CD 2 features Alexander O’Neal’s ‘Fake’, Robbie Neville’s ‘C’est La Vie’ (co-produced by Alex Sadkin) and Timbuk 3’s memorable ‘The Future’s So Bright,I Gotta Wear Shades’. A shout out for Westworld’s ‘Sonic Boom Boy’ and The Proclaimers’ ‘Letter From America’.
The last disc includes some great songs that were minor hits (in the UK) for major artists, including Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Tunnel of Love’ and Billy Idol’s ‘Sweet Sixteen’, alongside tracks that were never off the radio in Britain at the time, including Simply Red’s ‘The Right Thing’, Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Sweet Little Mystery’ and Johnny Hates Jazz’s ‘I Don’t Want To Be A Hero’. Good to see Wax’s ‘Bridge to Your Heart’ included and ABC’s ‘The Night You Murdered Love’ both included.
NOW Yearbook 1987 – Extra will be released on 11 October 2024.
Live album with 4 new studio tracks • Concert film in cinemas in Oct • SDE-exclusive blu-ray•Quick pre-order link
Tears For Fears have announced their first-ever, globally issued, official live album, Songs For A Nervous Planet. The album includes four brand-new studio tracks, including new single ‘The Girl That I Call Home’.
SDE, in collaboration with the band and Concord Records is bringing you an exclusive blu-ray audio of the new album which features a generous selection of Steven Wilson mixes including Dolby Atmos and 5.1 Surround Sound mixes.
The album features live highlights from the band’s 2022 TheTipping Point album as well as a generous trip through their greatest hits including ‘Mad World’, ‘Shout’, ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, ‘Pale Shelter’, ‘Head Over Heels’, ‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’, ‘Woman in Chains’, ‘Change’ and many more.
“I think a lot of people don’t know that we are a good live band, actually! They see a duo, and they think it’s going to be two people with a couple of keyboards and a bunch of backing tapes, and that’ll be it. Over the years, we’ve vastly improved since our heyday back in the Eighties.”
Curt Smith
Along with the new album, the band have announced a concert film shot and recorded at the scenic FirstBank Amphitheater at Graystone Quarry in Franklin, TN, during their sold-out global Tipping Point Tour Part 2. Tears For Fears Live (A Tipping Point Film) will be premiering in over 1,100 cinemas worldwide on 24th and 26th October 2024 (tickets go on sale Thursday, 19 September).
New concert film coming to cinemas for a limited run in October
Songs For A Nervous Planet is available to pre-order on CD and vinyl formats and as an SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio which will feature all 22 tracks (4 studio and 18 live) in the following audio streams:
Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos mix (48/24)
Steven Wilson DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix (live tracks 96/24 – studio tracks 48/24)
Stereo ‘fold down‘ version of the Steven Wilson mix (live tracks 96/24 – studio tracks 48/24)
Standard Stereo Mix (48/24)
The fold down stereo is essentially the same as the band’s approved stereo mix, but being derived from the surround mix it has a different and less compressed mastering. Additionally, the blu-ray features exclusive instrumentals of the four new studio songs:
Say Goodbye To Mum And Dad – Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix
The Girl That I Call Home – Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix
Emily Said – Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix
Astronaut – Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix
This Songs For A Nervous Planet blu-ray is #28 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series and will released on 25 October 2024. It will be packaged similarly to previous editions and ships with a free, collectible SDE Surround Series slipcase.
Do not miss out. This product is a limited edition and has a 10 day pre-order window, which closes on 21 September 2024. Availability cannot be guaranteed after that date. The blu-ray is available only via the SDE shop. You can pre-order via this link or by using the buttons below. A specially-priced blu-ray + 2LP vinyl also available.
Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album is being reissued across a number of formats next month.
What was called Queen now becomes Queen I for this campaign. It features the singles ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ and ‘Liar’. Neither were hits but nevertheless the album eventually achieved Gold sales in the UK and in the USA.
All formats of this album reissue see the album remixed in stereo for the first time and they all include the non-album track ‘Mad The Swine‘ (a bonus track on the 1991 Hollywood Records CD reissue) placed into the album as track 4, which is, apparently, what Queen originally wanted. It was left off at the time over disagreements with producer Roy Thomas Baker.
This is not just a remaster, this is a brand new 2024 rebuild of the entire Queen debut album, which, with the benefit of hindsight, we have re-titled QUEEN I.”
