Where Have All The Bob Seger Albums Gone?
March 30, 2017 10:47 AM   Subscribe

"But I discover something odd: Bob Seger's old albums are not only missing from my shelves. They seem to be missing from the world."

"Seger is one of the few remaining digital holdouts ... But this is not merely a case of artist/management being cautious about digital distribution, because most of his studio albums are no longer in print physically, either. Out of 17 total, his own website shows only six available for purchase."

"Seger's absence from digital services, combined with the gradual disappearance of even physical copies of half his catalog, suggest a rare level of indifference to his legacy."

"Though he's worked hard to maintain a consistent level of quality in both his songwriting and recording since breaking through in '76, he's demonstrated little interest in having a public profile beyond the work itself ... And through 2007, the public profile of the work itself didn't suffer overmuch. Ten years ago, it was still a safe bet that a new Bob Seger record would go platinum. Now, one can barely get halfway to gold. He's not unique in that regard, but he is unique in this one: He's not making it possible for anyone who hasn't already purchased that new record to ever hear it."
posted by DevilsAdvocate (66 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
They're all in the Svalbard Global Seger Vault.
posted by fairmettle at 10:53 AM on March 30, 2017 [26 favorites]


Used copies of his first seven albums start around $30, and go as high as $200, if you can even find one.

Nah, I thought, it can't be that hard. Dude sold hundreds of thousands of copies, let's check Discogs for Bob Seger. Hey look, Brand New Morning! 6 For Sale from $19.35. Oh, a few are bootleg copies from Lost Diamonds. Someone even noted on Wikipedia that three albums, Noah, Brand New Morning and Back in '72, were available only on vinyl/tape formats and have never been officially reissued on CD, though all three were unofficially reissued in 2008 in Argentina on the Lost Diamonds label.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:11 AM on March 30, 2017


Oh good. Before I clicked through, I was worried this was a Shazam- or Berenstein/stain Bears type mass delusion. "Bob who?"
posted by supercres at 11:12 AM on March 30, 2017 [31 favorites]


I get that with the popularity of streaming a lot of people will not hear much Bob Seger these days and that people who only stream won't hear him at all. But this is silly,

Used copies of his first seven albums start around $30, and go as high as $200, if you can even find one.

If somebody wanted to listen to a Bob Seger song or album it looks like there are a bunch on YouTube and it took less than a minute searching online to find his entire discography available for download.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:15 AM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]


tl;dr--serious Bob Seger fan and digital music insider can't believe that not every single song that Seger released is available, because pretty much all of Springsteen's back catalog is. And it grieves him, even though it doesn't seem to grieve Seger: "There's a bunch of songs on Back In '72 that are bums. People keep saying: 'I want to hear that album.' And I go: 'No, that's okay.'" Personally, when I got the itch to get some of the Seger songs that I'd grown up listening to, Ultimate Hits (on iTunes) and Stranger In Town (available through Amazon) did me just fine.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:16 AM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]




Obligatory Simpsons meme.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:20 AM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


Obligatory Bob Seger clip

I love that it's a cruddy, not-quite-right cover so they wouldn't have to license the master.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:22 AM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mention of his cover of a song from Mermaid Avenue has sent me down a Woody Guthrie lyrics with new music hole that has me listening to New Multitudes for the first time (and on a streaming service), so it's not all for naught.
posted by larrybob at 11:25 AM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


Fascinating article. I was never a big fan, but find him interesting. One of those people that had a huge career, yet you rarely ever heard anything about them personally, even back in the day. Fame, and how people deal with it in public, is interesting.

