The box set edition of Peter Gabriel’s tremendous i/o album is now just £100. If you want to know what you’ll be getting, check out the SDEtv unboxing video!
David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture 2CD+blu-ray2CD+blu-ray
Vinyl version also cheap! Tracklisting is as follows:
Side 1
1 Hang On To Yourself (early Ziggy session take)
2 Star (Take 5 alternative version)
3 Lady Stardust (Take 1 alternative version)
4 Shadow Man (Ziggy session version)
5 The Supermen (Ziggy session version 2023 mix)
6 Holy Holy (Ziggy session version alternative mix)
7 Round And Round (alternative mix)
Side 2
1 Velvet Goldmine (Ziggy sessions outtake 2022 mix)
2 Looking For A Friend (Ziggy session version)
3 It’s Gonna Rain Again (Ziggy sessions outtake)
4 Sweet Head (Ziggy sessions outtake 2022 mix)
5 Starman (Top Of The Pops version 2022 mix)
6 John, I’m Only Dancing (alternative Trident Studios version)
7 I Can’t Explain (Trident Studios version)
Prince/Diamonds and Pearls 7CD+blu-ray7CD+blu-ray super deluxe
Paul Weller’s rarities compilation Fly On The Wall is being reissued as a 3LP set in August.
The 2003 collection mopped up b-sides, remixes, and rare tracks from Weller’s time at Go! Discs and subsequently Island Records between 1991 and 2001. It was originally released as a 3CD set (39 tracks, in a clamshell box) and as a 3LP vinyl set (29 tracks). The latter now commands high prices in the used market, which is presumably why it’s being reissued.
Fly On The Wall 3LP reissue (click image to enlarge)
Tracks include the demo of ‘Into Tomorrow’, ‘The Loved’, ‘Fly On The Wall’, ‘The Riverbank’, a Portishead remix of ‘Wildwood’ and the ‘Lynch Mob Bonus Beats Remix’ of ‘Kosmos’. The set also includes covers of The Beatles’ ‘Sexy Sadie’, John Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma’, Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ and Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s ‘Ohio’.
Fly On The Wall will be released on 9 August 2024, via UMR/Polydor.
Now That’s What I Call Music’s year-by-year 12-inch series continues with NOW 12″ 80s: 1983, a 4CD set featuring 46 extended mixes from 1983 in what is ‘part one’ of what will presumably be a two-part offering.
Amongst what you might call ‘the usual suspects’ there’s some relatively rare remixes included here, such as Eurythmics’ 12-and-a-half minute remix of ‘Right By Your Side’, the extended version of Adam Ant’s ‘Puss ‘N’ Boots’ and and the 5.40 Jellybean remix of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson’s US chart-topper ‘Say Say Say’ (notable by its absence on the 2015 Pipes of Peace Archive Collection reissue!).
Ahead of a massive US stadium Summer 2024 tour, Def Leppard have announced a brand new, one-off single called ‘Just Like 73’.
The song features guitarist Legend Tom Morello and was inspired by the Glam Rock Stompers of the 1970s. It is available to own as an “extremely limited edition” seven-inch blue vinyl single, which is available via D2C (direct-to-consumer) channels only.
The B-side features an alternative Def Leppard-only version of the single. ‘Just Like 73’ will be released on 2 August 2024, via Mercury.
The 30th anniversary reissues of Oasis’ debut album Definitely Maybe contains abandoned original recording sessions (from Monnow Valley Studios) and outtakes from the definitive recording sessions at Sawmills Studios in Cornwall.
Today, ‘Columbia (Sawmills Outtake)‘ is being made available for fans to hear, ahead of the reissue being released at the end of August. You can listen to it below:
Mixed for the first time by Noel Gallagher and Callum Marinho, ‘Columbia (Sawmills Outtake)’ is 7 minutes 18 seconds long, compared to the 6 minutes of the album original. ‘Columbia’ was one of the first Oasis songs to be written and was originally released as a white-label 12-inch.
Definitely Maybe will be reissued for its 30th anniversary on 30 August 2024, via Big Brother Recordings.
Bruce Dickinson is releasing a CD single of ‘Resurrection Men’ taken from his most recent album, The Mandrake Project.
This 3-track CD single comes in a gatefold card sleeve packaging and features live versions of ‘Afterglow of Ragnarok’ (a track from the new album) and ‘Abduction’ (from 2005’s Tyranny of Souls) both recorded in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 4 May 2024.
Exclusive double-sided poster only via the official shop
If you order the CD single from the official shop it comes with an exclusive double-sided poster (375mm x 285mm) within the CD packaging.
Resurrection Men will be released as a CD single on 26 July 2024, via BMG.
Broadcaster and journalist Katie Puckrik is the face of a new compilation of Yacht Rock music that is being released at the end of August. A Yacht Rock Odyssey, as it is called, will be available as a 4CD set (with limited edition version with a signed print) and as a double vinyl package.