Brian May
May offers some more explanation of the goals of the remix: “All the performances are exactly as they originally appeared in 1973, but every instrument has been revisited to produce the ‘live’ ambient sounds we would have liked to use originally. The result is Queen as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology – a first“.
Queen I box set. Click image to enlarge.
The Collector’s Edition box set of Queen I is a 6CD+LP package and offers De Lane Lea Demos, previously released in 2011, but newly mixed here for the first time. There’s also a CD featuring unreleased Queen Isession out-take music and dialogue; a CD of instrumental and backing track versions of the album; a live CD featuring live performances of songs from this album (some previously unreleased); and finally, a disc comprised of Queen I tracks that were recorded for BBC Radio One.
The box set comes with a 108-page 12-inch hardback book, and includes a poster and four photo prints. There are also 2CD and single LP editions, with the former offering a bonus disc of sessions (the same as CD3 in the box). A single CD version is also available.
Queen I will be released on 25 October 2024, via EMI. Other formats will be added below, as links come through.
3CD clamshell box with a wealth of unreleased material
Cherry Red are to release The Definitive Anthology 1977-1981 a new 3CD set that offers released and unreleased recordings from the brief time in the spotlight enjoyed by Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club.
Best known for his association with Trevor Horn, Woolley co-wrote ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ with future Buggles Horn and Geoff Downes and notably also co-wrote Grace Jones’ 1985 single/album ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ (with Horn, Stephen Lipson and Simon Darlow).
Despite having created ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ with Horn and Downes in 1978, Woolley bailed out of being in a band with the pair to form The Camera Club in 1979 with himself handling vocals, Dave Birch on guitar, Thomas Dolby on keyboards, Matthew Seligman on bass and Rod Johnson on drums. The band released their version of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ before Buggles (it wasn’t a hit) and issued their debut album English Garden in 1979 and went on to tour in England, USA and Canada. CBS refused to release their second album and the group disbanded.
The Camera Club version of Video Killed The Radio Star was issued before the Buggles version
This new 3CD clamshell box set features 69 tracks in total of which 41 are previously unreleased. It expands the first record and delivers tracks that were recorded for their second unreleased album and also includes two unreleased concerts.
The set includes a 28-page booklet containing rare and previously unseen images and a brand new annotation featuring quotes from band members Bruce Woolley, Dave Birch and Thomas Dolby.
The Definitive Anthology 1977-1981 will be released on 15 November 2024, via Cherry Red.
Six months before their debut album Déjà Vu was released, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young played a concert at New York City’s legendary Fillmore East venue. Including both acoustic and electric sets, this is about to be officially released by Rhino as Live at Fillmore East, 1969.
The setlist includes tracks from CSN’s self-titled debut (issued in May of ’69) and Young’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (both released in May ’69) as well as early versions of Déjà Vu tracks (‘Our House’, ‘4+20’)
Live at Fillmore East, 1969 is available on black and clear vinyl
Stills and Young compiled and mixed the original eight-track concert recordings with John Hanlon at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles. This is available on CD and as a 2LP vinyl set (black and clear vinyl versions). The vinyl is an AAA (all analogue) lacquer cut so it should sound great.
Live at Fillmore East, 1969 will be released on 25 October 2024, via Rhino.
New version out before Christmas. Offers demos and new recordings.
The Pet Shop Boys 2024 album, Nonetheless, is to be reissued as a new expanded edition, on both CD and vinyl formats, in November.
2CD and 3LP black vinyl versions will feature the 10-track Nonetheless album, plus four new recordings. These consist of two cover versions: the David Bowie-penned “All the young dudes” and the 1967 soul song “The dark end of the street”. There are also two tracks originally recorded during the Nonetheless sessions: a version of the classical composition ‘Miserere’ by Gregorio Allegri and a Pet Shop Boys original titled ‘Adrenaline’. The original Japan CD bonus track called ‘Clean Air Hybrid Electric Bus’ is notable by its absence.
In addition to these four bonus tracks, this new edition of Nonetheless includes demo recordings of every song on the album which is a first for the Pet Shop Boys. All this adds up to decent extra content – and certainly significantly better than the original 2CD deluxe – although fans are certain to raise an eyebrow high enough to make the late, great Roger Moore look over with envy, at being offered a new expanded edition less than five months after the original album release. The fourth single, ‘Feel‘, isn’t even out yet!
Nonetheless Expanded Edition will be released on 22 November 2024, via Parlophone.
