Like That Album?
Buy It Again, and Again...

Music geeks consider Elvis Costello's 1977 debut, "My Aim Is True," a touchstone for its witty lyrics and bittersweet outlook on matters of the heart. For retailers and hard-core collectors, it bears another distinction: By year's end, it will have been released in four different configurations by four different record labels during the CD era.

The newest, due out later this year, is a "Deluxe Edition" two-disc set from Universal Music Group, in honor of the album's 30th anniversary. How "deluxe" it actually will be compared to past editions is unclear. The original version of the album -- released on vinyl and cassette in 1977 by Columbia Records (now part of Sony BMG) -- contained 13 tracks, including classics like "Alison" and "Mystery Dance." The first CD of "My Aim Is True" was limited to that material.

Sounds familiar: Elvis Costello (in 1977, below left, and 2006, left) owns the rights to the album 'My Aim Is True' and will soon reissue it again. 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis (in 1960, belowright, and in 1989, right) is one of the most-reissued titles.

Then in 1993, independent label Rykodisc reissued the album in a 22-song set that included outtakes, alternate versions and other flotsam. In 2001, Warner Music's Rhino Records released a "bonus disc" edition that included 13 songs on its second disc. Nine of those songs, however, were on the previous Rykodisc version (the other four were live cuts and outtakes).

Now it's Universal's turn. A representative for the label says the Deluxe Edition's second disc will contain demos, alternate versions and live tracks, though the exact lineup hasn't been determined. While the new set won't come out until fall, the songs from the original "My Aim Is True" will be released digitally on May 1 for the first time as part of a much broader release of Mr. Costello's first 11 albums through digital music retailers such as Apple's iTunes Store.

Suckers for Same Music

Improved sound quality and previously unreleased tracks are usually the selling points for the endless recycling of classic albums. The primary target is die-hard fans, who are suckers for buying the same beloved music over and over just to get versions that sound a little bit better, or have one or two additional obscure oddities.

Darren DeVivo, a DJ on New York's WFUV, admits to being in the marketing cross hairs for such endeavors. "People like me, who will go buy a second and third edition of an album, are clearly in a minority," Mr. DeVivo says. "Although while I'm spending my money, I'm thinking, 'You're ripping me off here -- and I'm letting you do it. Please don't do it to me again.' "

Incredibly, the release of the "My Aim Is True Deluxe Edition" doesn't even set a reissue record. The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" has been reissued in nine configurations since its release in 1966, including three new ones in 2006 alone. Those 40th-anniversary releases included a double LP on green and yellow vinyl records. Miles Davis's iconic "Kind of Blue" and the Who's "Live at Leeds" also are contenders for the title of most-reissued albums, with as many as seven incarnations apiece.

Each of these albums has received the serial-reissue treatment for different reasons. Mr. Costello's compilations, for instance, have moved from label to label because unlike most artists, he owns the rights to his recordings and has periodically struck more lucrative deals.

But there's a bigger force: In a market that has seen CD sales fall more than 20% so far this year, proven sellers are one of the few bright spots left. The cost of issuing a new version of an album can vary wildly, according to label executives, since it can involve everything from engineering costs to new packaging. But in general, it is much cheaper than creating a new album from scratch for a new -- and untested -- act.

For consumers, the phenomenon can be the source of head-scratching. If you already shelled out in 1992 for the "MasterSound Gold CD, super-bit mapping, corrected speed" version of "Kind of Blue," was it worth the money, five years later, to get the edition of the album that featured "20-bit remastering," plus a previously unreleased song?

The label's answer: Of course. Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of A&R at Legacy Recordings -- which oversees back-catalog releases for Columbia's parent, Sony BMG -- says the technology for transferring music from original analog tapes to digital media has evolved immeasurably since the early days of CDs. An album remastered using a high-quality source tape and modern equipment is likely to sound more like what the musicians and producers aimed for in the studio than any earlier version, including the original vinyl release often prized by collectors.

In the dawn of the CD era in the early 1980s, engineers tried to replicate the sound of vinyl albums. But more recently they have realized that the standards for creating LPs were based on factors like how much dynamic range a typical turntable could handle without making the needle skip. CDs, on the other hand, have fewer such limits.

Also contributing to the reissue fever affecting "Kind of Blue": In the early '90s a Sony engineer discovered while digging through studio records that the tape machine used to record side one of the album had subsequently been taken out of service for running slower than it should have. As a result, every version of the album since its original release in 1959 featured three songs that sounded about one quarter note sharper than the other side.

"I've probably bought 'Kind of Blue' a dozen times myself," says Gary Arnold, senior vice president for entertainment at retailer Best Buy. Mr. Arnold says perennially reissued discs typically appeal to "the fanatic, the collector, the person who wants to have everything a given artist has put out."

Reeling In 'Completists'

Mr. Berkowitz insists that tactics like including bonus material are more than a ploy to reel in "completists," those who are compelled to own each iteration of an album. "We try to put valid bonus tracks of quality that pertain to the album," Mr. Berkowitz says. "We don't gratuitously put them on because we think it might sell more copies."

While some albums seem to roll out in a new edition every other year, other classics have been immune. The Beatles haven't upgraded the sound of their studio albums since they were first released on CD in 1987, although Neil Aspinall, the former head of the Fab Four's Apple Corps company, said last year that they were in the process of being remastered.

Bruce Springsteen has issued a spiffed-up edition of only one of his albums, "Born to Run." "Bruce has complete control over everything that comes out and to the best of my knowledge they're exactly the way he wants them to be," says Legacy's Mr. Berkowitz, who previously worked at Columbia, Mr. Springsteen's label.

Nick Lowe, Mr. Costello's producer on his early albums and an important musician in his own right, has a problem beyond poor sound quality. Some of his landmark discs aren't available on CD because they went out of print in the early 1990s. As a result, CD editions of cult favorites like 1979's "Labour of Lust" fetch high prices on eBay. Mr. Lowe's manager, Jake Guralnick, says the singer owns the rights to his recordings, and is in the process of lining them up for rerelease late this year or next year. The holdup, he says, came from waiting for distribution agreements in other parts of the world to expire so they could carry out the process in one fell swoop.

But amid all the reissue-itis, record labels are finding that in a severely diminished market, with thousands fewer record stores, the practice can be too costly to justify. Increasingly, the more-obscure titles from the catalogs of artists including Mott the Hoople and Cheap Trick are available for sale only on digital services.

"Retail will not carry them," says Mr. Berkowitz. "It's not that we don't want to make the CDs. But if the record stores are only going to sell 1,200 of them it's not cost effective for anyone."

For old-fashioned fans of such acts who still like their music with cover art they can hold in their hands and liner notes they can read, Mr. Berkowitz has a suggestion: eBay.

Write to Ethan Smith at ethan.smith@wsj.com