Dear HIM fans. It's hard not to notice what BMG label is doing with HIM's legacy lately. It's nothing more than money grabbing. One can still understand the endless reissues of the first four albums on all kinds of vinyl colors and the mediocre “exclusive” 12" single for Record Store Day (even though they managed to screw it up, but who cares, it's heartagram shaped, fans will still buy it!). The recently spotted THE BEST OF 1997-2004 COMPILATION is utter nonsense. We already have “And Love Said No”, a great compilation of the same era with a more interesting tracklist. The upcoming release looks like it was made half-assed in 5 minutes with a stock image that has NOTHING to do with the band HIM. With such a large catalog of the band's b-sides available, BMG wants to release this? Indescribable. All fans who truly respect the band's legacy should ignore this compilation (and any possible physical versions of it), as well as the endless reissues of the first four albums. Is Ville even aware of this? Terrible.

The main assumption as to why this compilation will be released in the US is that the label doesn't want to buy the rights to the original songs from the old “And Love Said No” compilation that’s still available in Europe. They use what they have - the rights to the songs from the first 4 albums (clever, isn't it?). Why do we think so? The upcoming “compilation” is 90% the same as 2004's “And Love Said No”, except for the song order and the fact that instead of “And Love Said No” and “Solitary Man” it has “(Don't Fear) The Reaper” (WTF!?) and “Soul On Fire”. Indeed, why bother to release an original compilation when you can save some money on licensing and release your own self-published, “new” one? Of course it’s to please fans make more money. Buying these releases literally gives a green light to the label to make more of them.

Instead of putting out mediocre releases, wouldn’t it be better to organize what’s already out there? Working on the rights to “Dark Light”, “Venus Doom”, “Digital Versatile Doom” and “Screamworks” would be more sensible than to release another poo-colored splatter vinyl? Perhaps it'd be a wiser move to upgrade all music videos on YouTube instead of having potato quality versions with mono sound in there? On most streaming platforms, HIM’s page is a mess. It feels like nobody cares, and sadly, that's probably the case.

Dear Ville/management, we as fans know HIM’s discography better than anyone. We want to offer our help in organizing, sorting and improving the band’s digital content on streaming platforms. Here’s our email if you’re interested: readytohelp.heartagram@gmail.com

P.S. If you really want to buy HIM vinyls - better choose the new Sony RCA reissues in gatefold sleeves. They are made with care. Don't buy garbage.

Let's continue, folks! As many of you have noticed, BMG has changed the name from "1997-2004" to "1997-2003" after realizing that there's no songs from 2004. Building this release in real time seems like a tough task. Guys, why bother, right? You probably have extra 15 minutes to work on it, why not check some other stock images with hearts or flames? Ridiculous.

Actually, let's talk about the "artwork". At the moment, it's almost the only thing by which you can judge the quality of the work done by BMG’s team on this release. Making cover art is a creative process if we're talking about honest, proper work. Let's take a look at what they’ve done here. On the cover you can see an abstract image and a sticker. It appears to be something like "ink in water in slow-mo" or "paint splash on something". Beautiful, isn't it? What it has to do with the compilation isn’t known, but it's interesting in another way. Why did they choose to do it like that? You won't believe it, but the answer is very simple.

At first we thought it was a stock image they bought and used as a cover (which is common practice for some bands, nothing wrong with that as long as it makes sense and the image is related to the material). Still, there are some physically impossible details in the artwork. The shape of the ink seems kind of unnatural in places. Hmm…

So we decided to make a little investigation. We removed the top part with the text and did a search using Google Lens. Here’s what we found...

https://www.freepik.com/premium-ai-image/red-liquid-dense-dark-paint-splash-black-wall_141816870.htm

https://www.freepik.com/premium-ai-image/black-background-with-red-paint-ink-splash_82217545.htm

https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/36226617-ai-generated-red-color-splash-background

https://www.freepik.es/fotos-premium/salpicaduras-color-rojo-oscuro-sobre-fondo-negro_74881866.htm

Ladies and gentlemen, it's an AI-generated picture. At first we couldn't believe how little they cared so we decided to double-check. There are services on the web that can detect whether the art was made by a human or AI. Here's the result:

It's just awful. Most likely no one bought the rights to use this AI-generated image. And what's more sad - there’s no soul put into it. They'd be better off using a photo of Ville or the band from that period, like on the original compilation. Ah, of course, then they'd have to pay the photographer, bad idea.

Enough with AI, let’s check out the human work! Let's look at the sticker, which is actually a part of the "original design". Warning! People who are into graphic design, this might make you weep:

The proportions are just a mess. To the designers at BMG, have you heard about text centering & proportions? Nevermind, it's a rhetorical question. Were qualified people involved in the design of this collection at all? Take a look at the picture of the vinyl label.

Looks like someone forgot to remove the black background from BMG’s logo, and overall it looks messy too. We're pretty sure there'll be more f*ckups to come, but it doesn't matter anymore. This is their attitude, you've seen enough.

They saved on absolutely everything. So this is quality for you people. If you allow them to treat you this way, go and buy it. Some people commented under our previous post about the poor availability of old vinyl releases and their extreme prices. Yes, this is why reissues are a good thing, but their low quality and BMG's attitude shouldn’t be accepted.

Yeah, right. Also, wouldn't be surprised if the press release is also AI-generated.

Post provided by "ReadyToHelp.Heartagram@gmail.com team".