Holding the Music in Your Hands ®
Vol. 12B: 1972 brings the acclaimed Complete Motown Singles series to an end. This five-CD set (plus seven-inch vinyl within the front cover) covers Motown’s output from the last half of 1972 and contains 100 remastered tracks.
The music is only half the story, because anyone who has bought any of these sets will tell you how brilliant the packaging is, as well as the quality of the words and pictures within.
Continue reading “DEAL OF THE DAY: Complete Motown Singles Vol. 12B: 1972”
Erdal Kizilcay is a Turkish born multi-instrumentalist who spent over ten years collaborating with David Bowie on a number albums including 1987’s Never Let Me Down, 1993’s The Buddha of Suburbia and 1995’s Outside. He also played bass guitar in two consecutive world tours: The Glass Spider Tour of 1987 and 1990’s Sound + Vision Tour.
In celebration of the excessive, theatrical, some would say overblown Glass Spider Tour, a Glass Spider Band has emerged featuring two original members; Erdal himself and keyboard player Richard Cottle. They are joined by new personnel and will be recreating Bowie’s greatest hits on 17 December 2013 at the Under The Bridge venue in London. We caught up with Erdal a few weeks ago to talked to him about working with David Bowie and touring with him in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
SuperDeluxeEdition: How did this new Glass Spider show come about?
Erdal Kizilcay: The company Bloomberg wanted to do a Bowie thing. Me and Richard Cottle [are involved] – he also played on that record. I did the whole album, the Never Let Me Down album. About 80% of that album is me. Bloomberg wanted to do a Bowie thing with Tom Wilcox – he’s organising this Glass Spider concert in December and he’s curator of the ICA. Next week we’re also doing Iggyfest at the ICA, since I also did the Iggy Pop album Blah Blah Blah.
SDE: Was that the first time you worked with David, on the Blah Blah Blah album?
EK: Absolutely, yes…. [pause] sorry no! We’re talking about 25 years ago, even more actually. I was called in to Montreux, to Mountain Studio to help with his demos for the Let’s Dance album. Nile Rogers was there and they needed a bass player, and I had a name for myself here in Switzerland, so they called me in.
Continue reading “Bowie collaborator Erdal Kizilcay on “Glass Spider” and “Never Let Me Down””
This week sees the vinyl release of Dick’s Picks Volume 5, the fifth live album in the Dick’s Picks series of releases by the Grateful Dead.
This set features a full concert, recorded on 26 December 1979 at the Oakland Auditorium Arena in Oakland, California. It was originally issued on CD back in 1996.
Continue reading “Grateful Dead / Dicks Picks Vol. 5 / 5LP limited vinyl box set”
We have some pictures of this Eagles vinyl box coming soon, but Rhino have done an excellent job with the packaging with gold foil blocking, textured sleeves, posters included and other details meticulously recreated. The six-LP set is currently £66 on Amazon UK (having come down from over three figures) which is significantly cheaper than the US price of $140 which equates to about £85.
In February 2014 Universal Music will release Rainbow: The Singles Box Set 1975-1986.
This set will feature 19 CDs in replica single sleeves, housed in a rigid box with lift-off lid. All the original single mixes have been remastered for the box which also comes with a 32-page booklet featuring detailed annotations on each release as well as sleeve notes by Andy Francis, an authority on the band. Full track listing can be found below.
Continue reading “Rainbow / The Singles Box 1975-1986 / 19CD set”
Paul Rymer guest reviews the Japan-only 2CD 30th Anniversary Edition of Ryuichi Sakamoto‘s soundtrack to Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence as well as the companion release Coda.
Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983) is one of those unusual films that has gained a greater reputation over time; it is the film debut of Takeshi Kitano, who later went on to become an award winning director and writer; Jack Celliers is one of David Bowie‘s best regarded acting roles, and the soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also plays a leading role in the film) has lived on beyond the silver screen, most recently forming part of Anne Dudley’s Rhythm Of A Decade performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra at London’s South Bank Centre.
Continue reading “Ryuichi Sakamoto / “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence” 2CD deluxe”
With this year’s obsession with David Bowie‘s The Next Day you’d think he hadn’t produced any decent work since 1983’s Let’s Dance.
The reality is that between 1993 and 2003 Bowie produced seven studio albums (counting Buddha of Surburbia) of which three are at least as good as (if not better) than The Next Day.
Continue reading “DEAL OF THE DAY: Bowie Box (10CD)”
Universal/Polydor’s Eric Clapton Give Me Strength: The ’74/’75 Recordings is released today.
This is a generous six-disc set, packaged in a landscape book (very similar to last year’s Velvet Underground & Nico super deluxe edition). The 60-page volume is well-laid out with lots of great period photography and includes an essay by John Lynskey on this period in Clapton’s career.
Continue reading “FIRST PICTURES: Eric Clapton: Give Me Strength 1974-75 Recordings”
It’s quite hard to determine the point of releasing Bob Dylan‘s Complete Album Collection, Vol. One on a USB stick, housed in a (non-working) harmonica.
Although it was originally announced as containing better-than-CD quality audio, Sony ended up updating their marketing material and the digital files on here are actually 16bit /44.1kHz FLAC format, which is identical quality to what’s on the CD version. In other words the ‘carrot’ of hi-res Bob Dylan disappeared.
If you’re interested in the mechanics of how the USB stick works, the process is that you plug it into your computer and (for Mac owners) you navigate to the drive called “DYLAN” and double click on a file called ‘MacStart’. That launches the interface which looks like this:
Continue reading “Bob Dylan / The Complete Album Collection, Vol. One Harmonica USB”
The death of Lou Reed makes the reissue of The Velvet Underground‘s second album White Light / White Heat all the more poignant. This Super Deluxe Edition echoes the packaging of last year’s Velvet Underground & Nico set although it only contains half the number of CDs (three). 