Tori Amos/Unrepentant Geraldines CD, Vinyl, Blu-ray
Tori Amos’ 2014 album Unrepentant Geraldines is reissued for its 10th anniversary and is #25 in the SDE Surround Series of blu-ray audios with Dolby Atmos Mixes. Final copies available via the SDE shop.
New album from Snow Patrol features the single The Beginning. The deluxe CD features the same 12 tracks as the standard offering but comes in hardcover ‘casebound’ book packaging.
Sony reissue Billy Ocean’s 1984 album on vinyl for its 40th anniversary. It features the singles ‘Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)’, ‘Loverboy’ and ‘Suddenly’ which were all enormous hits in America and top 20 singles in the UK. This “ocean coloured” vinyl edition doesn’t offer any bonus material.
Steven Wilson’s No-Man and ‘The Albums Years’ partner Tim Bowness releases his eighth studio album and first for Kscope Records. The new album is described as “a vibrantly accessible & wildly experimental genre-blurring assault, embracing Industrial Rock, Electro Pop, singer-songwriter directness, haunted carnival soundscapes and more” and is available as a CD+DVD set which offers a 5.1 surround mix on the second disc.
Ahead of Suede’sDog Man Star reissue comes this 30th anniversary seven-inch picture disc of that album’s first single, ‘We Are The Pigs’. The non-album B-side ‘The Killing of a Flash Boy’ is up there with Suede’s very best.
Compare prices and pre-order
Suede
Suede: We Are The Pigs 30th Anniversary Edition 7" Picture Disc [VINYL]
Now That’s What I Call Music will continue their Yearbook ‘Vault’ series next month with 4CD and 3LP vinyl editions of NowYearbook Vault ’84 which pulls together ‘lesser compiled’ tracks from what is SDE’s favourite year in pop.
The 4CD sets (deluxe hardcover book with 28-page track-by-track guide and standard editions) feature 80 tracks, while the 3LP version (pressed on blue vinyl) includes 45 songs.
The full tracklistings can be found below, but feature plenty of familiar acts with – for some – less familiar singles. Artists include Heaven 17, ABC, Scritti Politti, Soft Cell, Bananarama, Culture Club, Level 42, Blancmange, Hazell Dean, Divine, Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Malcolm McLaren, Sparks, The Associates, The Cars, Go-Gos, Donna Summer, Bon Jovi and many more.
All formats of Now Yearbook Vault ’84 will be released on 4 October 2024.
New Order are to release a ‘Definitive’ box set edition of their 1986 album Brotherhood.
The band’s fourth studio album was released in September of ’86 and features the singles ‘State of the Nation’ and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’.
The box set will contain the original album remastered, on CD and vinyl and also offers an extra CDof unreleased demos and rarities and two DVDs with rare live and TV appearances. The LP+2CD+2DVD package comes with a hardcover book with sleeve notes by DJ Dave Fanning.
As usual, there will be a series of 12-inch vinyl releases to coincide with the box. They will be ‘State of the Nation’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ and the non-album ‘Touched by the Hand of God’. These records will be pressed on 180g black vinyl.
The Brotherhood box set and the 12-inch singles will be released on 22 November 2024, via Warner Records.
ABBA channel the spirit of their 1982 ‘best of’, The Singles: The First Ten Years, with a new collection called The Singles: The First Fifty Years, which brings the story of the Swedish group right up to date.
Admittedly, not much happened between 1982 and 2021, but nevertheless this perhaps pithily titled compilation features every ABBA single issued by Polar up until 1982, as well as the singles released from the group’s remarkable 2021 ‘comeback’ album,Voyage.
Issued in November 1982, The Singles: The First Ten Years was for a decade or the ABBA connoisseur’s hits collection of choice. ABBA’s Gold collection took over in 1992 and has never looked back, although The Singles The First Ten Years could always boast the inclusion of ‘The Day Before You Came’ and ‘Under Attack’ neither of which appear on Gold. Both songs were new at the time of The First Ten Years, with ‘The Day Before You Came’ released as a single to promote the compilation, while ‘Under Attack’ was unreleased at the time it was put out (but issued as a single a month later, in early December ’82).
The Singles: The First Fifty Years 4LP vinyl (click image to enlarge)
The Singles: The First Ten Years contained 23 tracks. However, on the new compilation The Singles: The First Fifty Years expands on the period between 1972 and 1982 with 10 extra tracks not on the 1982 compilation. They are:
People Need Love
He Is Your Brother
Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)
Honey Honey
Hasta Mañana*
Eagle
Angeleyes*
Lay All Your Love On Me*
Head Over Heels
When All is Said and Done*
The asterisked tracks were not issued as Polar Music A-sides, but were singles in some countries back in the day (‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ was a double A-side with ‘Voulez-Vous’ in some places). If you add the five singles from Voyage to the songs from the original era, that gives you a 38-track compilation which is being issued as a 2CD set or a 4LP vinyl package. The vinyl set includes a 24-page illustrated booklet including liner notes and “unseen” band images, while the CD booklet runs to 28 pages with the same content.
