Holding the Music in Your Hands ®
It’s a balmy May afternoon and Johnny Hates Jazz (songwriter, Clark Datchler and producer/engineer Mike Nocito) are meeting SuperDeluxeEdition in a West London recording studio, to talk about Magnetized, their rather splendid new album. The pair are looking slim and relaxed, and insist on buying SDE lunch before we get down to the nitty gritty. But before we talk about Magnetized, we spent some time reflecting on the past…
Continue reading “Johnny Hates Jazz / Interview”
The Smashing Pumpkins’ singles box from 1996, The Aeroplane Flies High, is to be reissued as a 6CD+DVD deluxe box on 22 July 2013. Additionally, the set will make its vinyl debut with a five LP set also being available.
The Aeroplane Flies High was originally a five-CD set, featuring expanded versions of the five singles from the acclaimed Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album. Despite being a ‘limited edition’ at the time, actually sold over 300,000 copies.
The 2013 reissue takes the 33-track five-CD version and turns into into a massive 90-track extravaganza across six discs. Bonus tracks include live performances, 8-track demos, acoustic takes, instrumentals and rough DAT mixes. The sixth CD is reserved for live recordings from the 1996 Mellon Collie world tour, while the DVD contains a gig from Belfort, France from 4 July 1997 (it’s 14 tracks bringing the total for the set to 104).
The box comes with a 46-page book with liner notes and a track-by-track notes by Billy Corgan. The packaging is described as “embossed foil wrap and twinkle stock for jackets” – in other words, bling. Owners of the Siamese Dream reissue will appreciate the attention and detail that goes into these sets.
The Aeroplane Flies High is the fifth Smashing Pumpkins title to be reissued in recent years following on from Gish and Siamese Dream (2011) and Pisces Iscariot and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (2012).
5CD+DVD version
Vinyl 5LP
Full track listing for The Aeroplane Flies High:
Continue reading “The Smashing Pumpkins / The Aeroplane Flies High deluxe box”
Universal Music will release a Style Council Classic Albums Selection box set on 15 July 2013.
The six-CD set will include all five Style Council albums (including the unreleased-until-1998 Modernism: A New Decade) as well as the mini-LP that gathered up a few early singles and B-sides, 1983’s Introducing The Style Council.
The packaging should be familiar enough if you’ve bought similar sets before. The six CDs come in card ‘vinyl replica’ sleeves and reside within a a rigid slipcase. There are no booklets at all with this release.
Box contains the following:
Box set featuring original mixes of 10 classic ZZ Top albums on CD including for the first time ZZ Top’s First Album, Rio Grande Mud and Tejas . 
37 years after the film was shot on the Wings Over America tour, Paul McCartney’s Rockshow film finally gets a release on DVD and Blu-ray. This is not included in the deluxe Wings Over America box set and features the full show (previous laserdisc/VHS/Betamax editions were edited). It has been fully restored from the original 35mm film with the sound remixed to 5.1.
Six-disc themed box set from the legendary songwriter. Supposedly a definitive and official career-spanning release and comes Burt Bacharach-approved! There are two-CD versions also available, but be aware that track listings vary according to territory.
A reissue for the superb four-CD Chic box from 2010. This first volume (Savoir Faire) features a massive amount of twelve-inch remixes, and rare and unreleased tracks from Chic and many of the artists they produced, such as Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, Debbie Harry and Carly Simon. A two-CD greatest hits Up All Night is released in July.
A comprehensive 2CD deluxe edition from Cherry Pop, that rounds up all of the twelve-inch remixes, non-album tracks and B-sides from ex-Matt Bianco singer Basia‘s 1988 album. An incredible 19 bonus tracks in total, over and above the 11 songs that were on the original CD.
It seems all the rage these days to not release a studio album of new material for 10 years. First Suede, then David Bowie and now Sting.
Yes, the 61-year old singer-songwriter is finally following up 2003’s Sacred Love with The Last Ship, an album about a community impacted by the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the North of England, with Sting drawing on his real childhood experiences. “I’m telling my own story through the lives of other people”, he says. The songs were originally written for the musical The Last Ship which will debut on Broadway next year.
