Holding the Music in Your Hands ®
UK music retailer HMV is closing another of its London stores. The shop in Islington will shut for business on 25 January 2014. This follows the news that the 150 Oxford Street store will soon become a Sports Direct.
Apart from closing shops, launching a rather poor (non-transactional) website and talking about ‘digital strategy’ it’s hard to understand what new owners Hilco are actually DOING.
Continue reading “Flagging HMV closes more stores”
Hot Shot Records will reissue John Barry‘s soundtrack to Peter Yates’ 1977 film The Deep in February 2014.
As with many of his James Bond soundtracks, Barry collaborated with a high profile singer as part of this project and in this instance he and Donna Summer created the song Deep Down Inside (Theme From The Deep). The track was a top five UK hit as well as being nominated for a Golden Globe.
Continue reading “John Barry / The Deep soundtrack”
It’s that time of the month! SDE has been shopping for used records, largely in charity or thrift stores. Here’s what we’ve found…
One of A-ha‘s very best singles, The Living Daylights is unfortunately associated with a rather poor James Bond film. This is a German gatefold seven-inch with die-cut ‘bullet holes’ on the front spelling out the name of the track. The band re-recorded the song for their third album Stay On These Roads (having been rather miffed with co-producer and Bond stalwart John Barry), so this single version is found only here and various compilations. The instrumental B-side is unreleased on CD.
The US twelve-inch of the Ashford & Simpson classic. This Capitol Record’s release contains the ‘Special Club Mix’ of Solid which clocks in at 6:12 and is remixed by Francois Kevorkian. A 5:15 ‘Dub Mix’ is on the B-side.
Continue reading “Second Hand News / Xmas 2013”
Therapy? the alt-metal band from Northern Ireland see two of their best known albums reissued in March 2014.
The Mercury Music Prize nominated Troublegum from 1994 and Infernal Love, the follow-up from 1995, are both issued as multi-disc deluxe editions. The two albums spawned a number of UK top 30 singles in what was the band’s most commercially successful period.
Continue reading “Therapy? Deluxe Editions”
Originally listed on Amazon for around £24, David Bowie‘s The Next Day Extra (a 2CD+DVD deluxe version of the album) has been dropping slowly in price over the last month or two Continue reading “DEAL OF THE DAY: David Bowie / The Next Day Extra 2CD+DVD”
Apple take The Beatles’ legacy very seriously. This has been illustrated recently by the fact that they are refusing to allow the reverb-drenched and fake stereo Capitol versions of some songs appear on the new U.S. Albums box set despite the fact that they are historically accurate.
However, Apple didn’t always rule the Beatles’ domain with an iron fist and EMI have allowed some rather dubious releases into the shops over the years and decades.
Here’s our favourite five Beatles releases that shouldn’t have happened:
Continue reading “Top 5: Botched Beatles releases”
A week before Christmas Demon Music Group released The Vinyl Collection, their Jesus And Mary Chain vinyl box.
In total, this hefty set contains nine individual albums consisting of the six studio long players and three compilations which can only be found on vinyl within this box (one is totally exclusive). Three double LPs means 12 heavyweight vinyl records in total.
Continue reading “FIRST PICTURES: The Jesus And Mary Chain / The Vinyl Collection”
Mike Oldfield will release Man On The Rocks, his first album of new material in over five years, early in 2014.
The new record was produced by Stephen Lipson and is described as a ‘song-based’ album. Sessions took place in The Bahamas during 2013.
Continue reading “Mike Oldfield / Man On The Rocks”
Demon Music Group will issue a new Belinda Carlisle ‘best of’ in March 2014.
The Collection will be a CD+DVD combo, with disc one gathering up all the ex Go-Go’s biggest hits and offers up a new track, Goodbye Just Go.
Continue reading “Belinda Carlisle / The Collection”
Here is a brief look at some of the Hi-Res releases issued in late December 2013 and January 2014. As you will see, there is a solid selection of ‘High Fidelity Pure Audio’ new releases. For most of these audio-only blu-ray discs it’s probably best to assume they will contain just the tracks from the album without any bonus material, although there is the odd exception (Never Mind The Bollocks does contain bonus material). The Pure Audio discs are largely unavailable in the US and Canada at the time of writing.
The Japanese SHM-SACDs are very expensive but beautifully put together with exquisite vinyl replica packaging that sits within an outer slipcase (see image above). Unlike the Blu-ray discs these are proper limited editions and should at least hold their value. Worth noting that they are not hybrid so they will only play on SACD players.
Let It Bleed / The Rolling Stones
Issued as a ‘Pure Audio’ blu-ray audio
John Lennon / Imagine
Issued as a ‘Pure Audio’ blu-ray audio
Between August 1999 and April 2000 EMI-Toshiba Japan issued all of Paul McCartney‘s post Beatles albums as vinyl replica mini-LP CDs. These started with McCartney from 1970 and ended with 1986’s Press To Play. Why Flowers In The Dirt, Off The Ground and Flaming Pie were excluded is anyone’s guess.
