Well, I finally ordered 'Contagium' and 'Contagious' recently, so today I just burned the 'full' tracklist, all 95 minutes of it! I like what I hear so far, I just listened to the first disc (up to "Skin Game" - it seems like the right place to end it as that song has a definite 'finality' to it at the end, with that acoustic guitar and harmonized vocals). I definitely think the band DID make a good choice to 'condense' the material into an hour or so, but I also think it's very cool they saw fit to release the remaining tracks and provide us with the order in which they were intended! :)
Anyways, my point out of this would be, is it feasible to release Contagion (and maybe other Arena albums, too!) on vinyl? As far as I know this hasn't been done yet, but the music definitely has that classic sound to it that would go hand-in-hand with a scratchy old turntable ;) and since Contagion is my focus in this topic, why not make it a double vinyl with all the 'extra' tracks on it as well? The album would divide very nicely into four segments, I can already see where it would be done!
Obviously it would have to be a pretty limited edition thing (I can't envision more than 500 copies per album, max, being printed), but I bet a number of fans would love to get hold of limited edition albums of Arena's stuff! :) And the ALWAYS fantastic artwork could look really awesome on a full-size album cover - worthy of framing and hanging on walls IMO! :D
Totally agree, but see:
http://forum.the-ricochet.net/index.php?topic=48.0
:(
Ah... oh well, had to suggest it anyway! Who knows, maybe down the road it'd be feasible...!
Maybe we just have to keep nagging :D