KISS Ex-Guitarist Says His $200 CD Single Is Worth More Than Most Albums
via Celebration Of Sound / YouTube
Former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent is responding after fans criticized the price of his CD single, Ride The Serpent. The release includes one song, a plain envelope, and his autograph, which many fans questioned when the price surfaced online.
Vincent rejected those complaints and defended his pricing. He says artists should control how their work is sold, especially when dealing with limited physical copies aimed at collectors rather than mass audiences.
Conflicting Details and Limited Supply
The CD single was first listed as a run of 500 copies priced at $300 each. A later post said it would be limited to 1000 copies at $225 including shipping, or $300 for international buyers, creating confusion among fans.
Vincent said Ride The Serpent is the first single from a new Vinnie Vincent Invasion album titled Judgment Day Guitarmageddon, marking his first new music since the Euphoria EP in 1996.
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Vincent Explains His Approach
“If the fan support is there, this is what to expect the price will be for these private recording collection pieces,” says Vincent. “There is a bank vault of recordings I have been preparing for release. The time is almost here.
“I understand the bitching, the moaning, the whining about price, but you must also understand that my situation is such that my music is so desired that it will be targeted and taken from me immediately, which I cannot/will not allow.”
A Heated Response to Critics
Vincent said the singles will only ship once the target number of pre-orders is reached, though he did not clearly confirm whether that goal is 500 or 1000 units.
“Welcome to the new agenda,” he says. “Artists can and will set their own standards and rules for the purchase price of their art, that’s if there are any or many artists of value left aside from the standard list. We are nearing 2030. Inflation through the roof. Homeless, etc. The horror list is endless. It’s a Mad Max wasteland, the Wild West for artists now who have no protection from shoplifter fans who download their music for free.
“They are victims of Massive rip-offs, reduced to beg and pander for likes and subscribes from self-entitled brats who want their work for free or for next to nothing. Yet these are the same whiners who have no problem paying a lip-syncher $500 for a brick from a house he demolished or $1000 for a sweaty pair of used socks. But you bitches cry and whine like fucking babies when VV sells something at a price you don’t like? Grow the fuck up!
“My price protects me from people like ‘you’ who will buy cheap from the theft of bootleggers who steal from me. If you don’t like what I do, what I look like, what I say, what I sell, or anything and or everything about me, don’t come here. If you like what I do, then support the artist. You bitch because it’s one song? This one song is worth more than most entire albums. Consider yourself lucky that it’s only 200, and that it’s autographed yet. It was originally 300, but with the economy suffering as it is, I made it 200. If you don’t like it… That’s your problem, not mine.”
“Don’t tread on my world and the good vibes of this fan site. There are plenty of other sites where emotionally disturbed trolls can try and disrupt.”
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What Comes Next
Vincent describes Ride The Serpent as a “nearly eight-minute, intense guitar powerdrive.” He also revealed plans to release tracks titled Heavy Metal Poontang, Cockteaser, and what he calls “All the Vinnie Vincent power ballads.”
