Unadvertised special feature: two-inch thick Styrofoam block (pictured below)
As you may have heard, the complete catalog of the Beatles recordings have recently become available in a brilliantly remastered digital version. You can acquire these in a complete set for between $99.99 and $169.99 (yes, really, take a look on Amazon
There is a special version, available exclusively at Restoration Hardware (a fixture at your more upscale shopping complexes, that specializes in nobs and novelties, and other mostly useless shit), called All Together Now: The Ultimate Beatles® Collection, that contains all the remastered CDs, plus a lovely hardcover book that reproduces all the album art and booklets at full album size, and the lovely piece of Styrofoam mentioned above. The box it comes in features a spine, as such, that reproduces what the ends of the original LPs would look like at roughly the proper size if stacked together. And this appears to be the source of the massive design FAIL, as the width of the LP spines dictates the thickness of the package. Since the actual individual CD packaging is flimsy cardboard folders, and not clunky jewel cases, and, even at 200 odd pages, the hardcover book only takes up so much space, there is quite a bit of space left over. Thus, a big, fat, un-recyclable slab of Styrofoam. Ghastly. List price $399. Actual R.H. price $299. You just spent as much as $200 extra dollars for a bigger version of the booklets you would have gotten, plus a big crappy box containing cheap card CD packaging and a fucking useless slab of Styrofoam. Privilege has its downfalls. Enjoy.
