Bananarama / 2CD+DVD Deluxe Edition Reissues reviewed

Bananarama reissue producer talks to SuperDeluxeEdition

Guest reviewer and pop enthusiast Anthony Kay takes a look at Edsel’s recent Bananarama 2CD+DVD reissues for SuperDeluxeEdition.


It’s impossible for me to avoid slipping into syrupy nostalgia when re-visiting these six albums by Bananarama…

They shaped my childhood. They have been played more times than I care to remember and I know them pretty much inside and out. It was my babysitter who first introduced me to them as a child, way back in the early 1980s. She bought records, read Smash Hits magazine and recorded The Official Gallup UK Top 40 every Sunday evening, so to me she seemed like the coolest person in the world at the time. It should happen that my babysitter would leave behind one of her magazines one night, and upon poring over the pages with great interest, I was to fall instantly in love with a trio of moody looking girls starring back at me; Keren, Sara and Siobhan, AKA Bananarama. I was particularly drawn to Siobhan, or “Shuv” as they nicknamed her, not least of all because my babysitter seemed to be styling herself in her image, and for the next 30 years or so, I would be quite the loyal fan. As you may well know, there have been numerous Bananarama reissues, compilations and pressings since their heyday, most of which regurgitate the same old material, so the news of yet more album reissues was initially met with mixed feelings.
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Japanese CD of the Day: Sting At The Movies / compilation from 1997

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Released only in Japan in 1997, Sting At The Movies (POCM-1553) is a collection of Sting songs that had featured in films over the years.

Actually, it’s not just Sting, because a few Police tracks do make an appearance, including the opener De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (used in The Last American Virgin) and the fantastic I Burn For You, from the soundtrack to the 1982 Dennis Potter film Brimstone and Treacle.
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FIRST PICTURES: David Bowie / The Next Day Extra / limited box set

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The Next Day in three dimensions

David Bowie‘s The Next Day was released this week as The Next Day Extra.

This new limited edition box set edition features the standard 14-track album on one CD and comes with a bonus CD containing two remixes and four previously unreleased tracks. This second disc also includes the four bonus tracks issued around the world as part of the original release. A DVD with the videos for Where Are We Now?, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), The Next Day and Valentine’s Day complete the set.

The package is a lift-off lid box with the three discs (dubbed ‘Tracks’, ‘Extra’ and ‘Light’) packaged in card sleeves. You also get three booklets.
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Frank Sinatra / “Duets” 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition

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It’s been 20 years since the Frank Sinatra Duets album which saw him collaborate with artists as diverse as Barbara Streisand, Tony Bennett, Bono and Gloria Estefan.

To commemorate this, Capitol/Universal Music have created a Super Deluxe Edition box set that features both the Duets album and its follow-up Duets II (which was originally released a year later in 1994).
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Rod Stewart / “Time” 2CD deluxe set

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Time, Rod Stewart‘s first ‘proper’ studio album for nearly two decades was issued back in May 2013 and was available as a standard 12-track version and a deluxe edition which came with three bonus songs.

Well, much like David Bowie‘s The Next Day Extra, there is now another deluxe edition, just in time for Christmas…
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They Might Be Giants / Elektra album 2CD reissues, including “Flood”

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Edsel Records are reissuing the four Elektra albums released by US alternative band They Might Be Giants, in December this year.

The band consists of John Flansburgh (guitar) and John Linnell (accordian and saxophone) and their first two albums – They Might Be Giants and Lincoln – are alternative classics from the mid/late eighties, featuring memorable tracks such as Don’t Let’s Start, (She Was A) Hotel Detective, Youth Culture Killed My Dog, Ana Ng, They’ll Need A Crane and The World’s Address.
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Howe Gelb / Little Sand Box

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Fire Records are to issue Little Sand Box, and eight-disc box set featuring the solo work of Giant Sand frontman Howe Gelb, in December.

The collection will feature all of the Tucson based musician’s six commercially released solo albums, including the acclaimed Sno Angel Like You from 2006. Each album will come with bonus tracks and two further discs complete the set; a selection of piano pieces entitled Some Piano and the Sno Angel Winging It live CD. Liner notes from Gelb himself are included within the booklet.
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The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One / lavish box

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Paramount Records were an American record label that ran for 15 years from around 1917 onwards. The company were a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company who (amongst other things) originally made wooden phonograph cabinets.

The firm released blues and jazz records by artists such as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Charley Patton, and Blind Lemon Jefferson specialising in so-called “race records” – that is music from African-American artists.
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Peter Gabriel releases “Courage”: a newly remixed “So” outtake

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“Courage” has been worked on this year

Peter Gabriel today releases (digitally) an outtake from his 1986 classic album So.

The track Courage first saw the light of day last year when it was featured on twelve-inch vinyl as part of the So 25th Anniversary box.

