stuff, so unless its on special offer it costs what it says on the obi. this is good and bad, on one hand you don't get shops charging what the fuck they like, either inflating prices cos they're the only place you can buy it from or undercutting independent shops sending them out of business (not so much anyway). but it also means no really cheap shops like the ones i used to get anything more mainstream from in london.

major label stuff will often have a limited edition that is more expensive too - i bought the latest puffy amiyumi cd (prepares to be kicked off the achives...) for 3500 because i wanted the live dvd that came with it. underground metal/hc bands will often give away free cdrs at gigs with a few tracks on, or maybe 500yen if there's more on it/they've gone to more effort with a cover/recording etc. and a lot of smaller hc labels will release proper albums for between 1500-2000

and there ends my boring post on j-pricing policy... im available for after dinner speeches at the cost of the cheapest bottle of whisky you can find

When albums are reissued, they almost always include Japanese bonus tracks as well as demos, live recordings, etc. so in a way this already happens.

Of course granted it's not a very regular occurrence though.

Megadeths album is coming to Japan a month before it comes to the U.S and a few days before it arrives in Europe. (and yes, it also has a Japanese bonus track)