The typography on the new compilation is clearly is designed to echo the now 42-year-old collection, and one imagines that any hopes for a reissue of The First Ten Years are basically scuppered by this new set.
ABBA The Singles: The First Fifty Years will be released on 25 October 2024.
David Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars has been remixed in Dolby Atmos by Ken Scott and Emre Ramazanoglu and is released on blu-ray this Friday. SDE recently caught up with Scott, who of course co-produced the original album, to ask him more about the record and the Atmos remixing process.
SDE: Let’s talk briefly about the recording sessions for the album. You obviously had a busy 1971 because you did Hunky Dory as well...
Ken Scott: Amongst many others! It was busy, yeah. Look, it was a great period then, because the recording contracts were such that acts had to come out with an album every six months. So the recording process was so quick. Both Hunky Dory and Ziggy took two weeks each to record and a week to mix.
When it came to doing this record, was there any kind of brief from David in terms of the sound he wanted?
Nope! All he said was, it’s going to be more rock and roll than HunkyDory.
Is it true that a lot of this album was recorded almost live, in the studio?
No more than Hunky Dory or Aladdin Sane. It would bass, drums and sometimes electric guitar; sometimes acoustic guitar and sometimes piano. But the two main things that always went down first were bass and drums, and then it was whatever would work best on top of that. Sometimes rough vocals, but not always
You have mentioned before, I think, that David’s vocal performances were superb in terms of getting it down first or second takes. Is that very much the case?
Yeah, of the four albums [Ken made with David], I’d say 90 to 95 percent of of the vocals were one take, first take, from beginning to end. It’s just amazing.
Does that mean you didn’t really need to do much dropping in, to fix things?
None [laughs]
That’s quite surprising. He was obviously a brilliant vocalist, but was that unusual for for someone to be able to do that?
I’ve never come across another performer in the studio like that. From him, it was always a performance. In technical terms, they’re not perfect; they’re sometimes not quite in pitch, sometimes they’re not quite in time, but they’re coming from deep within him, and it’s a performance, and that’s what makes it work.
Did David always know when he’d got the one, or would he would he say, “let’s try it again”?
No. He knew. There were times when Ronno [Mick Ronson] and I would hear something when he was putting it down and we’d go “we’ve going to have to punch in for that” and then we’d hear it back, and it was absolutely intentional, and it worked perfectly.
When you were recording the album, did you feel like this might be the commercial breakthrough?
It was always a case of ‘who knows’. We weren’t specifically making records for a particular market or to sell. We were making records that we would be happy with and that we’d like to listen to, later. It was that kind of thing. And if other people liked them, that was great.
When David was in the studio, how much of this Ziggy spirit / character did he bring in, or was that not really there at all and he was just a working musician, recording a song?
Got it! [laughs]. Look, one of one of David’s biggest talents was the ability to get together a team that would give him exactly what he wanted, without him having to direct them too much as to what to do. When he wanted the American sound, he went over and he got a bunch of American musicians, American producers, and everything, and he’d just show them a song, and say, let it go, do what you do? That’s why you put them together. And it was the same with with The Spiders.
In terms of the technicalities, was this a 16-track or 8-track recording?
16-track.
And that gave you enough freedom? Were you having to bounce down? Did you have enough tracks to separate drums and do all that kind of thing?
It depends what you mean by separate drums. These days, every individual drum is on its own track, but back then, no, it would be stereo drums. We might have snare on its own track sometimes, or a bass drum on its own track, sometimes along with the stereo drums. But back then, one of the things of only having two weeks was you had to make decisions. And so we we decided what it was going to sound like, right from the get go, so I’d get the drum sound that would work, and we’d carry on from there.
The reason I mentioned that is, obviously that becomes pertinent later on with the 5.1 and the Atmos mixing and all that, which we’ll talk about shortly. Back to 1971: were you acting like an intermediary with the record label when they were checking up on progress?
The label never checked up on progress. And the management had signed David because they believed in him and put him in the studio to do what he does best, which is create,
But what about ‘Starman’? That was a late addition because someone, somewhere said, “Look, there isn’t really a single”.
