Roger Taylor will issue a massive 13-disc box setin November that celebrates his 35 years of activity outside of his ‘day job’ in Queen.
The Lot features all Taylor’s solo albums and his material as front man for the group The Cross. Four bonus CDs of solo / The Cross single remixes, edits and B-sides are included, as is an exclusive box set version of his new album Fun On Earth. A DVD of videos completes the set, which comes packaged in a hard case slipcase with a book which holds all the discs.
Alexander O’Neal is the first Tabu box out in November
Demon Music will release an album collection box set from Alexander O’Neal in November 2013. This isthe first of two artist specific Anthology box sets (The S.O.S. Band is due in March next year) with a multi-artist larger Tabu box also due in Spring 2013.
Since the Anthology boxes were first announced way back in February, there has been some confusion over the content. Would the boxes simply hold a set of the expanded reissues that were released individually during the year, or could we expect a straightforward set of album-only reissues in card sleeves (like those Original Album Series collections)? Continue reading “Tabu Anthology boxes offer bonus content and remastered sound”
Tears For Fears 1983 debut album The Hurting is reissued this week as a two-CD deluxe edition and a 4-disc box set. Earlier this year we put some questions to Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith about the making of the album. Here’s what they had to say…
SuperDeluxeEdition: Graduate had a very different sound to Tears For Fears and The Hurting – were you keen to move on and doing something more ‘new wave’?
Curt Smith: We knew we didn’t want to be in a band anymore.
Roland Orzabal: Yes. We were acutely aware of the new electronic movement. I remember listening to the Radio One chart run down with Curt, and when they announced that Tubeway Army was number one with Are Friends Electric?, we both looked at each other and knew we had to change. That change didn’t really occur until a lot later: once we’d left Graduate and became a duo; the new direction was obvious. Continue reading “Tears For Fears on “The Hurting””
Next week sees the long anticipated deluxe reissues of Bananarama‘s first six albums. The British girl band has most of their success in the 1980s, and four out of the six reissues were released in that decade. Each album is being released as a 2CD+DVD set and full track listings and details can be found here.
Last month we spoke with Tom Parker who produced this reissue series from Edsel Records, to find out more about the challenges of putting these releases together.
SuperDeluxeEdition: How did the project come about?
Tom Parker: My background with reissues if you like, is that I was a fan of, and grew up with, PWL and wider pop music generally. The first thing I ever did was I got in touch with PWL in the mid-nineties. I’ve always been interested in the visual side of things and I remember sending off ideas for sleeve designs. I got in touch with Pete [Waterman] and interviewed him for a long lost Kylie fanzine, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. Continue reading “Bananarama reissue producer talks to SuperDeluxeEdition”
Congratulations go to Tom Nagle, Ken Marshall, Graeme “G Man” Atkinson, Adrian Barrett and Paul Johnston, who have all been randomly selected as WINNERS of the ZTT Organization of Pop CD and T-shirt bundles. You should all be receiving an email from us shortly.
Thanks to everybody who took the time to enter and to ZTT Records and Razor & Tie in the USA for supplying these great prizes.
Full track listings for Edsel’s second wave of Everything But The Girl reissues are now available, and as promised they a large amount of bonus material including unreleased demos, live tracks and remixes.
The Suede Vinyl Collection features 7 albums and 11LPs
Suede‘s 11LP Vinyl Collection box set is released today, and we can bring you some exclusive photos of the box.
All of the band’s studio albums are presented on vinyl, in a sturdy white outer box with the classic suede logo spot varnished with album artwork inset.
This collection includes two gatefold LPs – Dog Man Star and Bloodsports – although only the former is actually a double album. Head Music is another double, while the B-side compilation Sci-Fi Lullabies is spread over 3LPs. All the albums are on 180g heavyweight vinyl, with the exception of Bloodsports which is pressed on what you might call ‘medium weight’ 140g. The music uses the 2011 remastering with adjustments made for vinyl. This is true for all the records except for Bloodsports, which hasn’t been remastered – unsurprising since the album is a little over six months old.
Artwork reproduction is surprisingly good. Sci-Fi Lullabies the star of the show with the John Kippin cover photo looking pin sharp, with crisp text throughout. A New Morning is the runt of the litter with the already horrible cover, looking rather soft with a hint of pixelation around the typography. I wouldn’t have blamed the band for changing the cover to this album, but they’ve stuck with the photo of a CD!
In addition to the records, this set comes with an excellent large format 34-page booklet. Thankfully, it’s not full of arty photos, rather exactly the content you might hope for, which is the band talking through every album track-by-track. These are based on what appear to be new interviews with journalist Pete Paphides (Bernard Butler takes part for the first two records).
Only 1500 of these (numbered) sets have been produced, and although one imagines the albums will be made available individually at some point in the future, until then, this is the only way to buy remastered Suede on vinyl.