The term ‘Yacht Rock’ conjures up the lush West Coast sound from about 1975 to 1985: escapist jazz-inflected soft rock, burnished to a high sheen by session musicians and producers at the peak of their powers. Puckrik’s involvement in this project stems from her acclaimed 2019 BBC TV documentary on the subject called I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock, and she has also hosted a series of Yacht Rock specials on BBC Radio 2.
The 4CD limited edition version of A Yacht Rock Odessey with signed print (click to enlarge)
Katie explains where her love of “Yacht Rock” began: “When I was a kid in suburban Virginia, Yacht Rock was the music that sailed out of girlfriends’ cassette players, older boys’ muscle cars, and grown-ups’ cocktail parties. Encompassing lifers Michael McDonald, Toto and Average White Band as well as toe-dippers like Carly Simon, Robert Palmer and the Pointer Sisters, Yacht’s frisson springs from its slick sound set against lyrics about aspiration and alienation, hedonism crossed with thwarted desire. The blade might be smooth, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sharp.“
The 4CD edition boasts 72 tracks across four themed discs with music from the likes of Michael McDonald, Toto, Average White Band, Christopher Cross, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Steve Winwood, Chaka Khan, Curved Air, Carly Simon, Randy Crawford, Little Feat, Robert Palmer, Chicago, Steve Miller Band and many more. The 24-track 2LP vinyl version simplifies and divides the offering into two categories: ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Moonlight’.
Katie Puckrick presents A Yacht Rock Odyssey will be released on 30 August, via Demon Music.
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Katie Puckrik
A Yacht Rock Odyssey - limited 4CD set with signed print
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! is a David Bowie 5CD+blu-ray deluxe set that celebrates his Ziggy Stardust album. It features demos, BBC radio sessions, singles, live tracks, outtakes (and more!) and offers 29 unreleased tracks.
David Bowie’s self-titled debut album – the one released on Deram in 1967 – is being reissued on deluxe CD and coloured vinyl, next month.
This period is what is sometimes referred to as Bowie’s ‘Anthony Newley’ era and the album includes songs such as ‘Uncle Arthur’, ‘Sell Me A Coat’, ‘Love You Til Tuesday’ and ‘When I Live My Dream’.
2LP green vinyl edition of 1967’s David Bowie
The 30-track 2CD deluxe delivers 23 tracks less than the 2010 deluxe edition of the same album, so you can make up your own mind how compelling this is. Meanwhile, there is a pair of 2LP coloured vinyl editions (‘green’ and indie-only ‘cloudy green’) which offer 28 tracks but each with a different bonus track (‘Sell Me A Coat (Remix – mono)’ is the 28th track on the standard green vinyl while and ‘The Laughing Gnome’ (Vocal Take 1/Mix 1) is the 28th track on the indie-exclusive ‘cloudy green’ vinyl edition (in other words, neither edition contains both songs). A further D2C coloured vinyl offers ‘Space Oddity (Love You Till Tuesday Version)’ in place of the aforementioned songs.
Quite why this is reissue is coming out now, is unclear. Possibly, a ‘spoiler’ for the current Ziggy / Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! activity from Warners or a case of just jumping on the Bowie bandwagon.
David Bowie will be reissued on 26 July 2024, via Decca
Seven rare and out-of-print concerts by Pete Townshendwill be issued in a new 14CD box set called Live in Concert 1985-2001.
These were originally only available via Pete’s website Eel Pie and there was only one run of each CD, meaning they all quickly became collector’s items.
The live shows include Pete Townshend’s Deep End band, live at Brixton Academy in 1985, featuring featuring David Gilmour on guitar; a live full rendition of Pete’s album Psychoderelict recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1993 (during Pete’s only full solo tour); an intimate show from The Fillmore in San Francisco in 1996 around the time of his first solo compilation album CoolWalkingSmoothTalkingStraightSmokingFireStoking; and a Shepherd’s Bush Empire gig from late 1998. Two nights at London’s Sadlers Wells Theatre in early 2000 was the only time a full ‘Life House’ show was attempted and finally, the box ends with two shows from La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in the summer of 2001.
Live in Concert 1985-2001 is a 14CD box set (click image to enlarge)
Pete Townshend summed up his feelings about trying to balance solo recording and performing with The Who with this statement: “I always have too much to do, too much responsibility, and not enough time. I have to live enough life to provide me with inspiration and context for my songs, I have to then spend enough time in my home studio finessing songs so they feel worthy of my band (The Who), then I have to re-record them with that band, then speak eloquently about them to the media, justifying my creative divergences, then I must tour endlessly behind the new music, continuing to celebrate the old stuff as well, and then start all over again. The idea that I would do all that for The Who and then do it for myself as well is simply plain insane. And yet for a while I tried. It didn’t go well. One career is enough.
The audio has been newly remastered by Jon Astley, and the box set is presented as a deluxe CD-sized box (with inner ‘drawer’) and includes a 26-page hardcover book with sleeve notes by Matt Kent, a new exclusive Pete Townshend interview, and rare photos and images of memorabilia.
