$26.99.

It took me about two seconds to make the decision: no way in hell am I buying the new Kristin Hersh CD for $26.99 at HMV. Not that I was all that keen about buying from HMV in the first place; support your local independent record store and all that, but it would’ve taken an extra subway token to get to one and the Arcade Fire album was really cheap—priced to sell at $13.99. But $26.99? How on earth does a non-import, non-special-edition CD cost that much, even in Canadian dollars?

I should’ve double-checked the CD imprint to see if it said 4AD, but at the time I just assumed Learn to Sing Like a Star was a 4AD release like all of Hersh’s previous albums. But it turns out that’s not the case: while 4AD handles distribution for rest-of-world, Hersh has turned to another label, Yep Roc, to handle U.S. distribution and promotion. Which causes a problem: who has the rights for Canada? And here’s where the $26.99 comes in: if 4AD doesn’t have American rights, they may simply treat the entire North American market as hands-off, even though they technically have Canadian distribution rights. Which may mean 4AD’s selling the CDs as though they were imports, since everything’s being handled from the home offices in Britain. This would also explain why Amazon.ca’s selling the CD at a still-princely $21.99.

Kristin Hersh’s U.S. label, Yep Roc, has an online store, which is great. They also give you MP3s of the album for free when you buy the CD, which is just about the best feature I’ve ever seen from an online music store—more stores need to do this! Unfortunately, shipping to Canada from Yep Roc is $6.95. Which gives me a total around $23 USD, or—yep, you guessed it—$27 CAD.

For most artists this would be the end of the road. Luckily, Hersh has been doing the web thing long enough to have a great site and an online store of her own, with far more reasonable postage rates and even a slightly lower list price to boot. So even though I don’t get to enjoy the album now via MP3, I now have a CD winging its way to me from throwingmusic. So what should you take away from this whole experience? Always buy from the artist whenever possible.

Update: Less than a week later, my CDs arrive. Yes, CDs—they popped a bonus 3-track disc in the envelope as well. Three more tracks of Kristin Hersh and nine bucks cheaper—take that, HMV!