Handle with care: Publisher apologizes for fake autograph in Bob Dylan’s $600 book jacket
You can order the signed, limited-edition copy of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood on the Tracks’ from HarperCollins but only if you’ve heard his entire album of the same name
When it comes to Bob Dylan’s fans, there’s a very simple question: do you own a copy of the singer’s new album, Blood on the Tracks, or do you plan to buy some at a later date?
According to the New York Times, publisher HarperCollins has decided to offer the answer to that question in a new fashion, by releasing both the CD and the signed and numbered booklet that accompanies it by autograph.
The company was only just getting used to the fact that people actually buy CDs after the artist has penned his autobiography or done his best in front of a jury (or a live audience), but the timing of the release was unfortunate, since the cover, which depicts the face of the song’s author on the one hand and the album cover on the other, seems to have been ripped off of several other albums released recently.
It looks like the only solution to the problem will be to replace the offending copy of Blood on the Tracks, and perhaps give the album as a gift to fans who have been asking for this.
The album’s debut single, “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” was nominated for a Grammy earlier this month, with other cuts in the same vein featuring as nominees at this week’s Grammys — “Maggie’s Farm,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”
If the album ends up hitting the No. 1 spot in sales, there will be no shortage of candidates who can fill in for its lead performer, Dylan, who is off the road to promote it now, having just completed a two-week tour that took him from Japan to the Philippines