Live in Concert 1985-2001 will be released on 26 July 2024, via UMR.
Pet Shop Boys third single from their Nonetheless album is ‘A new bohemia’.
As with ‘Loneliness’ and ‘Dancing star’, this will be released physically as a CD single and this time there are five tracks: three unreleased versions of ‘A new bohemia’ (radio edit, Alex Metric Remix, demo version) and two new songs: ‘It’s not a crime’ and ‘I’ve got plans (involving you)’.
This is packaged in a gatefold card wallet, featuring photography shot on location in Margate for the ‘A new bohemia’ video shoot.
‘A new bohemia’ will be released on 5 July 2024, via Parlophone. The band continue their Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live tour in the UK this month and play five consecutive nights at the Royal Opera House in London, in July.
Talking Heads‘ soundtrack to Jonathan Demme’s concert film Stop Making Sense will be re-released for its 40th anniversary next month.
David Byrne said: “We had done a live album before this, but coupled with the film, and with the improved mixes and sound quality, this record reached a whole new audience. As often happens, the songs got an added energy when we performed them live and were inspired by having an audience. In many ways, these versions are more exciting than the studio recordings, so maybe that’s why a lot of folks discovered us via this record.”
The 2CD+blu-ray deluxe of Stop Making Sense (click to enlarge)
If you recall Stop Making Sense being reissued on vinyl last year, you are correct. But it’s now back again on 2LP black vinyl (with the same two bonus tracks ‘Cities’ and ‘Big Business/I Zimbra’) but also a 2CD+blu-ray set which offers the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme’s concert film – NOT the film itself – with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack (mixed by Jerry Harrison and E.T. Thorngren, who also mixed the original release).
A clear vinyl edition will be available via RSD-accredited indie record shops and HMV. The 2CD+Blu-ray version includes the 28-page booklet from last year’s deluxe edition.
Also, A24’s super duper Collectors’ Edition 4K blu-ray of the film – which obviously DOES include the concert film (two extended cuts) is now available as a limited edition in the UK having been import only for quite a while (the SDE shop is now out of stock, sorry).
Blur will release Live at Wembley Stadium in July, a new live album with audio taken from their two nights at Wembley last summer.
These were the biggest shows of the band’s career to date and saw Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree perform to over 150,000 fans on 8th and 9th July 2023.
There are three formats: a 2CD set which is the Sunday show in full (9 July), a 3LP vinyl edition which is also the Sunday show but drops ‘Lot 105’ to make it all fit, and then finally a 2LP ‘highlights’ option which takes, presumably, the best performances from across both shows.
The 2CD edition offers the full Sunday show (click image to enlarge)
The highlights 2LP version maintains the order the songs were performed on each night and offers 17 tracks (out of 26) and includes seven Saturday performances (8 July) not available in other any format. It also repeats 10 Sunday performances that are on the 2CD and 3LP. If you want every unique performance on a physical product, you need to buy the 2CD and the 2LP highlights. The only way to get a complete show is to buy the 2CD, because, as stated, that includes ‘Lot 105’ which is omitted from the 3LP edition. All vinyl is 140g.
A future home video concert film release is surely inevitable, but it’s not being issued now. First we must wait for a theatrical presentation of blur: Live at Wembley Stadium which will get a limited release in UK and Irish cinemas from 6 September.
The audio formats of Live at Wembley Stadium will be released on 26 July 2024, via Parlophone.
The Producers were a collective of Trevor Horn friends and associates that formed in 2006, played some intimate live venues and went on the road and then eventually recorded an excellent album called Made in Basing Street (released in 2012).
The band were record producers Trevor Horn (bass and vocals), Steve Lipson (guitar and programming), songwriter/producer Chris Braide (keyboards, guitar and vocals) and musicians Lol Creme (guitar and vocals) and Ash Soan (drums). For the album, other contributors included legendary keyboard player Geoff Downes (from the Buggles, Yes and Asia) and Horn’s ‘go to’ percussionist Luís Jardim (he has played on many Horn-produced albums including Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC, Grace Jones, Seal etc).
Lead vocals on Made in Basing Street are split between Chris Braide, Trevor Horn and Ryan Molloy (who stood in for Holly Johnson at the Frankie almost-reunion on stage at Trevor Horn’s 2004 Prince’s Trust concert, in London).
Despite not specifically referencing it on the cover, new 5CD box set is effectively an expanded version of Made in Basing Street. The first CD features the original album, the second disc collects extra material (much of which was offered on a 2CD deluxe at the time). The third CD is a completely alternate version of the album, none of which has been released before, while the fourth disc gathers outtakes. The set is completed by an instrumental version of the album.
This has all been put together in cooperation with the band, overseen by Steve Lipson (with some help from Andy Pearce). They led the decision to refresh the artwork (the original boasted a QR Code). The extensive booklet in the box features a new interview with the band by Daryl Easlea who details the process of the making of this classic record. A 2LP version will also be available.