The record company, RCA, once they got the finished thing, said it was great. The album’s great, but there’s no single. I’ve checked up on this, in terms of whether David had ‘Starman’ already written, but no, he wrote it specifically, a few days before we recorded it.
I find that very interesting. It’s like art meets commerce, isn’t it? It’s still brilliant song, but he kind of he delivered what they wanted.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Now you’ve obviously revisited this album in the past. In 2003 you did a 5.1 mix and a new stereo mix
No, no, no. Hang on. Let’s get that bit straight. The record company made the stereo from the 5.1. I wanted my name taken off it because the stereo that was made from that was so bad. It was never meant to be folded down to stereo.
So it was just a fold down version from the 5.1?
Absolutely. And it’s awful! The 5.1 is not great either, but…
Well tell me a little bit about the 5.1 then, because that would have been the first time anyone was trying to do a surround sound mix with this particular record, so you would have been going back to multi-track tapes, dusting them down, baking them and all that kind of stuff.
Actually, the tapes didn’t have to be baked from that period.
It would have been just over 30 years later at the time you did the 5.1 mix [2003], did you choose to try and fix anything or change anything, or did you keep strictly to the whole EQ and the vibe of the original record?
We kept to the original, and one of the main reasons for that was when I was approached to do it by the label, I said, “Look, there are two ways we can do this. I can either modernise it a bit, change things, or keep it the same as it was”. They said “We’d love to have both, but we can only afford one, so keep it the same as the original”. So that’s what it was. It was the original, just [with elements] put in different places [channels].
Of course, David was still with us back then. How involved, or not, was he with the whole 5.1 at that time?
Not! He was never involved. He was only involved in mixing of two songs of the four albums I did with him. He didn’t like to hang out in the studio mixing. Hearing the same thing over and over again getting it right…
I guess he was so prolific in the 70s in particular, that disinterest in mixing gave him the freedom to move quickly onto the next thing.
Yeah, once he’d finished something, his part of it, he was off.
So you don’t reckon he would have even listened to the 5.1 anywhere at the time, in a studio in New York or something like that?
I don’t know. No idea.
The record labels over the years have always had a rather ‘ad hoc’ strategy towards Bowie and surround sound. Some albums have been done, like Station to Station and Young Americans and some have not. I always wondered whether if David had some issue with surround sound in general.
Not that I’m aware of
With the new Atmos mix. You’ve worked with Emre Ramazanoglu. Tell me a little bit about, roles and responsibilities and how the two of you work together on this project.
It was absolutely fascinating for me, because my background is as an engineer. I’ve tried a couple of times working with another engineer and just sitting at the end of the desk, as the real producers do, but I found that I would be listening to the sound too much… telling the engineer, “Okay, let’s hear a bit more high end on that cymbal.. no, no, down a bit”. I’d waste time doing that, whereas when I’m the engineer, I just reach over and do it. So that’s the way, over 60 years, I’ve generally done it. When they first brought up the whole Atmos idea, I thought “Oh, that’s great. I can do a lot of it at home and then just go into a studio to finalise it”, but as soon as I started to delve into Atmos, I realised there is no way a 75-year-old is going to ever learn all of that that quickly. So I realised I had to find someone, and I’d met Emre, we’d spoken about Atmos, and so we spoke [again], got together and it was bliss. We were both of the same mind. We knew exactly what was needed. It was great.
How long did it take then to work through the whole record?
It took 10 days. But I’d done a lot of work before that. I went into Abbey Road, number two studio and fed stems through to get room sounds and all of that kind of thing. Also, as I had control for a change – I wasn’t being told by the record company it has to sound like the original or anything like that – I insisted that I should be able to change it up. Look, the whole glam rock sound was very much the 70s. Now we’re in the 2020s and it needs to be different. And the main thing that characterised the whole glam rock thing was the very, very dead drum sound. And so I wanted to change that drum sound. So I added samples to what Woody [Woodmansey] was playing. I never got rid of any of Woody’s parts, I just added sounds to them, to bring it more to a modern type of [drum] sound. And so that took a while! Jesus, going through with the hi-hats, like matching up every single hi-hat… it gets boring to say the least.
Can you expand a little bit on this?