My wife often buys used CD's online for cheap. She said "that explains why when I've tried to buy Bob Seger stuff it always gets bid up and I couldn't figure out why".
posted by bongo_x at 11:31 AM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


On Amazon I can buy "Beautiful Loser" for $1.19 and "Smokin' O.P.'s" for $5. What am I missing? Is he talking about vinyl?
posted by Clustercuss at 11:35 AM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]




Clustercuss--Tim Quirk is talking about digital download formats, I think. Certainly vinyl and CDs are pretty easy to find, but ohdearthinkofthechildren who don't know how to play records.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:37 AM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


I just want that old time rock and roll...
posted by maryr at 11:38 AM on March 30, 2017


Thanks Ideefixe, though that doesn't seem to square with this quote from the article: "Used copies of his first seven albums start around $30, and go as high as $200, if you can even find one."
posted by Clustercuss at 11:39 AM on March 30, 2017


>> working on my night cheese

When I got to the part of the article where the guy in charge of licensing deals said, "It's important to us that the use does not recast the song in a different light — for example, we do not approve uses which make the song itself the butt of a joke," I thought of Night Cheese, and laughed.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:47 AM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]


I hate reading something that makes me want something I didn't know I wanted but now know I can't have.
posted by yerfatma at 11:56 AM on March 30, 2017 [8 favorites]


I've got copies of Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, Smokin' OP's, Night Moves and Mongrel on vinyl. So I guess I'm rich in Seger, if not money. And for what, I ask you, will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his Seger?
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:12 PM on March 30, 2017 [14 favorites]


"...from the bottom-heavy psychedelic rocker heard on his earliest hit, 1968's 'Ramblin' Gamblin' Man'"

Psychedelic? Really?
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:18 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]


I got grumpybearbride, who is an enormous Bob Seger fan, a Smokin' OP's frisbee at a thrift store in Carrboro, NC. It is our retirement plan.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:23 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]


Playing frisbee? I've heard worse retirement plans.
posted by pracowity at 12:33 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


Used copies of his first seven albums start around $30, and go as high as $200, if you can even find one.

If this is true, you need to find yourself a new record store. I sold my shop in October, but before that, we had most of his vinyl catalog, in multiples for $3 - $7.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 12:37 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]


Psychedelic? Really?

really - white wall
posted by pyramid termite at 12:52 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


I just listened to "Night Moves" for the first time since probably the 1970s and paid attention to the words for the first time ever. Pretty much "I was a tall skinny guy in skinny pants and pointy shoes, she had big eyes and perky tits, and we screwed all summer in various places. But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31). Also, that friggin thunder is loud."
posted by pracowity at 1:01 PM on March 30, 2017 [14 favorites]


On Amazon I can buy "Beautiful Loser" for $1.19 and "Smokin' O.P.'s" for $5. What am I missing? Is he talking about vinyl?

Yeah, it seems they're not all hard to find. I think the first three are officially rare, given that they aren't even on (official) CDs, but beyond that, not so much.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:16 PM on March 30, 2017


*works on night moves*
*turns page*
*feels like a number*
*rambles, gambles*
*gets out of denver*
posted by jonmc at 1:35 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


really - white wall

Okay, I've confused the album Ramblin' Gamblin' Man with the single Ramblin' Gamblin' Man.

Because the latter has a helluva lot more Motown in it than anything I'd regard as psych-rock.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:36 PM on March 30, 2017


Where Have All The Bob Seger Albums Gone?

Katmandu?

tl;dr--serious Bob Seger fan and digital music insider ...

To say nothing of not-so-famous ex-Too Much Joy member. And given the band's fondness for writing songs about other bands, it's a shame they never wrote one (afaik) about Seger. Get on it, Quirk!
"There's a bunch of songs on Back In '72 that are bums. People keep saying: 'I want to hear that album.' And I go: 'No, that's okay.'"
Who am I to argue with Bob, I guess, but I love Back In '72. Mad respect here, tho, because he could drop a 180 gram vinyl-only re-release here and probably name his price.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:39 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


Amazon UK has over 20 of his studio and live albums available on CD, plus several Greatest Hits collections. The average price (not counting Greatest Hits) is about $20 per CD, but that's distorted by the eye-watering $150 they want for Back in '72.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:48 PM on March 30, 2017


"Seger's absence from digital services, combined with the gradual disappearance of even physical copies of half his catalog, suggest a rare level of indifference to his legacy."

