Bonus tracks for Japanese editions - any way to LEGALLY download & buy?

[Samsara]

Hey all, quick question. Typically, if I want the Japanese import version of an album, I'll just buy the record. But I'm stuck on figuring out how to do this for individual songs.

Specifically, the band Unleash the Archers (who I recently started listening to in the past year or so) did a great cover of Queensryche's "Queen of the Reich" (I actually found out about the band after watching their singer do a karaoke version of the song on YouTube). Now, the band has released the official audio of their fully cover of it on YouTube, but I want to purchase the track itself.

I went to amazon.co.jp, but I can't read Japanese, and while I could probably figure it out, I still can't make out a link to purchase the song itself. Does anyone know how to legally download and buy this track?

Thanks in advance.

[HOF]

I imagine having the individual tracks available for download would defeat the purpose of including them on the Japanese releases (trying to compete with the import/piracy market by offering exclusive content you can only get by buying the official Japanese edition).

[The Walrus]

Not sure. I've always just bought the imported record if I wanted the bonus track badly enough, and that includes ordering from a Japanese site. I would imagine you could just do that, if you can navigate your way through a Japanese page in one way or another and download a single track (back in the day, I would navigate 'certain sites' that were entirely in Japanese or Russian and it worked well enough). But I can't think of another way than that. I wouldn't be surprised if those songs are unavailable for download though, like how you can't download some songs on Amazon without buying the whole record (usually the big epics).

If you find something, let me know.

[The Letter M]

After over a decade of trying for several Flower Kings albums, I just bit the bullet and bought them on eBay (as they were several years old by that point).

As new albums have come out with Japanese editions that include bonus tracks, I've just ordered them while they were still available, for fear of missing out and having to pay 2 or 3 times the original (already higher than regular edition) price, as I've done with Spock's Beard's Noise Floor and Big Big Train's Grand Tour in the last couple of years.

So yeah, I agree with HOF - I'm pretty sure the Japanese-only tracks are only available on the discs.

-Marc.

[Samsara]

Thanks all.

HOF, I get that it defeats the purpose somewhat, but considering we're in a different era where downloads way outpace physical media in terms of sales, I wasn't sure if it made a difference with the download or not, since you'd have to pay the Japanese site anyway for the track.

Again, thanks everyone. I'll get the tune some way, at some point.

[HOF]

I suppose it might get released eventually for download after an initial run of the Japanese release? May just have to wait a little while.

[cramx3]

I'm not sure how to help here and I can applaud someone trying to pay for the rare track, but at least these days there is still youtube so it's not like you can't listen to it in years past where those Japanese bonus tracks were just titles I heard of but would never actually get a chance to listen.  I think I only bit the bullet once or twice on a Japanese import back when there was a local CD store that sold them near me.

[The Letter M]

In the case of TFK and SB albums that had Japanese editions, being able to find YouTube uploads of them can be hit or miss, and mostly miss. It seems that many owners of said discs don't seem to upload their rips of them online very often, which I suppose is a good thing, just to keep the exclusivity of the editions intact.

If it's for a band you REALLY love and enjoy, definitely try and buy the Japanese edition when it's new.

-Marc.

[Stadler]

I'm going to offer up a little experience here, because this is a bugaboo of mine.

Whenever I have a song I want and can't find, my go to is "discogs".   My contribution is
- Go on discogs and see if you can find the actual Japanese release cheaper;
- Go on discogs and see if the song itself was released on a single in Japan (or elsewhere) and can be gotten from a difference source;

Probably 90% of the time, the song can be found elsewhere, though sometimes not without a little effort, cost, or sacrifice of media (my experience is Japanese bonus tracks are often only found elsewhere on vinyl).  The discogs interface used to be a little more user friendly - if you clicked on a track, it would show you all other listed releases - but that's been disabled.  For a band like you mention - no offense here - it's not like they have 100 singles in various formats around the world, you ought to be able to find it on a b-side or a compilation somewhere. 

EDIT:  That appears to be one of the few where it's not available elsewhere.  I'll keep digging.

[bl5150]

If you consider friends sharing the odd hard-to-find track here in there like we did back in the day LEGAL    then I reckon I can help you out with this track in 320 mp3. 

I love the vocal but the drums give me the shits 

[wolfking]

I'm pretty sure Brent has ever Japanese bonus track ever, plus more!

[Cool Chris]

Not sure if this falls under the "legal" category but I'd just download the track from YouTube and call it a day.

[Bolsters]

Not sure if this falls under the "legal" category but I'd just download the track from YouTube and call it a day.

There's the legal aspect and the moral one. Legally, not a leg to stand on. Morally, fuck the amount of money and effort it takes to get ahold of those tracks legally. That's if you can even find them, sometimes you can't. Fifteen years ago I'd spend $40+ importing an album that had the bonus track but I haven't done that in a long time. I bought the album once at the (hopefully) reasonable price it was made available to me at, the band got my support, I am not paying double or more to get a different version of said album with one additional song.

Related gripe: A lot of pop albums coming out the last few years have different bonus tracks on different releases. So if you want every track tied to an album you need to buy the album three fucking times or be lucky enough that the individual songs are available somewhere. Just look at shit like this... . Not every edition contains a new original studio track but there's still multiple of those spread across the different versions.

[gazinwales]

I buy quite a lot of Japan CD's from CD Japan.
Generally most Japan bonus tracks are exclusive to that CD and remain so for a set number of years, depending on the record label's contract with the artist.

I always prefer the Japan discs, everything is better quality about them of course this includes the price.

But you do see some of those bonus tracks get a general release a few years later, examples are the Helloween and Nightwish re-issues.

[goo-goo]

I only hunt for the real bonus tracks/songs. I don't care for the bonus tracks like an orchestral version or radio edits.