Several years ago, I did a drum sample library called Epic Drums. And what it was, I used five drummers that I’d worked with in the past to emulate the sounds as close as possible. One of the drummers was Woody, and so I I got to use some of Woody’s drum sounds from that to match up with what we already had. And just change it around a bit, make it not as dead as it was, just more open tom sounds, more open snare. And also, at the time, I hated cymbals. Now I quite like cymbals, but because the drums were stereo, I couldn’t bring up the cymbals without bringing up everything else. So I had to also put cymbals to match up to those [on the tape] so that it feels natural. Everything’s gotta be exactly in time with what what he played.
Did you take that approach with anything else, or was it just on the drums?
Just the drums, that’s the only one you can really do, because the guitar is the guitar. Yes, we would have added room sound to it and that kind of thing, so we would have changed it a little bit in that way, and maybe the EQ would have been slightly different, but a guitar sound, is a guitar sound, is a guitar sound, basically… whereas the drums can vary an awful lot.
I think I read an interview in the 90s, where David Bowie said looking back on it, he thought the sound on Ziggy was a bit on the ‘thin’ side. I’m sure he was really happy with at the time. But is that fair comment from him?
Absolutely fair, but it’s also slightly revisionist, because back in the day, because we were dealing entirely with with vinyl and you couldn’t have as much low end or anything as we could in the 90s with CDs, or as we can today with streaming and everything. So, yeah, at the time it was fine but as we got used to more low end it started to sound thin.
You’re making all these changes, but how does the Bowie estate figure in all this? I mean, they might be saying “well, hang on, Ken, we’re not sure we want you to do that…”.
No, no, they were right behind me all the way. Look, David was different to most artists in many ways, but one of the other ways that he was different was that he insisted that if anyone was going to do any work on on his past product – and I hate the word ‘product’, but that’s the general term – it had to be the original people. So I get to work on the four albums that I did with him, Tony Visconti gets to work on the albums he did. Harry Maslin on his, which is great because most artists don’t do that.
I’m glad you’ve said that because I was going to ask you that very specific question. That makes a lot of sense, and it’s obviously great that people like yourself and Tony are still around to do this.
And we can still hear! [laughs]
With the Atmos Mix, did you need to go down the road of using any AI to do anything such as separating music fused together on the same track?
No. Straight from the 16 track.
There’s a new stereo mix of the album on the blu-ray which – like the Atmos Mix – isn’t on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! box set. Did you want to do the stereo mix, partly because of the previous issue with the other stereo mix, and also to make the most of the improved drums that you were talking about?
Well, absolutely, but it initially came from the fact that Apple insist that their immersive audio matches up to the stereo mix. Now that’s fine if you’re dealing digital because it always runs at the same speed, but with analog tape, it never runs at the same speed twice. So matching up a stereo mix with a 16 track multi-track is almost impossible, unless you go in and you start to use things like Elastic Audio to move them into the same time and but then you lose quality doing that. So what I said was, “Look, I’ll do the Atmos, but for Apple, for everyone, I’ve also got to do a brand new stereo mix”. And we did it an unusual way because Emre said the normal way is to do the stereo mix first, get that perfect, then do the Atmos. But we did it the complete opposite way; we did the Atmos first, and then got the stereo from that, and it was amazing. It’s a fold-down, yes, but because of the way Emre sets everything up, it worked perfectly. I think there were two songs that we had to boost or cut the vocal like one dB, just to sit it in or bring it out a little bit more. And that was it. Otherwise, it was perfect.
Were there any songs on the album that you thought worked particularly well in Atmos?
I love ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’, the way that turned out… but just the whole album. I was bored to tears with it after 50 years, come on, and now I’m excited by it. I listen to it in the car all the time, the stereo version. It’s the response that I’ve received from fans that have heard it, and hi-fi enthusiasts and all that kind of thing. And Woody, the drummer. Woody said “When I heard it, I felt as if I was in the band”. And he didn’t mean that in a funny way. He meant that he felt as if he was in there with the band, the way it used to be. The whole album has come alive to me again.
Finally, Ken… You did a remix of ‘Life on Mars’ a few years ago when there was a some focus on Hunky Dory. Are there any plans to do Hunky Dory in Atmos or maybe Aladdin Sane? Has anyone talked to you about that?
No. You’d have to ask Parlophone about that.
Thanks to Ken Scott who was talking to Paul Sinclair for SDE. The Ziggy Stardust Atmos Mix is released on blu-ray on Friday 6 September. Order your copy from the SDE shop.