Any box set north of £100 should be considered a significant investment, but this collection is undoubtedly worth it for Suede, Dog Man Star, ComingUp, Sci-Fi Lullabies and Bloodsports, alone. Place your order while you still can.
Formel Eins was a pop music show that aired in Germany in the 1980s
Fans of the SoEighties (So80s) compilations from German DJs and pop music enthusiasts Blank & Jones, may be interested to learn that a new three-CD collection has just been issued called Formel Eins.
Formel Eins [translation: Formula One] was a popular music show – the German version of the UK’s Top Of The Pops – and it ran for seven years between 1983 and 1990. Much like the British pop programme, different presenters came and went and so too did different theme tunes (all of which are included here). Continue reading “Blank & Jones / So80s: Formel Eins”
Tears For Fears‘ 1983 classic finally gets the treatment it deserves – B-sides, remixes, alternates, radio sessions, live tracks and a full concert on DVD, all feature in this new four-disc box set of The Hurting.
Van Morrison / Moondance (4CD+Blu-ray Audio)
This new five-disc set includes a newly remastered version of Van Morrison‘s 1970 solo album, and three further CDs with multiple takes of album tracks. A Blu-ray Audio disc completes the package, containing a surround sound version.
Suede / The Vinyl Collection (Vinyl box set)
Limited to 1500 sets, this new Suede 11LP box set collects all the studio albums and sees the vinyl debut of astonishingly good 1997 B-side compilation, Sci-Fi Lullabies and the astonishingly dull A New Morning. Continue reading “Out This Week / 21 October 2013”
A new box set featuring the music of California band Sparks is released next week and has has been personally curated by Ron and Russell Mael.
New Music For Amnesiacs: The Ultimate Collection is a limited edition four CD collection presented within a a hardbound book, and comes with a selection of replica memorabilia, including posters, tickets, lanyards, photos and button badges. The 64-page book includes hundreds of photos from Ron and Russell’s personal archives, and features a foreword by Morrissey. Continue reading “Sparks / New Music For Amnesiacs: The Ultimate Collection box set”
The Beatles’On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2 will be issued in a luxury triple vinyl package, as well as the double CD version, and from the new image above, it looks to be a well designed collection.
A six-panel gatefold sleeve provides acres of space for text and images, and the three inner sleeves are adorned with evocative black and white photography. The newly colourised cover shot is also sure to look superb on the large 12-inch format.
The original Live at the BBC set has also been remastered and will be issued on triple-vinyl at the same time.
On Air Live at the BBC Volume 2 is released on 11 November 2013.
VINYL version (3LP): On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2
It’s been over seven months since Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith – or Tears For Fears, to give them their collective name – hinted at a ‘big’ year to come in 2013. We knew that this big year would involve their 1983 debut album The Hurting, since their announcement came exactly on the 30th anniversary of the record’s release. A Hurting themed website, was the other giveaway.
This blog exclusively announced that The Hurting reissue was going to be rather special, at the beginning of August. A four-disc box set, no less. It would include unreleased-on-CD early singles, B-sides, alternative versions and remixes. An entire disc would be dedicated to previously unissued BBC radio sessions. A DVD debut for the 1983 concert film, In My Mind’s Eye, would be the icing on this particular new wave 30th birthday cake.
The box set looks and feels fantastic. It comes with a replica of the 1983 tour programme and a 32-page booklet featuring rare archive photography and a 3,000 word essay (by SDE editor, Paul Sinclair), that includes new commentary on the making of the album from Curt and Roland.
The Hurting 3CD+DVD box set is released on Monday 21 October.
Edsel Records’ Bananarama reissues are a week and a half away, so here’s a look at the casebound book packaging for all six albums. Each set consists of 2CDs and a DVD. Next week will will be posting an interview with Tom Parker who put these sets together.
If you wish to view the full track listing, you can view this post.
Once ailing UK music retailer HMV have this week done something rather brave – they’ve opened up a brand new store in London’s Oxford Street.
The exact site is 363 Oxford Street, where the record chain previously had a shop between 1921 and 2000, before moving across the road to new premises. That relocated branch closed earlier this year after HMV went into liquidation.
In a turnaround in fortunes, HMV was bought out for an estimated £50 million in April by Hilco (who already own HMV in Canada). The chief executive and HMV chairman Paul McGowan recently told the NME that “HMV [had] lost its mojo” and that “The stores had stopped being fun places to go into” but went on to explain how they will change for the better by putting more emphasis on increasing stock levels for a wider number of artists, relaunching the website and increasing in-store gigs. Continue reading “Jury out on new HMV in Oxford St”
The ZTT Records 30th Anniversary compilation The Organization of Pop(New York Edition) is released in the US today.
The two-CD celebration takes in a generous selection of classic hits and mixes including Grace Jones‘ Slave To The Rhythm, the never-really-been-bettered New York Mix of Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s Relax, and Moments in Love (Beaten) from The Art Of Noise.
