"Enhanced" CD's

I was just looking at the back cover for Iron Maiden's VIRTUAL XI and noticed that for some reason the CD included a free trial of America Online as an "enhanced CD" gimmick. I wonder what marketing guy thought of that idea, and whether it actually did anything to help either Iron Maiden or AOL. There might be other "enhanced" stuff on here too but I've never actually put the disc in my computer to find out.

"Enhanced" CD's were the big gimmick in the music biz for a couple of years back in the late 90s/early 00's. I guess as a way to try and entice you to buy the CD (rather than download it) the CD would include a music video, live/interview clips, and other bonus material that was viewable on your computer. How many of these "enhanced" CDs' do you have? Do you ever look at the bonus stuff on'em?

Yea, I'm bored and idly curious.

Aside from VIRTUAL XI, the only other "enhanced" CD's I can think of in my collection are the original pressing of Megadeth's RISK (which contains a video about the making of the album), Gamma Ray's SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET live album (a couple of live clips) Armored Saint's NOD TO THE OLD SCHOOL (some live videos which I could never get to work on my computer!) and the Misfits' CUTS FROM THE CRYPT (which includes their video for the song "Scream"). I might have a couple more but those are the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

A few years later this idea seems to have fallen by the wayside. The "enhanced CD" was briefly replaced with the "DualDisc" format (which consisted of CD material on one side of the disc, with DVD bonus material on the flip side), which never really took off either, and now record labels seem to be simply begging us "Pleeeeeeeease buy our CDs!" rather than coming up with any new gimmicks...

I have the Caracass - Swansong CD with a big, fat enhanced CD sticker on it. bought many years before I got a real computer. Several years later, I remembered the CD, and put it in my computer. Nothing happened! So I replaced the darn thing, and the new CD was working. It contained some music videos that I watched once, and put the CD back in the case again to continue to collect dust.....


I own several other enhaced CD's though.

I have tons and tons of enhaced cds. ive watched a few but not all. this is actually interesting. i should take a look and actually see which ones are enhanced and actually watch them. I thought they were a cool idea. Because sometimes it would give you behind the scenes or other stuff you wouldnt see normally. now it seems like everything comes with a bonus dvd. i barely watch those either but maybe i should start.

I've got a ton of enhanced CDs but I seldom watch the "bonuses". I also get annoyed when I pop an enhanced CD into my work PC because it automatically fires up the video or whatever the enhanced part is when all I want is some music.

I've lots of enchanced CD's and I only bothered watching the Iron Maiden ones. A gimmick that FYE is trying at certain test stores is that all CD's (expect boxsets and multi set CD's) are all 9.99 til November, that is a gimmick I can get behind.

The enhanced version of Primus' "Tales From The Punchbowl" was AWESOME. It had weird little videos for all the songs and a ping pong game that you couldn't possibly win.

I have tons of CDs with enhancements. I never have watched one of em though.

Enhanced CDs were kinda cool for a time. At the beginning of the trend, I would usually pop the CD in my computer to see what it had to offer, but later on I just started to ignore them. YouTube and the band's own websites killed those enhancements.

When they first came out it was a cool little extra. Never swayed my purchase decision either way though. And after awhile it became impossible to watch them all. When I buy a disc with a bonus dvd I always think "oh, great. Can't wait to check this out", only to get home and never get around to watching it. They also suffered from either being too short or too long.

I think the last one I watched entirely was Death Angel's Killing Season concert disc.

Thing I always hated in the early days of it was how my computer hated the Quicktime and would crash.

Fat Freddy wrote:

A few years later this idea seems to have fallen by the wayside. The "enhanced CD" was briefly replaced with the "DualDisc" format (which consisted of CD material on one side of the disc, with DVD bonus material on the flip side), which never really took off either, and now record labels seem to be simply begging us "Pleeeeeeeease buy our CDs!" rather than coming up with any new gimmicks...

one of the worst ideas EVER. I bought Angel Of Retribiution on that initally, thing was so thick it got stuck in the disc player in my car and broke it.

Took a quick look thru my CD rack last night and found that I have quite a few more Enhanced CDs than I originally thought:

Lacuna Coil's COMALIES and KARMACODE (COMALIES has a video documentary on the making of the album plus a screen saver and some other junk; I'm not sure what's on KARMACODE cuz I don't think I've ever looked at it)

Iron Maiden's S/T (Sanctuary/Metal-Is reissue) has gallery of photos, videos, trivia and other neat stuff; havent' looked at any of it in awhile but from what I remember the bonus material was pretty neat

Iron Maiden's ROCK IN RIO has a bonus live video clip on each CD.

