EMI to Reissue David Bowie in Desperate Ploy

Maybe not desperate, but here's the story (The Times online) so you can judge for yourself:

David Bowie and Pink Floyd albums will be targeted by EMI’s revamped catalogues and compilations division to try to develop new sources of growth in the struggling British music major.

The idea is to develop the success that EMI has had in repackaging music from the Beatles and Queen and build on a business that EMI said accounted for as much a third of its overall recorded music sales, and somewhat more of its profits.

In an sign of the importance that Terra Firma, EMI’s owner, attaches to reviving the corporate back catalogue, the private equity group has put Stephen Alexander in charge of the division. He is a close colleague of Guy Hands, the private equity group’s boss.

Mr Alexander, on his first day in the job, said that EMI had “not unversally applied” the treatment that it had given to the Beatles. “If you look at the recordings of David Bowie, it’s not clear that we have done them anything like justice,” he said.

The article goes on to say that it might be hard to convince Bowie to allow them to rerelease familiar material, but Advanced Artists usually embrace this strategy. And as you'll see here, there is a real dearth of David Bowie CDs out there.

But what I'd like to know is what EMI is going to do with Tin Machine.