Its OK though: rock and roll never forgets.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:50 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31).

To be fair, I thought that thirty was old when I turned that age. In fact, when I went to work at a university at the age of 26, I felt terribly old compared to the undergrads. Now I just laugh a little remembering that; I'm sure that Bob feels the same way when he listens to that song.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:51 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]


It sounds to me that The Briefs have begun their master plan to rid the planet of Bob Seger: "Silver Bullet":
I like to take your records and I throw them in the trash
I wanna cut your brakes and make your tour bus crash
You think you're like a rocker I dont get you any how
Kill Bob Seger right now, Kill Bob Seger right now
posted by Zack_Replica at 1:58 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


Seger is one of the few remaining digital holdouts

There are lossless rips of every one of his albums on private music trackers. The only thing he's holding out on is a larger audience and getting paid.
posted by ryanrs at 2:14 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


No love here for "Live Bullet?"

I bought the LP in in 1977 with graduation money. It's probably in a milk crate in the basement. Bought the remastered version CD when it came out. Except for radio play, it's the only Seger I know, but it still falls into the rotation sometimes.
posted by Marky at 2:27 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Seger's absence from digital services ..."

Not saying he's old fashioned or over the hill ...
posted by octobersurprise at 2:35 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]


Marky , I got love for Seger. Especially his early ones like Smoking OPs and Back in 72.. But even the overplayed FM radio stuff.. (just not not Old Time Rock n Roll)
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:36 PM on March 30, 2017


just not not Old Time Rock n Roll

It's quite hideous. But "Night Moves" was one of the first radio hits I ever liked, age 10, on my new clock radio
posted by thelonius at 3:21 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm not a big music guy or much of a fan of Seger (tho I like that psych album linked above) but Live Bullet was a heavy favorite of my older cousins. That album was the soundtrack of fishing trips and summers spent with their family. Good tunes and times...
posted by Ashwagandha at 3:30 PM on March 30, 2017


Anyone else remember the video of "Night Moves" that aired on SNL on, lessee wikipedia..., Jan 22, 1977 ? Yeah, that was great. Haven't seen it since then, and if it's on YouTube, it's under a secret name. Yeah, I guess I can remember stuff from 40 years back, possibly under second-hand influence. Now what's that command I ran yesterday to deploy a new cloud distro?

I used to have Back in '72, Seven, and Live Bullet on vinyl, but one too many moves saw most of my vinyl disappear. I picked up Beautiful Losers on CD in a $5 bargain rack somewhere in Idaho, and it still holds up, although I only put it on every 3 or 4 years or so. I can't say I'm pining for anything else though.
posted by morspin at 4:20 PM on March 30, 2017


I was not a Segar fan back in the day, but 'Still The Same' had a nice riff and nice bluesy chord progression.
posted by ovvl at 4:39 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


One day my wife was driving around with the kids, who were about 10-ish at the time. At one point one of them asked her what, exactly, is a Katmandu, anyway?

And that's my favorite Bob Segar story.
posted by freakazoid at 4:56 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


No love for "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight"?

Pretty much "I was a tall skinny guy in skinny pants and pointy shoes, she had big eyes and perky tits, and we screwed all summer in various places. But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31).

I dunno, "Night Moves" still speaks to me, all these years later, after most of the rest of my AOR radio childhood has dropped away. These lines--Strange how the night moves/With autumn closing in--are perfect, but it took time for me to really get them.

Where I live, the spring peepers are just now emerging. Hearing them takes me right back to another place in other years, and I remember. And then, here and now, get called back to emptying the dishwasher or cleaning up cat vomit, and I do those things with a fading sense of fleeting time and the way that my autumn's closing in. But Bob? After those quiet words, the tune picks up again, like saying, with a rueful, private smile, but those were some days.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:57 PM on March 30, 2017 [11 favorites]


"Anyone else remember the video of "Night Moves" that aired on SNL on, lessee wikipedia..., Jan 22, 1977 ? "

Yeah, I do. Garrett Morris introduced the song, smoking a cigarette and saying something about how he was thinking about a girl he used to know. The video actually made me appreciate the song more than a little. It got me thinking (I wish): "Hmm what if there were a tv show, or even a station, that enhanced pop songs with accompanying videos ...?"
posted by Chitownfats at 5:49 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Night Moves" still speaks to me, all these years later ...