The ‘Producers’ name was eventually dropped even though many of the same personnel still tour with Trevor as ‘The Trevor Horn Band’. There was never a second studio album.
Producers 5CD box set will be released on 26 July 2024, via Cherry Red.
Back in November last year, NOW That’s What I Call Music marked its 40th anniversary with a series of releases including 100-track a 5CD set and various 3CD ‘era’ summaries and triple vinyl packages. In true NOW fashion, the celebrations continue next month with a NOW That’s What I Call 40 Years – Part 2 another 5CD set delivering “100 more essential hits” and a companion 43-track triple-vinyl set pressed on green, clear and pink vinyl.
The first CD kicks off at NOW ‘year zero’ and that’s 1983 with Duran Duran’s ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’ and ‘Temptation’ by Heaven 17 (both featured on NOW 1). Thereafter we move through the early 80s with hits such as ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ by Eurythmics, synth-pop smashes from Howard Jones with ‘What Is Love?’ and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by Bronski Beat and ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which spent nine weeks at number one in 1984 (all on NOW 2 & 3) Other songs on this disc are from artists such as Kim Wilde, Bananarama, Simply Red, Fine Young Cannibals and Simple Minds.
Disc 3 spans seven years (1995-2002) in just 20 tracks, with a surprisingly low ‘rock’ quotient for the era (Oasis, Radiohead are the main exceptions) and instead focuses on pop with contributions from the likes of Boyzone, Spice Girls and Gina G, Kylie, Robbie, S Club, Westlife, Sugababes and Blue!
The final disc in the collection focuses on the last decade. Its appeal will depend entirely on how much you’ve been ‘keeping up’ with modern pop (or even if you have, whether you think it’s any good!). It includes Lana Del Rey, OneRepublic, Sam Smith, Justin Bieber, Little Mix, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Lewis Capaldi, Ed Sheeran and George Ezra.
As with the previous 5CD set, it’s packaged in a card sleeve, not the hardcover book of the deluxe Yearbooks. The 3LP coloured vinyl looks pretty cool and distills 100 tracks down to 43.
NOW That’s What I Call 40 Years – Part 2 is released on 12 July 2024.
R.E.M.’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction is available on vinyl again after being out-of-print for quite a while. There’s also a CD version in some territories.
The original motion picture soundtrack to Paul King’s 2023 film Wonka. The score features all-new music from composer Joby Talbot and The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. The vinyl is out in a couple of weeks but CD released on Friday.
The 2021 Dolby Atmos Mix of Alphaville’s 1984 album Forever Young is being released on blu-ray audio for the album’s 40th anniversary.
The singles from the record include the title track, ‘Sounds Like A Melody’, ‘The Jet Set’ and the international hit ‘Big in Japan’.
There was a super deluxe of Forever Youngback in 2019 which featured three CDs, a DVD and a vinyl record but there was no surround sound or immersive audio included.
The new blu-ray isn’t exactly packed with content, but does feature the Dolby Atmos Mix and a 48/24 stereo mix of the album. Regardless, if you want to own a physical copy of the Atmos Mix of Forever Young, this is likely going to be your only chance.
Forever Young is released on limited edition blu-ray audio on 5 July 2024 via Warner Music Germany. This isn’t part of the SDE Surround Series but it’s available to pre-order via the SDE shop using this link or the button below.
Crowded House’s eighth studio album, Gravity Stairs, was released yesterday. This is the second album with the ‘new’ line-up of consisting of Neil Finn, Nick Seymour, Mitchell Froom and Neil’s two sons Liam and Elroy. In some ways, it feels unfamiliar, but in other ways not, given that three of those five men played on Crowded House, Temple of Low Men and Woodface. Also, one time CH member Tim Finn also makes an appearance on the new album. SDE recently caught up with Neil and Mitchell (at the same time, over Zoom) and discussed the new album, songwriting, collaboration and mixing their music in Dolby Atmos…
SDE: There’s a wonderful dreamy quality to much of Gravity Stairs. A cohesiveness to the record. Did you approach it with that idea, or that aim?
Neil Finn: Largely, albums just emerge. But it’s always nice when there’s a cohesivness to it. It’s a voyage of discovery and a lot of exploration. We put a lot of work into that. Once we’ve done a new mix of a song, you’ll have another look at the early mix and perhaps make an adjustment and then it’s important to get sequencing right. But, really just the songs themselves dictate the terms and the bands developing quite a lot as well, you know, Mitchell adds his stamp to certain songs, and Liam and Elroy, similarly. My version of events would be slightly different, so it’s always a delight that things surprise me, you know?
I’m always interested in the production and sound of finished albums and how much control the artists actually have over how things end up sounding. Obviously, you can bring in producers to help with that. Mitchell, you produced the first few records; what’s your take on that and how different is your role today to maybe how it was back in the early days? Because you did play on those early albums as well as produce them, didn’t you?