Tracklisting
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from MarsDavid Bowie/blu-ray audio
2024 Dolby Atmos Mix, New 2024 Stereo Mix (192/24), original Stereo Mix (96/24)
Ultravox’s 1984 studio album Lament is reissued for its 40th anniversary. The SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio with a Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos Mix (and other content) is back in stock at the SDE shop due to some cancellations
This new compilation from the Go West frontman features 17 tracks personally selected by Peter from across his solo career including the UK Top 40 singles ‘Ain’t Gonna Cry Again’, ‘If You Walk Away’, and ‘What A Fool Believes’.
Compare prices and pre-order
Peter Cox
The Deep Dive - signed CD
Shop
Price gbp
Stock
Currency:
Madonna / Like A Prayer (silver vinyl)
It is now over three years since Rhino announced a Madonna “multi-year catalog series” and they still haven’t reissued one single studio album! They need to do better than to churn out seen-it-before coloured vinyl copies of her records.
The band’s fifth studio album features the hits ‘You Got Lucky’ and ‘Change of Heart’ and reached the top 10 in the US Billboard charts, although Petty would later grumble about being dissatisfied with the final record and the track selection.
“There was some music recorded for Long After Dark that didn’t get on the record, that I thought would’ve made it a better album. I left off…four things that I liked quite a bit. And probably a few more written that never even got in the door.”
Tom Petty
The new deluxe edition seeks to address that and features the songs that were lost in the debate over the album’s original direction. Highlights include Petty’s version of ‘Never Be You’ (a country hit for Rosanne Cash), ‘Don’t Make Me Walk the Line’ and an up-tempo version of ‘Ways To Be Wicked’ (previously covered by Lone Justice), recorded at Applewood Studios in Denver, Colorado. Some additional tracks are taken from French TV sessions, including ‘Turning Point’ and the Everly Brothers influenced ‘Keeping Me Alive’.
2CD+blu-ray edition includes Atmos Mixes (click image to enlarge)
The 2CD set features a newly remastered version of the original album and Engineer Ryan Ulyate has newly mixed the bonus tracks. The 2CD also includes a blu-ray audio disc which features a Dolby Atmos Mix of the album and bonus tracks, plus hi-res stereo versions (Ulyate has also done the Atmos Mix).
As well as the 2CD+blu-ray there’s various 2LP editions and also single LP version. Sleeve notes come courtesy of David Fricke, with commentary from Jimmy Iovine and Cameron Crowe.
Long After Dark will be reissued on 18 October 2024 via Geffen/UMe.
The Cure will release a new 12-inch single in October called Novembre: Live in France 2022.
The vinyl record features two live tracks recorded during the French leg of The Cure’s ‘Shows of a Lost World’ tour in 2022 and is notable for being issued via Naked Record Club, which offer limited edition releases made from sustainable vinyl.
They use an injection-moulding machine that is estimated to use 80-90 percent less electricity than traditional steam vinyl pressing machines, with the records being made from non-toxic P.E.T. (Polyethylene Terephthalate – recyclable plastic). They also use a “paperless” printed label and sleeves made from FSC certified recyclable packaging.
The Cure and Naked Record Club will be donating 100 percent net profits from sales of this record to the climate charity Earth Percent founded by Brian Eno.
5,000 records are being pressed. 1-100 are available signed by Robert Smith and will be sold on The Cure’s online store. The rest are via Naked Record Club’s website.
Pre-order starts at 2pm on Friday 30 August. The record is released on 1 October 2024.
Tracklisting
The Cure
AND NOTHING IS FOREVER – Recorded live in Montpellier, Sud de France Arena 08/11/22
I CAN NEVER SAY GOODBYE – Recorded live in Toulouse, Zénith 13/11/22
Sony will release Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, a new deluxe box set that offers mostly previously unreleased tracks recorded by the new look Jimi Hendrix Experience (Billy Cox on bass, Mitch Mitchell on drums) at Manhattan’s Electric Lady Studios between June and August of 1970, shortly before the musician’s untimely death the following month.
These sessions saw Hendrix hard at work creating First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, an ambitious double album that was planned to follow his 1968’s Electric Ladyland. The box sets offers a comprehensive look at the work Hendrix undertook during that summer of 1970. The music ranges from four-track demo recordings of ‘Valleys Of Neptune’ and ‘Heaven Has No Sorrow’, alternate arrangements of new songs such as ‘Come Down Hard On Me’ and ‘Belly Button’.
There will be two box sets: a 3CD+blu-ray version and a 5LP+blu-ray edition. Both offer 39 tracks of which 38 are previously unreleased. These include an unreleased version of ‘Angel’ [Take 7] which has been newly mixed. It includes the original performances recorded by Hendrix, Mitchell and Cox on July 23, 1970and pointedly does not include any of the drums and additional percussion elements Mitchell opted to add to this master take after Hendrix had died.
