Both Rhino Handmade and Hip-O Select have been around a while now...certainly long enough that it's fair to draw some conclusions about their contributions to the marketplace. So...I ask the question...what do you think?

Personally, I've ended up being disappointed in both overall. Both started out with a lot of promise and a flurry of releases, but at least from my perspective, both have missed the boat.

In the case of Rhino Handmade, I have no doubt that there is a market for most of the stuff that they releases, albeit it a limited one in many cases. While there are certainly those who sing the praises of the Lorraine Ellisons and Rufus Harleys of the world, I've got to believe that there is a ton of stuff languishing in the vaults that would have a much larger audience. You can argue that it's artists like this for which Rhino Handmade exist and I certainly can't dispute that, but if Rhino Handmade ultimately fails for lack of profit, what will have been gained? How about a mix that includes artists like that, but also mixes in a bit more marketable artists?

In the case if Hip-O Select, they began with a flourish, but things have slowed down dramatically. They just added their first new titles since prior to Christmas in the past week or so. Furthermore, they've evolved to the point where there's little emphasis placed on anything beyond Motown. Now I love Motown and I've purchased all 6 volumes of their massive Motown sets to this point, but when I think of all of the other Universal stuff on labels like A&M, Mercury, Polydor/Polygram and such that are languishing in the vaults, I get depressed.

My personal preference from both of this boutique outlets would be a mix of the stuff that they've been doing along with some stuff that's a little more marketable, yet perhaps not worthy of a national reissue campaign.

What does everyone else think? What's your take on both of these labels? How much of the stuff that they release do you actually care about?

I have long championed Lorraine Ellison and have even bought doubles of the three-CD set, but if Walther is right and their eclecticism backfires, then I too would call for a more pragmatic mix. But since there are so many other reissue labels handling rock, I think it's important that they still do some pop and soul. Hip-O select is the more interesting of the two, but as Walther points out, their releases have slowed down to a trickle. That's all right for now, because I'm way behind in my shopping there, but if it's the beginning of the end for Hip-O, I'm worried.

Hey Walter,

I agree with you on certain points. There are so many cool things in the Warner/Atlantic/Elektra vaults that you have to wonder about who is selecting what to release, especially when you see what is being farmed out to reissue labels like Collector's Choice, Collectables, Water and Wounded Bird. At the same time, I love the Rufus Harley CD and although I didn't really care for the Lorraine Ellison, the CD did sell out! I'm excited to get the new Buck Owens title, but I'm not sure about the need for a Judy Henske collection. I would love to see releases from the old jump blues artists from Atlantic like Big Joe Turner, Laverne Baker and Ruth Brown instead of bad Collectables reiusses.

I've been more disappointed by the Hip-O selections. I agree with you about it being Motown heavy, and I must admit I have bought quite a few including all of the Singles Boxes. I would love to see more obscure stuff popping up like the new "unreleased" Funkadelic record and the Nils Lofgren "Live" CD. I hope that Hip-O starts to dive more into the Chess/Checker/Argo catalog and I'd love to see more 60's stuff like the Animals being reissued.

Honestly, I'm just very glad to have some of this stuff in my collection -- Richie Havens (Hip-O; see my icon), Tim Buckley (Rhino Handmade), Essra Mohawk (Rhino), etc. You can debate their choices all you want, but we don't know how hard it is to license this material and locate usable tapes. I'm guessing they both have stuff on their wish lists that they badly want to release, but can't. I think they both do an excellent job for the most part.

In the case of Rhino Handmade, I'm not sure if their business model is working or not. The last title of theirs that I got excited about was Melanie's "Photograph", but it is unclear if any more of her music was even intended to be forthcoming from them a la the Doors and the Monkees (and Melanie has a slew of vintage music unavailable on CD). If a title does not sell out, does that make it less likely that similar titles will ever appear?

On the other hand, does it really serve anybody to guarantee that all of their titles will go out of print once the edition is gone? I've noticed how that now on the Rhino Handmade, their FAQ page states that titles they list as "no longer available" may be found at certain unnamed retail outlets. (WHICH OUTLETS???) Other than that, there's always the grey market...some guy is asking $400 for the Monkees Headquarters Sessions set on Ebay (???). The disclaimer is disingenuous as well in that some of the music on their out-of-print titles have since been reissued by other labels.