Mitchell Froom: My history with Crowded House gives me, at best, a long understanding of the music and how it’s developed. But the role is completely different. The one thing I was happy about was that we did have a co-producer [Steven Schram]. But he was the primary engineer and I think if there’s a cohesion, it’s the fact that he recorded pretty much everything and mixed everything, with Neil. I always believe in that, I don’t like it when you get a record sounding the way you’d like it, and then you send it off [to a third party mixer] and it comes back completely different. You can gain something, but there’s always to me something that’s lost. And I don’t produce – Neil’s way beyond that. I think the best thing someone can someone at Neil’s point in his career, is enthusiasm. If people are enthusiastic about what he’s doing, that goes many more miles than almost anything else. They know what they’re doing and they have their own process.
Neil, do you feel like you don’t really need a ‘producer’ anymore, because of where you are in your career and all the experience you’ve had?
Neil: I don’t need the wrong producer. There are moments where using a producer has been extremely valuable, and certainly with the first album we made with Mitchell, it was a really important thing to have Mitchell come in and suggest colours and moves on the songs and helped me build more interesting songs. I really I learned a lot from that experience. He had a gentle hand in what he would suggest, but he was bold enough to suggest a song that might have an R&B feel rather than a British pop kind of thing going on. And I hadn’t heard anybody suggest those things to me before. So that was very valuable. I think I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that a producer could come in, even now, with me, if it’s the right person. They may be rare and special, but the right person might come in, and similarly give me another way of looking at the music. And I would welcome that, but I haven’t found that person. And in the meantime, I’d rather make my own mistakes. [to Neil] You already suggest to yourself so many versions of every song, so you’re at a different point in the way you work on music, that is very dedicated to get it to where you like it. And so things can be a distraction; even a very good suggestion at the wrong time can just throw you someone off… It’s interesting to work with other people for sure and I’ve worked with some really fantastic people. Production is a very broad, nebulous term, because it can mean anything from somebody who’s a great engineer, and just really excites you via the way that your music’s coming back through the speakers, because of the way it’s mixed; or can be somebody with very specific musical ideas and anything in between. Or somebody who just turns up once a day and says, “Yeah, sounds good” and put’s their name on the record at the end.
The new single is ‘The Howl’
How’s the experience of recording this new record been different to the previous one? Obviously, this is album number two with this iteration of Crowded House. Is everyone now bedded in a bit more? It’s a very much a family vibe with the band…
Neil: I think the result of quite a bit of touring has made the band more solid, more expressive and more creative and more willing to take risks. The trust level has gone up.
And Neil, what’s it like for you, with both of your sons in the band, because the idea of working with their family every day wouldn’t necessarily be first on some people’s list. But you seem to have a great relationship…
Neil: Yeah, I feel really blessed to be able to work with my sons and have it feel, almost always positive. And when everybody is in the room together, it’s a very sort of creative feeling. It doesn’t feel like I have my children in there and that they are having to… I mean, I’m always fairly forthright in my, the way that I feel things should be but I don’t think, they feel any more set upon than Mitchell or Nick [laughs]. And I really value their presence as musicians because they’ve become such fine musicians. It overrides any feeling that, you know, they’re just kids along for the ride – that doesn’t enter my head that that’s the reason they’re there. Mitchell might have a more interesting take on this?
Mitchell, from the outside looking in, it must be very interesting seeing the band morph into this, familial unit?
Mitchell: It is one of the things that made me most excited about joining the band after we played together. Because to me, it has nothing to do with anything other than how well people can play and how distinctively they can play. In the case of both Elroy and Liam, they have a deep understanding of the music, but also, rhythmically, it’s not simple, the way this band plays, you could put in a drummer who’s technically much better, or another guitar player, whatever, but it wouldn’t sound nearly as good. It’s a joy playing with these guys, because the feeling and the grooves are so beautiful, because of that level of understanding. I listen as much as I play, and it’s just a joy; it’s why I’m doing it. If it was just a bunch of anonymous musician that wouldn’t be nearly as interested in it. I mean, I love hanging around with everyone, because it’s a great family feeling, but when it comes down to it, just actual playing, that’s the thing.
Why did you want to join the band? Are you still actively producing other acts, or have you wound down from doing that, and were just looking for something different to do?
Mitchell: I wasn’t so much that I was looking for something different to do, it just sounded like a lot of fun. When I started, it was like, “oh, I’ll just do this one gig”, and then pretty quickly, I just got hooked into it. I still work with certain artists, but I’m really happy to be out of that game [producing] – it just doesn’t feel very good anymore. I only really want to work on a record if I think it’s going to be either by a very good friend or I think it could be something that’s great.
Neil, you’ve been writing and recording for a very long time. Does it get harder, as you go along? You’ve written all these great songs, all these great albums. Does all that weigh heavy on you as the years and the the albums pass?