These are extremely high quality, in terms of the packaging, with VERY thick card for the jackets and appropriate finishes for the front covers. Inner sleeves are reproduced, as are posters and other elements from the original vinyl. The Wings Over America set is probably the most desirable because it is the only place you’ll find the record as a three CD set, with the track listing echoing the three-LP release.
Continue reading “Japanese CD of the Day: Paul McCartney / Tug of War”
The Who‘s Quadrophenia Super Deluxe Edition (technically the “Director’s Cut”) came out in Autumn 2011, a period of time which it could be argued was the first season of the really big Super Deluxe Edition box set. Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were both released as ‘Immersion’ boxes around the same time, and U2‘s Achtung Baby and The Rolling Stones‘ Some Girls also got the big box treatment.
Continue reading “DEAL OF THE DAY: The Who / Quadrophenia Super Deluxe Edition”
As most music collectors will attest, there is nothing more annoying than albums by the same artist being reissued in a hodge-podge of styles, formats and packaging. Witness EMI’s approach to the Duran Duran catalogue a few years back. A true “pick ‘n’ mix” of re-releases included a casebound book (Rio), lift-off lid boxes (Duran Duran, Notorious) and ‘fatbox’ jewel case (Arcadia’s So Red The Rose). Let’s face it, that’s never going to look good on your shelf.
So credit to Universal for sticking with the same book format for the Super Deluxe Edition of The Velvet Underground‘s White Light/White Heat that was used for last year’s Velvet Underground & Nico SDE. If nothing else it ticks the OCD box, because they do slot nicely together on the shelf and the fonts on the spine match (very important).
Continue reading “The Velvet Underground: White Light / White Heat super deluxe”
66 Bruce Springsteen songs for £12?! What’s not to like. Tracks is his excellent box set from 1998 and illustrates that there are few artists that can match Springsteen when it comes to the quality of previously unreleased material.
Although Rhino are doing a great job with repackaging their box sets and can match (and often beat) Sony’s pricing, they can’t beat the presentation – this rejigged bookpack is very stylish and has a great booklet in the middle, full of all the detail you could want.
Tears For Fears‘ 1983 album The Hurting will be issued as a High-Fidelity Pure Audio blu-ray on 20 January 2014.
The album received the deluxe treatment back in October when it was issued as a 3CD+DVD box set. SDE Editor Paul Sinclair helped to compile the bonus tracks and remixes included on that special edition but unfortunately none of them appear to have been included in this Pure Audio edition which, according to Universal’s own website contains just the 10-tracks from the original album.
Continue reading “Tears For Fears / “The Hurting” blu-ray audio on the way”
Any Suede fans who recently missed out on the recent (now sold out) Vinyl Collection box set might be pleased to hear that one of its main attractions – the vinyl debut of their sublime 1997 Sci-Fi Lullabies B-sides collection – will be available separately early next year.
Continue reading “Suede / “Sci-Fi Lullabies” 3LP vinyl”
Congratulations go to SuperDeluxeEdition reader TREVOR BAKER who has been randomly selected as the winner of our 9-disc High Fidelity Pure Audio bundle. Trevor wins the following titles:
The following three runners-up each win a copy of the HFPA 15-track demo disc: Jeff Zinger, John Medina and Nigel Croft.
All the winners will be informed via email and these will be shipped after the Christmas break. Congratulations to those who were lucky and many thanks to everyone who entered and to Universal Music for supplying the prizes.
The ZTT 30th Anniversary releases will include a special twelve-inch of Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s classic Relax featuring a mix new to vinyl.
This limited pressing of what is one of the biggest-selling twelve-inch singles of all time, has a new spined sleeve, in a new colour scheme and an inner sleeve featuring photography by John Stoddart. It will feature “Relax (Sex Mix Edition 3)” on the A-side.
Continue reading “Frankie Goes To Hollywood / Relax (Sex Mix) 2014 twelve-inch vinyl”
Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band’s 1986 release Live 1975/85 is the selection in our semi-regular feature Japanese CD of the Day.
The 40-track collection was originally released as a three-CD (and three-cassette) set in a lift-off lid box. Later issues of the CD version reverted to a ‘fatbox’ CD jewel case. Due to the format’s limited running time, the original vinyl version was a five-LP offering and it’s that edition that is replicated in detail with this Japanese mini-LP CD (MHCP-729).
Continue reading “Japanese CD of the Day: Bruce Springsteen Live/1975-85”
Hot on the heels of Demon Music’s rather great Leo Sayer collection Just A Box, comes a similarly styled Chas & Dave anthology called The Rockney Box 1981-1991.
For those unfamiliar with the pop-rock duo, Charles Nicholas “Chas” Hodges and David Victor “Dave” Peacock were exponents of music which combined the pub singalong, music-hall humour, boogie-woogie piano rock ‘n’ roll – a combination that was dubbed ‘rockney’.
Continue reading “Chas & Dave / The Rockney Box 1981-1991 / 9-disc set”