Both boxes come with a blu-ray that includes 20 newly created 5.1 surround sound mixes of the entire First Rays Of The New Rising Sun album plus three bonus tracks [‘Valleys Of Neptune’, ‘Pali Gap’ and ‘Lover Man’]. The Blu-ray also includes the full-length documentaryElectric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, which shows how Hendrix invested in what was originally a bankrupt Manhattan nightclub and started the process of turning it into a studio.
The packages also include a booklet with unpublished photos, Hendrix’s handwritten song drafts, and comprehensive sleeve notes.
Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision will be released on 4 October 2024, via Sony.
The first official release of this much bootlegged performance. This is five tracks from U2’s open-air performances at the RDS Arena, Dublin in August 1993 on CD and yellow vinyl.
Rick Astley stayed with RCA for this third album, but ditched the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting/production team for 1991’s Free. This 2CD reissue via BMG features a 2024 remaster and 18 bonus tracks including B-sides, remixes and instrumentals. There’s a new vinyl version too which for the first time features the full 11-track version of the album (previously ‘Is This Really Love?’ was absent).
While Sidney Lumet’s 1978 film adaptation of 1974 musical The Wiz was a critical and commercial disaster, the Quincy Jones-helmed soundtrack fared a little better. It saw Jones work with Michael Jackson for the first time (MJ was The Scarecrow in the film) and produced a minor hit in ‘Ease on Down the Road’. Polydor are this week reissuing the album on vinyl.
As expected, Liam and Noel Gallagher have buried the hatchet and are getting Oasis back together for live concerts in the UK next summer.
Multiple dates at Stadia in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin are scheduled for next year, three months ahead of the 30th anniversary of the band’s second album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, which is the fifth best-selling album of all time, in the UK.
There is no confirmation of who else will return to the band and rumours of Oasis headlining next year’s Glastonbury festival (which will take place from 25th – 29th June) have not gone away. But we are told that there are plans for Oasis Live ’25 to visit other continents outside of Europe later next year.
The 14 shows that have been announced – see below – will go on sale at 9am on Saturday 31 August 2024. These will be available via Ticketmaster UK, Gigs and Tours and See Tickets. Dublin tickets with be available from 8am that same day from Ticketmaster in Ireland.
A year on from Neil Young’sOfficial Release Series Vol 5 box set, the four albums within will be available separately on CD and vinyl.
Back on Reprise after a largely unsuccessful partnership with Geffen, these albums marked something of a renaissance for Young. They are Freedom (1989), Ragged Glory (1990), live album Weld (1991) and the experimental Arc (1991).
Last year’s box was the first time these records had been remastered for vinyl and now you can pick and choose (and skip Arc, if you wish…).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0RauMZPb9g
Rockin’ in the Free World (from Freedom)
Ragged Glory is actually expanded with four extra tracks:‘Interstate’ and ‘Don’t Spook The Horse’ (both B-sides to singles) and ‘Box Car’ and a 12-minute ‘Born To Run’ (both previously unreleased versions prior to the ORS 5 box) which is why it now runs to 2CDs or 3LPs (same as Weld). Freedom is one CD and a double vinyl set and finally Arc is both a single disc on CD and vinyl (being only 35 minutes long).
All four albums are released on 4 October 2024, via Reprise. Both Official Release Series Vol 5 box sets are still easily available and in fact the 6CD box is so cheap (under £20 in the UK right now) there’s little point buying these individual CDs and even the 9LP vinyl box is under £100 in the UK (scroll down for the various widgets).
Following a limited coloured vinyl release for this year’s Record Store Day, Def Leppard’s 2023 gig at historic Sheffield venue The Leadmill will be issued across a number for formats in October, as One Night Only: Live at The Leadmill Sheffield.
The 900-capacity venue hosted one of the most intimate shows the band has played in the UK or Europe since the height of their commercial success in the 1980s. The concert was on 19 May 2023 on the eve of the band’s UK/European tour which included a night at Wembley Stadium! This was also the day the band issued their Drastic Symphonies album and was a year after the success of the band’s 12th studio albums Diamond Star Halos (available on SDE-exclusive blu-ray).
This One Night Only release is available on CD, 2LP vinyl and as CD+blu-ray and CD+DVD combo packs and will be issued on 11 October 2024, via Mercury Studios.
Reviews
Interview