I almost hate to say this--I know Walter finds the audio quality of downloads "unacceptable"--but here is another good example of music that might do well to be made available via the download route. If it's just not a moneymaking prospect to ship this music off to a CD plant or put it on the shelves at Target, my attitude is fine, upload the music and the artwork to the internet and I'll burn my own copy. I'm finding myself burning more of my own CD's these days rather than buying them, for no better reason than I'm finding more of the music I want to listen to through downloads. Let's see, if I had a choice to pay for and burn my own Melanie CD's through downloads, or never listen to any of her old records at ALL for no better reason than my turntable died back in 1997...hmm...

Finally, mail-ordering music is not my favorite thing to do. While there is a far vaster range of music available from internet retailers, nothing sucks more than A: having paid for music and not being able to hear it right away (in fact, I ordered the John Sebastian "Faithful Virtue" set from Rhino Handmade and it arrived missing disc 2--groan) and B: said music finally arriving at a bad time and not being able to listen to it for several days. Downloads are appealing to my musical tastes more and more each day. I know I didn't feel that way a year ago, but hey, things change.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, I too will probably have to move with the times eventually.

While it seems there's no doubt both Rhino Handmade & Hip-O Select have slowed down their reissue pace, I'm still enormously grateful to both divisions. As far as non-Motown product goes, Hip-O's Burt Bacharach & Rupert Holmes collections are as lavish as one could have hoped them to be, for instance, while Rhino's gorgeous Jimmy Webb set is amazingly exhaustive, and their recent Judy Henske both well-designed and chock full of rarities. Their Dionne Warwick reissue campaign (sadly discontinued) was about as top-notch as such a campaign could be, and I find this to be true about most Handmade/Select product. In fact, I can't think of one title I've purchased from either company (ranging from the low-price Select Direct straight reissues to Rhino's Turner Classic Movies musical soundtracks to the deluxe pop/rock boxes) with which I've been disappointed. These lavish packages of all shapes and sizes, copiously annotated, cannot be duplicated online; while I'm grateful for Rhino Handmade to be making some of their OOP reissues available online, I'd still rather wait to find a copy of the physical package with liner notes & all than pay for downloads. I hope the market continues to support these limited edition releases; when the print run is sensibly chosen, it seems there's definitely a viable audience out there (or here)!

For the record, you're right, I'm not a big fan of downloading, but some of it could be worked around and some of it is not so easily remedied.

Like many of us here, I like the tangible, having something in my hand as well as in my ears. Right now, this option isn't really there for any of us who download. How many download outlets offer a true, full package, with liner notes, lyrics and the other things you'd get with a purchased CD? Sure, some give you a modest amount of images, but nothing that rivals an officially released CD. If downloads were available that offered more of this kind of stuff, it could certainly get a little more interesting.

As for sound quality, the biggest of the big, iTunes still offers downloads at 128 kbps. I'm not the world's biggest audiophile, given the way I typically listen to my music, but even I can tell the difference. If the accepted standard of major downloading changed to a higher bit rate or if a relatively lossless option became available, that would certainly make the downloading concept a little more interesting.

All of this also fails to address what I see as one of the biggest problems of downloading...the whole short-term idea of things. I still believe that downloads are looked at by the industry as more of a temporary thing than a permanent thing. They want people to continue to re-purchase songs over and over. If you download something, you've got one of two main options, load it onto a hard drive and maintain it there with the appropriate backup system in place or burn it to CD. With the former, it becomes a hassle to constantly maintain your databases, assure that they are backed up and try to keep them organized. With the latter, it's my understanding that home-burned CDs have a substantially shorter shelf life than factory-manufactured CDs, due largely to the difference in process. So you can burn your downloads to CD, thinking that you have the music, only to find out at some point in the future that your CD has become corrupted or otherwise inoperable.

If I buy a CD today, I have a reasonable expectation that I've not only got something for the long haul, but also that I've got some tangible goodies along with it, like graphics, liner notes, lyrics and such. If I download something and want to own it (rather than borrow it temporarily), I'm setting myself up for owning the process of backups and maintenance.

