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Favorite Musician-Direct Release Pick-ups Fulfilled in 2020?

Let’s face it, this has been a challenging year for almost everyone. Even ignoring situations like a worldwide pandemic, simply ordering Musician-Direct releases this year has been a bumpy ride. It feels like every third thread here ends up digressing to discussions about misleading merchandisers (lookin’ at you MusicToday), atrocious autographs (*ahem* Ms. Gaga), daunting delays (*cough* Halsey *cough*), sketchy signatures (Lil Wayne, Biebs, Ozzy, etc.), regional restrictions ("US/UK Only"), or lousy labels (UMG).

However, since it’s currently Thanksgiving eve here in the US, and 2020 is almost coming to a close - let’s discuss the more positive side of collecting musician-direct releases. Even with the many hiccups, there were a lot of great drops this year, from Jimmy Page to Ozzy to Liam Gallagher to Diana Ross.

So, what has been your favorite one or two musician-direct pick-ups fulfilled in 2020?

To keep this category-appropriate, let’s limit this to items that were label/publisher/artist-direct (ie. that were or could’ve been posted in this category originally), and that were actually fulfilled in 2020 (so including ’19 releases that were actually delivered this year is okay).

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Permalink Reply by M. on November 24, 2020 at 10:27pm

I’ll start.

Oddly both of my top-two favorites didn't happen until this quarter:

Natalie Portman* signed Fables (Oct.), and
Halsey signed I Would Leave Me If I Could (Nov.)

I love signed books. For what they lack in display-ability, they tend to make up for with accessibility and affordability. Going into this year, I never would have imagined that I would end up being able to get a stack of [probably] authentic Natalie Portman autographs for <$25 a piece. Similarly, I just missed the Halsey release last year which is what spurred me to join AL in the first place, so I was thrilled to finally be able to add a “Halsey” autograph to my collection.

*Yes I know, NP isn’t a musician. But while we work towards getting a more appropriate place for non-musician releases (sit tight), NP’s at least as much of a musician as MJF or Obama (who are also listed in this category for some reason) thanks to her Vox Lux soundtrack.

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Permalink Reply by Darryl Gundersen on November 25, 2020 at 5:08am

For me, bon jovi was great. Beautiful signature on a high quality poster and sealed cds, so no damage to the signed booklets during shipping. I wish they were all like this. Katy Perry is also worth mentioning.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on November 24, 2020 at 10:58pm

As long as it took for the Halsey stuff to come in, the end result was a lot of really nicely signed items (weird UK autopen incident aside).

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Permalink Reply by mccawgomets on November 25, 2020 at 4:42am

Great thread! And happy holidays to you and yours. I'll have to think about this one.... Will get back to you. Mike

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Permalink Reply by Bill on November 25, 2020 at 6:17am

for me BPMD signed cd super group and Static x

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Permalink Reply by Rich on November 25, 2020 at 6:24am

The Poppy and Aurora signed posters were especially nice - those two are pretty good with merch overall.

One of the better deals had to be the Jessie Reyez signed posters. They were $11.50 and larger than advertised, high quality prints with perfect signatures. The Doja Cat "Thank You I Love You" inscriptions were also a nice surprise.

Of course, Taylor Swift signing tens of thousands of CDs at affordable prices is pretty amazing.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Viola on November 25, 2020 at 6:30am

the flood of signed Taylor Swift CDs were a nice surprise. Previously with her pre-orders they sold out quickly and then went for high prices, so with Folklore there was more than enough to satisfy.

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Permalink Reply by damageinc777 on November 25, 2020 at 7:02am

For me probably the signed Clutch poster that came with the Doom Saloon package a couple months back or the Zakk Sabbath box set I also finally got a couple months ago that I had pre-ordered over a year/year and a half ago that came with a nice signed poster.

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Permalink Reply by SigninginOH on November 25, 2020 at 7:10am

The Old Dominion album I just got from them. Took less than a week to process and deliver. And only 109 so even better. And the flood of Taylor signed CDs to screw over the secondary market