What has remained with me, for 30 years or so, is the line about waking to the sound of thunder. And whenever a thunderstorm wakes me up in the middle of the night, I think of this song. It happened several days ago. It's likely to keep me up at night.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:52 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


Bon Seger and the Last Heard.
posted by parki at 6:45 PM on March 30, 2017


Still running against the wind.
posted by 4ster at 6:59 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]


Seger is one of the few remaining digital holdouts

There are lossless rips of every one of his albums on private music trackers. The only thing he's holding out on is a larger audience and getting paid.


I'm going to guess that his concern is having control over the way his music is sold, not that it literally not be digitized. The fact that people are stealing stuff doesn't really have anything to do with anything.

Pretty much "I was a tall skinny guy in skinny pants and pointy shoes, she had big eyes and perky tits, and we screwed all summer in various places. But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31).

If he actually used those exact words those lyrics would be better about 96% of the songs out there.
posted by bongo_x at 7:08 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]


Anyone really interested should track down a copy of an old bootleg titled "Never Mind The Bullets: Bob Seger, 1966 - 1974." It's all early, out-of-print stuff. The album was No. 111 in the 2010 Village Voice Pazz and Jop.
posted by old_growler at 7:18 PM on March 30, 2017


I was never a huge fan but I did see him live in the early eighties at Byrne Arena in Jersey and he put on a great show.
posted by octothorpe at 7:23 PM on March 30, 2017


It's not that Quirk is being creepy, exactly, but I think if Seger wants to fade into obscurity on his own terms, he ought to be allowed to without second guessing from so-called fans.
posted by xigxag at 8:02 PM on March 30, 2017


Personally, I've never even heard of the guy.
posted by mantecol at 8:33 PM on March 30, 2017


I want to read a pracowity summary of all kinds of songs
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:42 PM on March 30, 2017 [6 favorites]


I sent this article to a friend of mine, a bit older than me, who was a big fan of Seger and remembered going to see him play at a high school! He also reminded me that some of the Seger System pops up in the background of the TV series Freaks & Geeks.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:53 PM on March 30, 2017


Her name wasn't Janey. It was Kathy.

And she was lovely. She was the queen of my nights. There in the darkness with the radio playin' low. The secrets that we shared. It did catch like a wildfire, running out of control. Til there was nothing left to burn. Nothing left to prove.

I remember how she held me oh-so-tight.

I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:31 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]


"I want to read a pracowity summary of all kinds of songs"

I think it is too easy to mock almost anything like that, though:

Everything by the Dave Matthews Band: Don't be sad, college girl. Your boyfriend is mean but I understand.

Sophocles' Oedipus Rex: Guy inadvertently bonks mom. Can't see the consequences.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:23 AM on March 31, 2017 [4 favorites]


I think most of my exposure to Seger's albums was on 8-track.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:22 AM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]


Pretty much "I was a tall skinny guy in skinny pants and pointy shoes, she had big eyes and perky tits, and we screwed all summer in various places. But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31). Also, that friggin thunder is loud."

This is pretty much every male-written song from the 1970s. Especially James Taylor and Jackson Browne, bless his heart, especially Jackson Browne. And, heck, it was Joni Mitchell from the opposite perspective when she was in the mood, too.
posted by blucevalo at 7:55 AM on March 31, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm nowhere near as wired into the 'music you can't buy anymore but can get free forever' scene as once I was, simply because the mainstreaming services have fewer and fewer lacunae (and a lot of the forgotten stuff has resurfaced), But even so - yeah, if there's a note the man put out that isn't findable in the time it takes to type his name into the right places, I don't know which one it might be. And the briefest of looks at even the most obvious places for old vinyl online looks much the same.