Expanded versions of 461 Ocean Boulevard, There’s One In Every Crowd and E.C. Was Here (all with previously unreleased material), plus a disc of Freddie King sessions AND a blu-ray audio with hi-res surround sound versions (including an unreleased Elliot Scheiner 5.1 of 461 Ocean Boulevard) make this set an absolute feast for Eric Clapton fans.
This massive box is effectively the entire studio catalogue of John Mellencamp – 223 tracks over 35 years. Includes bonus offerings with many of the albums.
Continue reading “Out This Week / 9 December 2013”
This vinyl box collects all of Dire Straits‘ albums on heavyweight 180g vinyl. Brothers In Arms and On Every Street are double LPs meaning this is an eight-LP set.
At £76 on Amazon UK at the time of writing, that’s under a tenner per vinyl which seems like a pretty good deal. Bernie Grundman has mastered the first four titles from analogue masters, with lacquers cut by Grundman and Chris Bellman.
Universal Music will reissue Ocean Colour Scene’s 1997 album Marchin’ Already as a four-disc box set in February 2014, as well as re-releasing a two-CD deluxe edition of their debut a few weeks earlier
For the Marchin’ Already box (which will also be issued as a two-CD deluxe), the original album takes up the first disc and is joined by a second CD of B-sides, radio sessions and previously unreleased demos. A further audio disc offers up a hour of live performance capturing the band’s gig at the Manchester Apollo on 22 February 1998 and a DVD – Travellers Tunes: Live at Stirling Castle (originally a VHS release in ’98) – completes the set.
Continue reading “Ocean Colour Scene / “Marchin’ Already” 3CD+DVD box set”
Nilsson‘s RCA Album Collection box set is undoubtedly one of the boxes of the year and was superb value even when not discounted.
With this set you can enjoy all his RCA albums with bonus material, plus nearly 30 previously unreleased bonus tracks many of which are to be found on three unique ‘sessions’ CDs which form part of this offering. 17 CDs in total.
Continue reading “DEAL OF THE DAY: Nilsson / The RCA Albums Collection box set”
Scritti Politti‘s well received 2006 album White Bread Black Beer is our Japanese CD of the Day.
This edition comes with a bonus DVD. It’s effectively a 15-minute EPK (Electronic Press Kit) but is really rather interesting as we follow Green Gartside around Paris as he buys a guitar from a music shop, and hangs out in local cafes while talking about his past (“success felt like failure”) and his approach to this new record (yet to be followed up!).
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American musician and singer-songwriter Mark Lanegan’s restless musical journey has taken him from being frontman of the Screaming Trees, to collaborating with Kurt Cobain, to being a member of the Queens of the Stone Age. As well as this, during the last 20 or so years he’s released a large amount of solo material through the Sub Pop and Beggars Banquet labels.
Light In The Attic (responsible for Lee Hazlewood’s recent deluxe box) are shining a spotlight (no pun intended) on Lanegan’s work with the release of Has God Seen My Shadow? An Anthology 1989-2011. The collection gathers up solo material for Sub Pop, Beggars and more, and includes 12 unreleased tracks.
Continue reading “Mark Lanegan / “Has God Seen My Shadow: An Anthology 1989-2011”
Dan Hartman‘s 1979 album Relight My Fire will be reissued as an expanded edition in January 2014 by Hot Shot Records/BBR.
The record was only six tracks long when originally released, but it does, of course, include the disco classic title track, a song which Take That (with the help of Lulu) took to number one in the UK charts in 1993 (Hartman died the following year aged only 43).
Continue reading “Dan Hartman / “Relight My Fire” expanded edition”
Update 09:00 7/12/13 – Amazon seem to have some more in stock!
Update 18:00 6/12/13 – As some have mentioned in the comments, this is now unavailable again, so clearly sold out at the cheap price. If you were quick off the mark you may have got lucky!
Level 42‘s Running In The Family Super Deluxe Edition was one of the 25th anniversary reissues back in October 2012.
The four disc box set (3CDs and a DVD) went out of print VERY quickly, and many were caught out and missing out on the opportunity to own this super deluxe set. Since that time it has be very hard to find for anything like a reasonable price, regularly being sold for well over £100.
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Morrissey‘s third solo album, 1992’s Your Arsenal will be reissued on 25 February 2014 by Parlophone Records.
The Mick Ronson produced long player was a return to form following the disappointing Kill Uncle and featured five singles including We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful and You’re The One For Me, Fatty.
This reissue is being branded the ‘Definitive Master’ and is a new remastering of the album. The CD will include a bonus DVD, featuring a previously unreleased live concert recorded at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on 31 October 1991, with the band that would record Your Arsenal.
Continue reading “Morrissey / “Your Arsenal”: ‘Definitive Master’ CD+DVD reissue”
Last year Sony/Legacy snuck out a small number of Bob Dylan 50th Anniversary box sets to prevent the recordings from entering the public domain – the so called ‘use it or lose it’ strategy in terms of copyright. Only 100 of these four-CD sets were said to have been made available to the public through independent stores in Europe.
It seems they the label have deployed the same strategy in 2013 but are going the vinyl route this time around. The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963 is a vinyl box this time, a six-LP set in fact, which features a mixture of previously unreleased studio and live recordings from 1963 (see full track listings below).
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We looked a this 15-CD Paul Simon Complete Albums Collection box when it was released back in October and concluded that despite the very nice packaging and the unarguably great music within, at around £90 you should be looking to get a bit more for your money.
Well the good news is that this is now available on Amazon UK for only £57 which suddenly makes this solo career-spanning set a much more attractive buy. It’s our deal of the day!