Peter Gabriel has worked on it some more since then, and it now features new overdubs by himself and long-term guitarist David Rhodes. It has been newly mixed by Tchad Blake. This ‘Radio Edit’ version forms a ‘digital bundle’ with ‘The Hexidecimal Mix’ courtesy of remixer and producer Steve Osbourne.
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The Animals / “The Mickie Most Years and More” / five CD box set

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Fifty years after the first release from The Animals comes The Mickie Most Years And More – a new five CD box set.

The box offers, for the first time on CD, the group’s first four American albums The Animals, The Animals on Tour, Animal Tracks and Animalization in their original mono versions. The fifth CD features the band’s first ever release – the I Just Wanna Make Love To You EP.
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Out This Week / 4 November 2013

Bob Dylan / The Complete Album Collection Volume One: 47 CD box

Bob Dylan / The Complete Album Collection, Vol One (47 disc box set)

The mammoth Dylan collection arrives today. 35 studio albums, six live albums and a special 2CD compilation of non-album tracks called Side Tracks. It’s available on a USB stick at higher resolution too.  Read more


David Bowie / "The Next Day": 2CD+DVD collectors edition

David Bowie / The Next Day Extra (2CD+DVD Box set)

The Next Day Extra from David Bowie comprises his acclaimed 2013 album, with a bonus CD featuring four new tracks, remixes and bonus songs from previous deluxe editions. A DVD offers all the videos. Read more


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Best of Keane: super deluxe unbox

 

This video shows an unboxing of the Super Deluxe Edition of The Best Of Keane.

This edition contains two CDs, a DVD and a 100-page hardcover ‘photo scrapbook’. The first disc is a 20-track hits collection while the second CD contains 17 B-sides. The DVD features an August 2013 acoustic gig, where the setlist was chosen by Keane fans.

The Best Of Keane is released on 11 November 2013

Super Deluxe Edition (2CD+DVD+Book)

 

The Eagles / Selected Works 1972-1999 / four-CD box set

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It seems that the appeal of a simple 12-track greatest hits album has long since waned. Record labels these days are offering more for less. Rhino’s format of choice in the lead up to Christmas 2013, is the 4CD set, compacted into a ‘fatbox’ CD package with a slipcase. They are releasing the Simply Red Songbook collection in exactly this format and here they do the same for The Eagles.
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Queen / “The Platinum Collection” special steelbook edition

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In Germany, Universal Music have just released Queen‘s Platinum Collection three-CD greatest hits set in the kind of limited edition packaging normally reserved for home cinema releases on DVD and blu-ray.
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Bryan Ferry / “Live In Lyon” deluxe edition blu-ray + CD review

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Eagle Rock released Bryan Ferry Live In Lyon last month – an audio/visual celebration of a 2011 concert from his Olympia tour.

The deluxe edition blu-ray and CD comes packaged as a rather beautiful book. The 200mm x 145mm hardback volume comes complete with textured cover and inset glossy photo of Mr Ferry, with the two discs residing within the inner front and rear covers. The 76 pages are elegantly designed, and devote generous space to the musicians, backing singers – and even the dancers – who joined Ferry on the stage in Lyon, with personal profiles on each. The rest of the book take us through Ferry’s 14 solo albums, from These Foolish Things in 1973 to The Jazz Age from last year. Photography is crisp and clear, and the words (largely by Hal Norman) provide a good retrospective overview of the last 30 years of solo output.
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Francoise Hardy / “Message Personnel”-collectors edition box set

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Francoise Hardy / Message Personnel Collectors’ Edition

Françoise Hardy the iconic figure in French fashion, music and style has her 1973 album Message Personnel reissued by Rhino France in November.

Hardy was 30 years old and pregnant with her first child at the time of the album’s release and had already enjoyed over a decade in the limelight thanks to the success of songs such as 1962’s Tous les garçons et les filles – a track which would be covered by many artists over the years, including the Eurythmics (it featured on the 12″ version of their 1985 single It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)).
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Simply Red / Songbook 1985-2010

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Rhino will release Song Book 1985-2010 in November, a four-disc set that celebrates 25 years of Simply Red. Each of the first three CDs represents a decade: the 80’s 90’s and 00’s, with the fourth disc being re-recordings of some previous hits, oddities and rarities.
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John Mellencamp: 1978-2012 box

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Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) will issue John Mellencamp 1978-2012, a 19 disc box set in December 2013.

This is effectively the entire studio catalogue, and includes all the American singer-songwriter’s albums recorded as John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp and John Mellencamp for various record labels.
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Fleetwood Mac / Boston

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3CD set in round packaging and… beer mats!

We’re liking this round packaging for the forthcoming Fleetwood Mac Boston release. All the details and track listings can be found at this post, but in short it’s a 3CD set capturing all three nights in February 1970 when the then blues band played the Boston Tea Party venue.

Boston is out on 11 November 2013.