Neil: That’s a good question, because I would say, actually, it is probably getting harder. But I’m getting more resolute with it, and also, I have the slight reassurance that I don’t think it will ever desert me [laughs]. Sure I’ve had to some writer’s block, and some days, I don’t feel like I’ve got a musical bone in my body, but if you keep coming back to it, you keep turning up, good things come. I think my observational skills have been improved; I think of any of the the attributes I’ve had as a songwriter, that’s the one I think that’s improved the most is the observational ability to be able to get inside a piece of music, and it’s sometimes just takes me a while. And I’ll, I’ll throw it up in the air and disassemble it, and then assemble it again quite a few times. And in order to get to something that I see as the core of the idea or something that brings the idea forward. So it’s sometimes intricacies and convoluted processes that can seem mysterious, even to me. You know, going to bed at night, sometimes I think “What am I doing? I’ve just looked at the song so many ways now” but at some point they’ll be a revelation and that’s a really good feeling when when you do bust through that barrier of something’s not right. And you actually solve it. It’s like, you know, the pieces of the machinery, click into gear and suddenly starts whirring… you know, it’s a lovely feeling.
Has your process changed much over the years, in terms of songwriting?
Neil: I’ve honed my environment and that’s made a big difference. And what I mean by that is that I’m actually just in a small room; I realised that the best place for me is to be in a small room with a piano, a couple of desks, a computer with Pro Tools running, just a little audio interface, one or two microphones, and a guitar. And I can sit in the same seat and swivel around and play the piano – it’s a kind of an ergonomic sort of mechanical thing that I feel has improved my process. I used to have a much more elaborate setup in a bigger room, lots of things plugged in, and some days it just defeated me because I’d find one thing not plugged in right, or whatever. So this is a very simple setup and somehow it seems to make a big difference in keeping me interested in what I’m working on. I don’t have to think about it too much.
‘Life’s Imitation’ aka ‘Teenage Summer’. This video is included, in HD, on the SDE-exclusive blu-ray
I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney, when he was promoting, ‘My Brave Face’ in the late 80s, and he said to the interviewer, something like “Oh, I know, it’s not as good as ‘Let It Be’, but I still think it’s a good song…”. He was acknowledging that there’s no point trying to worry about the past, you’ve just got to do the best you can do at the time. Can you relate to that feeling, Neil? Not that I’m saying your songs today aren’t as good as they were in the past, but you know what I mean…
Neil: Oh, yes, you are! [laughs] But I mean, that’s very honest of Paul to take that on. Was that the album you worked on, Mitchell?
Mitchell: Yes, I worked on that song. I kind of don’t agree, because if you look at an old song, if you look at ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, for example, it’s a great song. First time I heard it, I loved it. But people didn’t even really notice it that much until it became this big, single. I mean, it wasn’t like we turned the record in and everybody went crazy. But when you have something that’s a hit, and then you have nostalgia behind it – and then it means more – you can’t ever, with your new music, you can’t ever overcome it. The question is, [referring to Neil] is your new music vital? Are you taking it seriously? Have you developed yourself? And the answers to all those questions is ‘yes’. And so I would say there’s any number of new songs that Neil would write that, in a vacuum, if someone heard that and another [older] one, they’d say, “Oh, I like this one” [meaning the newer one]. It’s just, you can’t judge it because of the nostalgia tied to things.
Neil: You’re right. I remember somebody coming in studio one time and saying “That’s a number one record”… It wasn’t! A manager came in and said that about ‘Better Be Home Soon’. The other thing to say about that is that in order to finish it, there’s a certain point on any song, where I have to feel like it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, almost. I never think about it in those terms specifically, but you have to really get carried away with it, when it’s just you and the song and it’s just emerged out of nowhere and you hit a little golden moment. It’s feels just as good every time, you know. They don’t all turn out to be the best songs I’ve written, but every one of them’s a little victory in my own mind [laughs].
The world around us has changed and, unfortunately, you no longer get the validation of having a top 10 hit single or top 20 hit single a top 30 hit single because of the way radio and the charts and streaming and all that stuff works. Do you miss watching singles climb up the charts, physical product, B-sides, all the stuff that has disappeared, to a certain extent?
Neil: I don’t suppose I pine for anything like that, because I’m actually thinking it might be…. I know the fact of the matter is that it’s a lot harder for music like ours to become successful, in that in a modern chart sense, because it’s dominated by a different kind of music, to my mind, and things that I can relate to in the chart are few and far between. So I know the odds are stacked against us, but I still think a song can actually travel a long way, and that I’m ambitious for them. We’ve had certain songs rise – not seemingly in a chart sense – but they rise in people’s consciousness to the point where they become live favourites and they end up feeling like the hits, you know? So I think the process can still unfold in slightly slower and more mysterious way.
How do the logistics of recording the album work? Do you make a point of trying to get together in one room? Or do you end up sending things around the world?
Mitchell: One thing that is very important to this man [Neil] is that we play the initial track together, we tried to find a good feeling and backup the vocal, even if things change later. So we don’t usually use any kind of click track or anything, we look for the feeling. And then because everyone lives all over the world, and the fact that Neil is prone to radically change things at different points, we took breaks, and then people would start working on things at their own. But then we get back together. [To Neil] So how many times do we get together? Three times? We had three sessions where we were tracking, like a band does on the floor, you know..