Formats explained
The album has been produced by Rob Mathes and will come in three different configurations: A 12 track standard CD edition and vinyl pressing, a 17-track 2CD deluxe edition, and a 20-track super deluxe edition which is also two-CD but features ‘special packaging’. Only Amazon in Germany actual list all the different CD variations at present. They refer to ‘3 bonus tracks’ on the super deluxe edition – what they mean is over and above the 17-track deluxe version! The super deluxe editions do seem to be exclusive to amazon in each territory.
The Last Ship will be released on 23 September 2013 on A&M/Universal Records.
Standard CD Edition [12 track]
UK Pre-order: The Last Ship
USA Pre-order: The Last Ship
GERMANY Pre-order: The Last Ship
Deluxe 2CD Edition [17 track]
GERMANY Pre-order: The Last Ship
Super Deluxe 2CD Edition [20 track – Special Packaging]
UK Pre-order: The Last Ship [Super Deluxe Edition]
USA Pre-order: The Last Ship [Super Deluxe Edition]
GERMANY Pre-order: The Last Ship [Super Deluxe Edition]
Vinyl
UK Pre-order: The Last Ship
USA Pre-order: The Last Ship
Last month saw the release of Cheap Trick‘s The Complete Epic Albums Collection, from Sony Legacy.
The 14-disc set includes the complete Budokan concert, all the band’s studio albums from 1977 to 1990 (many expanded, or newly remastered) along with the Found All The Parts E.P.
The 32-page booklet is pretty good, although contains no essays – just track listings, credits and photos. The reproduction on the vinyl replica sleeves is much better than expected, and amongst the selection are a few gatefolds (Budokan, In Color and Dream Police).
Currently available for around the £40 mark, which is little more than £3 per album.
Nick Drake‘s 1969 debut album Five Leaves Left will be the final studio album to receive the deluxe vinyl box set treatment, when it is issued on 29 July 2013.
Like the previously issued Pink Moon and Bryter Layter boxes, this set will offer a heavyweight remastered vinyl record housed in a clamshell-style box and come complete with facsimile handwritten lyric sheets, a poster and album credits on a card replica of the original master tape.
A download code will be included, and like the other sets, will offer the digital version in three different file formats – hi-res FLAC files or standard MP3s, and a ‘dubbed from disc’ set of MP3s from an original vinyl copy of the record.
The Amazon UK pre-order price of under £25 (at the time of writing) is at least £10 cheaper than the other boxes!
The Tabu box set, which in November will mark an end to Demon Music Group’s ‘Tabu Re-born’ reissue campaign, is now available to pre-order on amazon.
Although track listings have yet to be announced, we have been promised a collection spanning all the various Tabu acts and mixes exclusive to this set. It is likely that tracks missing from the individual deluxe sets – such as the Extended Mix of Alexander O’Neal’s Lovers, or the acappella mix of Cherrelle‘s Saturday Love – will make an appearance in the box.
The box set will contain 4CDs, a DVD, a vinyl record, and a booklet. At the time of writing amazon UK’s pre-order price of £25 is looking very attractive. The individual ‘anthology’ boxes for Alexander O’Neal and The SOS Band are also available to order.
The problem with the new 25th anniversary deluxe edition of R.E.M‘s Green (released a few weeks ago) is its lack of ambition. The new set comes with one single bonus CD, featuring some of a 1989 live concert from Greensboro. You can imagine the meeting at Warner HQ:
To be fair, the artwork looks great on the matt-laminated clamshell box and the Greensboro gig is superb but, I’m sorry, if you’re going to make a big deal about the 25th anniversary on the sticker then you need to turn up to the party with a decent present (for the fans). In 2005 for the 17th anniversary of Green we got a CD/DVD-A double pack which presented the entire album in high-res stereo and 5.1 Surround sound. In addition, there was also a video documentary included as well as a couple of videos and a photo gallery.
This new edition does offer a new remastering for CD (not in the 2005 issue) but why not replicate the 5.1, and include that as well? And where are the extra tracks from the singles, such as Memphis Train Blues (Stand), the cover of Syd Barrett’s Dark Globe (Orange Crush) or the band’s version of Iggy Pop’s Funtime?
The album itself remains a stunning achievement, but Warner Music appear to have been very tentative when it comes to investing the time and money required to come up with a really interesting, fan-pleasing deluxe set. Given that this was the first album on the major label back in 1988, it’s all rather surprising. Perhaps they were constrained by the wishes of the band, or maybe the money is still in the Warner piggy bank waiting to invest in a mega, super deluxe 25th anniversary edition of Out Of Time for 2016.
