EMI Music Canada is going green with its new "Platinum" series of releases featuring digipaks made of 100% recycled material. The releases repackage hits by EMI, Capitol, and Virgin greats such as The Band, Miles Davis, Blondie, Fats Domino, Al Green, and MC Hammer.
If EMI really wanted to show its commitment to the environment, maybe executives should have put a bit more thought into releasing an MC Hammer retrospective at all. Record store bargain bins are already straining to hold all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze soundtracks, Now That's What I Call Music compilations, and Train albums as it is. And experts speculate that an MC Hammer greatest hits release could stress sales racks to the breaking point, spilling countless copies of Jennifer Love Hewitt records and endangering record store employees, shoppers, and goths who just hang out there all day.
"This could not come at a worse time," said Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Ken Lorraine*. "We've been tracking the capacity of record store bargain bins for decades. Throughout history, they have swelled and emptied on a predictable cycle. But, in the past 10 years, they have become increasingly full. This pre-holiday MC Hammer release, coupled with a massive sell back of the new Mandy Moore album, could be too much."
With MC Hammer Greatest Hits still taking up space despite 10 years on the shelves, Lorraine said now is not the time for another Hammer album, no matter what it's packaged in.
Though many people already own compilations by other "Platinum" artists, Lorraine does not consider re-releasing hits packages by Chet Baker or Nat King Cole to be as detrimental to bargain bins as the MC Hammer collection.
"Typically, people either own a Kenny Rogers collection and would not purchase this new release, or they would realize they need a Kenny Rogers collection that includes his Sheena Easton duet, 'We've Got Tonight,'" Lorraine said. "In the latter case, the album would remain a part of that buyer's record collection for years and stay out of the bargain bins we're trying to protect."
An MC Hammer album, on the other hand, may be purchased for "U Can't Touch This" or "2 Legit 2 Quit" alone, Lorraine said. He added that once listeners got to Hammer's second-tier hits, like "Have You Seen Her," the album would be a likely candidate for a sell-back to the record store.
"Only time will tell if the world's used bins will survive this," Lorraine said. "But one thing's for sure, it's not going to help."
* Ken Lorraine is not employed by the EPA, nor does he exist.