Three? That doesn’t sound like very many…
Neil: It wasn’t just three days! We had a little bit more than a week in Byron Bay in Australia before a tour, in an old studio up there – that’s where we found our producer/engineer, Steven [Schram]. And then we did a week in LA, in and around the tour as well, we did another few tracks there, and then we came back to my studio in New Zealand for about another week. So there was probably three weeks of tracking.
‘Magic Piano’ is the opening track from Gravity Stairs.
Was it easy to decide when the album was finished? Because obviously, one of the classic things is that artists fiddle around for ages and it drags on and on. Are you good at knowing when to draw the line?
Neil: No, I’m not very good at that.
Mitchell: It’s still not finished! [laughs]
Neil: I even changed a song title after the first pressing…
You’re referring to ‘Life’s Imitation’ becoming ‘Teenage Summer’?
Neil: ‘Teenage Summer’, yeah. And that was because my grandson thought that’s what it was called. He he really liked it, so it was like ‘the kids have spoken’ – I’ll have to respond! But no, I am pretty notorious for reworking things right up to the final mix. I think it’s a little unsettling at times for others. There were times where he Mitchell had to disengage a little bit, because he’d think that we’d decided something, and then something would change. He’s right, because I need him and the others to sometimes tell me “Look, you’ve gone too far. You know, it was better before”. So thank God. Thanks, Mitchell.
Mitchell: That was very seldom, but and there’s this period towards the end, where there was about two or three months where you and Steven [Schram, mixer & co-producer], were toning things down, and it just kept getting better and better and better. And then there’s one or two that went too far. But what bothered me the most was when I would get something and so much had been changed, but I wouldn’t know what was changed or why it was really changed. So I couldn’t even listen to it.
Neil: But you know, what was interesting about that, though, was towards the end, despite all of those uncertainties and vagaries happening, I think we got very specific responses from everybody about the last few passes of the mixes and we honoured those. Steven was really determined to honour every query or request that was made and he would go on endlessly. Some of them went to ‘mix 19’ but nobody lost interest in the process to the extent that they didn’t weigh in at the end and say something like, “I prefer mix 18 because you can hear the keyboard louder at the end”.
Steven Schram did the Dolby Atmos mix, didn’t he, and I wanted to ask you about that because of the blu-ray that we’ve been working on. Is Atmos something you’ve got an interest in?
Neil: I had no interest whatsoever, to start with, because I didn’t really know what it was. But Steven had been doing Atmos Mixes already, he devised a very simple, ‘backyard’ kind of approach to making them which was very effective and successful, but didn’t require the huge injection of equipment and technology. Recently, Steven’s been working out of Roundhead Studios since he moved to New Zealand, and he helped us put in a whole Atmos rig into the man a studio which is really, really nice. It’s a very well designed Atmos rig so we now can have a very enjoyable experience listening to Atmos and he was able to do a more detailed job on the Atmos mixes as well.
‘Oh Hi’ from Gravity Stairs. This video is included, in HD, on the SDE-exclusive blu-ray
Would you be open to revisiting some of your past albums and getting them remixed in Dolby Atmos
Neil: I think we probably should, because Apple will be asking for them anyway and at the record company will really be happy about it and Steven’s very good at it. So yeah, it’s something we probably should do… No one really wants to pay a lot of money for Atmos mixes at the moment, but I got interested in Atmos when I sat down, initially, to listen to Bob Marley’sLegend record, I think it was. That one absolutely blew me away; I thought that was an incredible experience. That band are just outrageously groovy and good and all the arrangements just fit together like an absolute glove. In Atmos it was a delight. So when I heard that I thought, “Okay, yeah, this would be cool” and songs of ours on this record, like ‘Black Water White Circle’ really have found another level in Atmos, I think, so I’m excited about it now.
I wanted to ask you about your lyrics, Neil, because, you’re a brilliant lyricist. But you’ve got a great way of not making it too obvious what the songs are about; phrases that work perfectly but, as I say, without it being obvious what you are singing about. I imagine that’s intentional and that you like playing with with words and images, evoking moods but not necessarily having to tell a narrative story?
Neil: Yeah, I just developed a way of doing it that seems to work for me. It’s the hard part of songwriting for me because above all, I want the song lyrics to sound like they always belong and they’re as natural as the melody and as natural as the chords and everything else. I don’t personally like songs that tell stories because I don’t want to have to concentrate on listening for a narrative. You know, the ballad of this, that or the other… it’s just not the way I want to listen to music. When I think back even to the songs I loved when I was a teenager, I probably didn’t know what most of them were about. I didn’t know that the Led Zeppelin song Ramble On was based on Tolkien themes until about a year ago [laughs]. But I just get like the words to take you somewhere and open up doorways and I certainly put a lot of work into trying to give them cohesion… To me, the successful lyric makes you feel like you’re in a moment, in a day, with a character and that you can feel the presence of that character, and you can feel the day that it’s in. Not all songs behave like that, but I love it when that’s the end result.
