Nuclear Blast is Releasing a Ton of “Best Of” Collections for Just $4.99 (Meshuggah, Soilwork, Scar Symmetry, etc.)

Today in the “I can’t believe no one has thought of this yet” category: Nuclear Blast Records is releasing a whole bunch of digital-only “Best Of” collections of some of their most popular artists. All Shall Perish, Amorphis, Meshuggah, Soilwork, Scar Symmetry, Eluveitie, Kataklysm and Epica are getting the special treatment.

Nuclear Blast’s strategy is brilliant: re-package some of their most popular catalogue and re-release it as a “Best Of” collection — a tried and true practice labels have been doing for decades, no doubt — but without any of the overhead of manufacturing physical product, having to pay to design new liner notes, adding bonus tracks, producing special features, shipping to stores, etc. NB didn’t even spend money on designing new album covers: they’ve just slapped “Best Of <insert band logo here>” in white text on a black background.

And the price-point is super-sexy: at $4.99 anyone who feels as if they’ve got some holes in their collection — or a n00b who’s just looking to get into a band — won’t be able to resist. The only knock could come if said n00b chooses one of these “Best Of” comps over a full album thereby cannibalizing a more expensive sale, but I feel as if a) a lot of folks will still spend the time researching which album by Band X is a good starting point and they’ll buy that, and b) additional sales of the “Best Of” comps will compensate for any potential losses.

This is a forward-thinking business move for a label that has at times in the past lagged behind emerging trends. If these releases do well I’m sure we’ll see more in the near future.

The “Best Of” collections are available on iTunes for $4.99 by typing in “<artist name> best of” into the search field. Ditto for Amazon, where, oddly, they’re all priced at $5.99.

[via The PRP]