So, I fear the thesis is a great launching-point for a nice, PKD-type speculative bit of fiction about culture, memory, persistence and their opposites, but not so much of an actual thing outwith the noosphere.
posted by Devonian at 8:06 AM on March 31, 2017


and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31). Also, that friggin thunder is loud ... This is pretty much every male-written song from the 1970s.

Jay Ferguson, "Thunder Island," even down to the thunder. Which is, by the way, the best Bob Seger song Bob Seger never wrote.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:51 AM on March 31, 2017 [2 favorites]


I have dredged up two Seger memories.
  • A casual friend playing "Night Moves" on his 12-string and then letting me hear his own composition, "Thoughts of an Old Man," back when he was maybe 19 or 20.
  • A year or two later, a cover band breaking into "Her Strut" and causing girls to put down their Buds, stub out their Marlboros, and surge to the dance floor with bums waggling like they were bees returning to the hive.
posted by pracowity at 11:13 AM on March 31, 2017 [5 favorites]


We used to laugh at the "world weary" theme by young artists back then when I was a lad. It was definitely pervasive (Boston). I think it's one of the things that led to the tongue in cheek and purposely stupid aspects of music of the 80's, from New Wave to Hair Metal. Of course not everyone felt that way so there were still plenty of examples then.
posted by bongo_x at 11:31 AM on March 31, 2017


pracowity: "I just listened to "Night Moves" for the first time since probably the 1970s and paid attention to the words for the first time ever. Pretty much "I was a tall skinny guy in skinny pants and pointy shoes, she had big eyes and perky tits, and we screwed all summer in various places. But that was a long time ago (1964?) and now, in the bicentennial year, I have become very, very old (31). Also, that friggin thunder is loud.""

Yeah, that about sums up my impression of Seger. "I used to be cool, before I got old and fat and starting singing songs about what a pain in the ass it is to be on tour entertaining you people."

Grew up in MI, every classic rock radio station was obligated to play 3 Seger songs per hour (plus 2 Nugent, and at least 1 Rush song, being close to Canada). That shit got old really fast, it's been over a decade since I moved away but I still get pissed off and irritable at the opening strains of "Turn The Page"...
posted by caution live frogs at 2:03 PM on March 31, 2017


I'm a bit startled to realize my favorite Segar tune is Hollywood Nights. I'm a casual fan, but frankly haven't listened to him in years.

(Night Moves must somehow be related to Don Henley's Boys of Summer. I was 17 when that song came out, and it instantly made me nostalgic for...what? I mean, it's a song guys my age now hear and think back to when they were the age I was then, not much earlier or later, because they involve sex and the mind-bending feeling of being in love for the first time, so 17-year-old me was not looking back on being seven.

Hah. I recognize it now. Some folks, myself included, instead of having hot-romance filled teenage years had, instead, a pretty lonely and frustrating time of it, and I think what 17-yo me was experiencing was a bit of grief knowing that the older guy looking back longingly on his lost youth was never going to be me.

Likewise, when I hear one of those songs now, the emotion I experience is longing, much like the song-writers, but in my case for a world I missed entirely, rather than missing a world I used to inhabit. I need a beer!)
posted by maxwelton at 8:05 PM on March 31, 2017 [6 favorites]


maxwelton: Back right before the Beatles' success blinded pretty much everyone who gazed upon it, I remember some music and culture commentators being struck and puzzled by the overwhelming nostalgia contained in their songs. They were what, 22, 23?
posted by Chitownfats at 7:19 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Living in Indiana, I've heard enough Seger to last a lifetime. I you want him, listen to Q95, home of the Bob and Tom Show, you will surely get some Seger to tide you over.
posted by bluespark25 at 12:03 PM on April 1, 2017


blucevalo: "This is pretty much every male-written song from the 1970s. Especially James Taylor and Jackson Browne, bless his heart, especially Jackson Browne."

Jackson Browne also sung about cocaine.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:07 PM on April 2, 2017


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