That being said, I'm not completely closed to the idea of downloads. I do miss the ability to get something that I want quickly. I found that there was only one place in my area that got the more deluxe version of the recent ELO "Out Of The Blue" reissue. Circuit City didn't have either version and Best Buy didn't have the book version. Only Newbury Comics had it and they had only one copy. I find this more and more...particularly with reissues. Good luck trying to find them at retailers. With downloads, the idea that I can have something that I want immediately is appealing. If it was a matter of finances for the record companies and if they were truly willing to dig deep and offer things from the vaults that would not be financially viable for a standard release, I could accept that. The thing is, I've seen little or no evidence of them doing something like this to this point.

My idea of a perfect or near-perfect downloading solution would be one industry standard database where the largest variety ever of music could be downloaded at as lossless of a level as possible. Get me out of the world of iTunes and others and their "exclusives" and give me a one-stop shop. Now competition is fine with me. Just make sure that all of the music is in one large repository and then let the access points compete for my business with discounts and such. Make sure that I can get a solid amount of info along with my downloads, including everything that you'd find in today's CD booklets and more. This could all be done, but I'm not holding my breath.

I really like the Sir Douglas Quintet box that I bought from Hip-O about a year ago. The last two Rhino Handmades that I got were the two Cactus collections. Other than All This and WWII from Hip-O, there hasn't been much of interest to me lately, but these things run in cycles. Both labels fill in the cracks with recordings that are artistically or historically significant but do not justify a wide distribution release. Because of sound quality, I strongly hope that they don't start offering downloads only.

Amen-- this will happen eventually, and until then, the industry will hemorrage money in illegal downloads and consumer anger and disinterest.

Someday...

That's fair enough--I'm sorry I typed that Walter, it was first thing this morning and I feel bad for having hit the submit button on that particular comment. It's been bugging me all day. Posting pointlessly bitchy comments on message boards has fast become one of my worst habits. Again, I'm sorry for having posted that.

No need for apologies. You're entitled to your opinion and I have absolutely no problem with someone taking opposing views on anything that I say. I didn't see your comments as being "pointlessly bitchy", so don't sweat it. It was a good chance to discuss different aspects of the whole topic, so to the point that you made me and others think, that's a good thing.

I would love to get more stuff that both labels release but at this point in time they're simply not in my budget. I do have Rhino Handmade's Ides of March set. It's good, though I can't say I was blown away by the packaging. You're still basically getting a couple of CDs, a jewel box and a booket. Uh oh, maybe I'm being "pointlessly bitchy" too... I think it's called Monday.

I forgot to mention earlier that it looks like Collectors Choice Music has picked up some of Rhino Handmade's slack. CCM has been reissuing a lot of Elektra/Asylum titles, including some (JoJo Gunne, for example) previously released by Rhino HM.

I didn't realize Hip-O was releasing Funkadelic's By Way Of The Drum.
Hopefully the album is better than the 12" I picked up back when the album was originally supposed to come out.

The only one I know of personally is Sonny Bono's Inner Views, which was subsequently re-issued by Collector's Choice.

However, the Rhino Handmade version has 16 tracks, including 11 bonus. The Collector's Choice edition is just a straight re-issue of the original five-track 1967 album.

So in this particular case, those who paid the premium price for the Rhino Handmade title did not lose out.

At this point in time, I'm still squarely in the old school "I want something tangible and physical in my hands" camp, but the seismic shift towards a downloads music world is obvious.

The major misgiving I have (regarding a downloads-only future) is that suppliers will ultimately decide that it's not "cost effective" to maintain extensive inventories of artists' albums - and will then limit selections of many or most artists to just a handful of individual songs.

I hope that I'm just being paranoid, and that this scenario does not play out.

I have bought a lot of the Rhino Handmade releases (Guadalcanal Diary, Tony Joe White, Rascals, Beau Brummels, Television etc.) and have been very happy with the quality of each and every one.

Hip-O Select - I only have purchased the Jam - Snap (nice package) and the Hiatt Live at the Hiatt (brutal packaging).
I would love to hear their Motown sets but my wallet says Whoa boy!!

I don't really have anything to add to what you said in your original post, Walter -- I'd say you hit the nail squarely on the head.

Despite its faults, though, I will always worship the Hip-O for giving us those Motown sets. And now they're giving us the complete singles output of James Brown...AAAAOOOOOWWWWWWW!!

There was also the Jimmy Webb box which was later reissued as individual albums.