Two new CDs that I just got from Divebomb Records (Dominance's RESURRECTED and Solitude's POISONED POPULATION) both have bonus live videos included on each CD.

Ditto for the reissues of Atrophy's SOCIALIZED HATE and VIOLENT BY NATURE on the Metal Mind label.

I dig 'em but as technology advances it makes some of those discs harder to watch.

I can't open my Maiden ones now because I'm running XP and I get an error message. When I ran 98 it ran fine...

I have a few of them, but I rarely look at them. I typically don't listen to music through my computer, so I never bother to pop them into the drive. When it was the "latest technology", I'd check them out, but it seemed more often than not, it wouldn't work properly and lock up the computer.

The only dual disc cd/dvd I own is the Joe Perry solo record and I agree that it's horrible. I didn't like have to figure out which side was the cd every time I went to play it.

yeah, that whole 'dual disc' thing was a bad idea.

I have a lot of Enhanced CDs. I looked only at a few, usually I igrore then.

DeathCult wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

A few years later this idea seems to have fallen by the wayside. The "enhanced CD" was briefly replaced with the "DualDisc" format (which consisted of CD material on one side of the disc, with DVD bonus material on the flip side), which never really took off either, and now record labels seem to be simply begging us "Pleeeeeeeease buy our CDs!" rather than coming up with any new gimmicks...

one of the worst ideas EVER. I bought Angel Of Retribiution on that initally, thing was so thick it got stuck in the disc player in my car and broke it.

Yea, I have ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION on DualDisc (the only DualDisc I own, now that I think about it) and it doesn't play on the little piece of sh*t boom box on my desk at work, which unfortunately is where I listen to my music most of the time, therefore it doesn't get much play.

As for the DVD side of that album, I think I watched it all the way thru once and haven't looked at it again.

They were a nice idea in theory, I guess, but doomed to failure. How ya gonna convince people to pay for these things when they have a big warning right on the package telling you that the disc does not conform to "normal" CD specs and therefore it may not play in all CD players?? Duh.

Quote :

Yea, I have ANGEL OF RETRIBUTION on DualDisc (the only DualDisc I own, now that I think about it) and it doesn't play on the little piece of sh*t boom box on my desk at work, which unfortunately is where I listen to my music most of the time, therefore it doesn't get much play.

When Angel of Retribution first came out, I bought it brand new in the dual disc format, but a short time later I found the super-duper deluxe version used at FYE, so I snagged that one and sold off the dual disc.

I have all the Maiden ones and have seen a few of those.

tohostudios wrote:

I also get annoyed when I pop an enhanced CD into my work PC because it automatically fires up the video or whatever the enhanced part is when all I want is some music.

Yep, that annoys me too. I might watch a clip once or twice, but the quality isn't usually terribly good either, and you can find the same thing with better quality online with a simple search.

Seems like the more I look thru my CD cabinet, the more "enhanced" CDs I have (or have forgotten about)...

Scorpions' UNBREAKABLE has a "videomessage" (their spelling) from the band about the album, plus a photo gallery of the recording process and a band biography.

The Donnas' SPEND THE NIGHT - has an enhanced CD portion but I have no idea what's on it because I've never put it in my computer. Dare I hope it contains nekkid pictures/video of the singer/guitarist/drummer?

Quote :

("naked pictures of the drummer/singer/guitarist?" he says, hopefully...)

The chubby bass player needs love too.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Quote :

("naked pictures of the drummer/singer/guitarist?" he says, hopefully...)

The chubby bass player needs love too.

With my luck, the bass player would be the only one nekkid.

I'm not really too interested in enhanced CDs, or, to be honest, bonus tracks. I like remastered CDs, because the sound quality of some of the first CD pressings were not so hot. But, I really like to listen to the artists work in the sequence and scope that was originally intended. If a CD has extra extra tracks, I might listen to them for curiosty sake, or maybe burn then onto a separate CD of extras. I'm a purist that way. Same reason I like to watch my DVDs on Widescreen.

From now on, they will be referred to as, Mark Mcgwire, cd's.

TheNazgul wrote:

From now on, they will be referred to as, Mark Mcgwire, cd's.