Either way, the only consolation for the R.E.M. fan who already owns the Tourfilm DVD and has bought the special edition of Green mentioned above, is that the modest nature of this set is matched by a modest price.
Disc 1: Original album:
Disc 2: Live in Greensboro, 1989:
US audiophile specialist Audio Fidelity, today release Bob Dylan‘s Greatest Hits Vol II on a double hybrid SACD set.
The 1971 collection was compiled by Dylan himself and includes a number of tracks unavailable anywhere else, including Watching The River Flow and When I Paint My Masterpiece, as well as familiar classics such as Lay Lady Lay and All Along The Watchtower.
This release was mastered by Steve Hoffman and is a limited, numbered set. The discs are hybrid which means they play on standard CD players as well as SACD players (for enhanced resolution).
Track listing:
Disc One
Disc Two
This enormous 17-disc Moody Blues set includes 11 CDs, three video DVDs and three audio-only DVDs with surround mixes of six of the albums. Let’s not forget the 120-page hardback book and various other items of memorabilia.
Scott Walker’s first five solo albums – Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3, Scott 4 and ‘Til The Band Comes In are collected in this new box set. Available on CD or vinyl, each album has been cut and mastered from the original tapes and presented with their original artwork.
Continue reading “Out This Week / 3 June 2013”
Alison Moyet‘s superb new album The Minutes, is today released on limited edition heavyweight RED vinyl by Demon Records.
This 180g record looks as good as it sounds, and comes complete with an inner sleeve that boasts full lyrics and additional photos. A download ‘card’ (actually more like a piece of paper) allows purchasers access to a digital version of the album.
Demon Records are a new vinyl-only imprint of Demon Music and in the last few months have been putting out LPs from a diverse selection of artists, all on heavyweight vinyl, with reproduction sleeves and download cards.
Recent releases have included the Average White Band’s breakthrough second studio album AWB, Leo Sayer’s 1976 transatlantic smash Endless Flight and heavy metal band Saxon’s 1991 album Solid Ball Of Rock. In addition to this have been various vinyl issues which form part of the Tabu Re-born reissue campaign.
Alison Moyet’s album The Minutes was released on CD and Digital at the beginning of May and is still in the UK top 75 album charts at the time of writing.
As was the case when all his other solo albums reached the same age, the twentieth anniversary of Sting‘s 1993 long-player Ten Summoner’s Tales passed with little fanfare back in March 2013. No deluxe editions were released to free up the many exclusive bonus tracks dotted around various CD singles issued at the time.
The album featured Fields Of Gold, If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, and Shape Of My Heart (memorably featured at the end of Luc Besson’s 1994 film, Leon) as well as a re-recorded version of It’s Probably Me, which in its original form was also used in a movie – this time Lethal Weapon 3 from 1992.
Although no deluxe sets were forthcoming, what did happen a few months back, was Universal quietly slipped out a vinyl reissue of the album as part of their Back To Black series. The remastered Ten Summoner’s Tales was pressed on 180g vinyl and the package also provides an MP3 download code. This new pressing includes Everybody Laughed But You which didn’t feature on the North America/Canada releases at the time.
The original LP had become a rather pricey used purchase, probably as a result of a fairly small pressing (relatively speaking) back in 1993.
Audiophile specialist Mobile Fidelity will release a hybrid SACD of Dire Straits‘ 1985 album Brothers In Arms on 26 July 2013.
The twentieth anniversary multi-channel SACD of the 30 million selling album is still widely available, and was included in our SACD feature back in January, however the mastering of that release is not to everyone’s taste, considered rather bright and compressed by some.
This new Mobile Fidelity issue will be stereo only and will almost certainly offer a more audiophile-pleasing mastering, although since the record was recorded digitally at the time, it’s debatable if the SACD format can bring the extra resolution and detail apparent when original analogue master tapes are available for a new SACD mastering.
It is also not clear at this stage whether the SACD will use the CD version of the record – which runs at just under eight minutes longer than the LP – or if they will go with the original vinyl version. The former is probably the most likely.
The Mobile Fidelity SACD is currently available for pre-order from Acoustic Sounds.