Mitchell, you’ve known Neil for a very long time. How has your relationship changed over the years?
Mitchell: Well, one of the nicest things for me is I think we’ve become better friends. [Before], we would we’d rarely see each other. Once in a while, I’d come to town and it was always friendly, but you know, I’ve been welcomed into his extended family, and it has just been an unexpected, really nice thing. Are you enjoying the touring aspect as well, playing live? I like the playing. I’m not a performer… When I play, I have to wear ‘in ears’ to hear the music, and so I just get immersed in the music and try to play well, and half the time, I’m just listening to what other people are doing. But I really enjoy that. The other things are fine, and the band travels well and I like seeing everybody and feeling like part of this family.
Neil, the family thing is obviously so strong. And Liam and Elroy both get compositional credits on this record and your brother, Tim, has co-written ‘Some Greater Plan’. I know you’ve written loads of songs with Tim before but do you enjoy the collaborative process?
Neil: I’m a devotee of the band concept. You know, I’ve spent time away doing my own thing and I can enjoy being on my own with stuff as well. But being in a band lets light into the process, and it gets you there, for my mind, in a more interesting way, because it gives the whole process more texture and more dimension. When you work on your own all the time, I think you can form something that’s almost too… An artifice is there where you fill every crack that wouldn’t appeal to you, and by doing that, in a way, it makes it more impenetrable. That’s just the way I feel about it. And I love the friendship and the collaboration and also the sharing it, whether it’s good or bad, you get to share it with your bandmates. We are lucky enough to all really get on well, and as Mitchell said, our friendship has strengthened, which is a great feeling. And we get the benefit of Mitchell’s brain firing on all cylinders in a spontaneous manner a lot of the time because we are jamming band now, we’re becoming more of a jamming band. And Mitchell’s always got some quite beautiful textural elements to add and melodic elements to add that get locked into record sometimes, but it’s really nice to hear him free flowing. I mean, I’m probably sounding too ‘happy clappy’, but we have our moments of tension…
I was gonna say that, because bands fall out, they fall apart because of creative differences or just because people don’t like each other anymore. Is a band made up of family members more or less likely to self destruct?
Neil: We shall see! [laughs]. No, I can’t imagine that. It feels pretty invulnerable at the moment. Not that it’ll necessarily go on forever. There might just come a time where I get dragged into another thing, even for a couple of years, you know, maybe another project will come up…
Over the decades there has been periods of Crowded House activity and periods where you go away and do something else. Is the next thing likely to be something different, or are you just going to try and keep the momentum going with Crowded House?
Neil: I very much feel like making another record with Crowded House and I think we’ve talked about a little bit. If and when we do, and it’s hopefully not too long away, I’d like to do it with all of us in the room for a good six to eight weeks. More like we used to, so that we can solve, examine and reimagine songs all together. It’s very time consuming when we’re sending files from one side of the world to the other and it’s very convoluted. Some songs you need to record and then you come back to a couple of days later and go, you know, “we are still missing something”. It’s good to be able to do that in a continuous thread, rather than having to communicate by email, or zooms. It’s just unwieldy. I got tired of that by the end of it, because it just seems to take so long.
In a couple of years time the first the first Crowded House album is going to be 40 years old. Any plans? Would you like to see that celebrated?
Neil: I haven’t given it much thought, to be honest. But if we’re all alive and well, I think that’s pretty good thing to aim for. We might honour it in some fashion. I guess we could learn it all, although there’s probably a couple songs, I don’t really care if I’d never play again… as there is on most records!
Maybe that would be a good time to do a Dolby Atmos mix?
Neil: I think that might get done before that. We’ve got we’ve got the setup back home at the studio now, and it’s something I know Steven would enjoy doing… It’s probably finding somebody to pay for it. Do you want to pay for it? [laughs]
I don’t mind getting involved! This is my thing. People, SDE readers, are willing to pay for a physical product. Unlike streaming, where it just goes out there, and no one really pays for it, it just kind of sits there.
Neil: Yeah, it’s a music enthusiast’s delight to have to have a nice rig. The good thing about Atmos is that it’s seemingly designed to work in quite a number of environments, unlike 5.1, so it seems to have some legs…
I think that’s why the music industry are actually supporting it. Because you can have a pair of headphones and it’ll still work. You don’t have to spend £1000+ on a big set-up. The first Crowded House album was done in 5.1., way back. I don’t know if you remember that?
Neil: Yeah, I do remember that. I don’t know if I haven’t listened to it in 5.1. No, I’m enthusiastic about getting our records redone in Atmos. But it’s a funny thing, though, because I think we’ve got something like 10 speakers in the studio at the moment, and a sub, I suppose, and it’s a delightful experience, but it’s a very solitary experience, in a way, because while you can certainly get a good sound in an off-centre position but really it’s designed for you to be sitting right at the centre, isn’t it? So in our world where we’re craving connection and togetherness… [laughs]
Thanks to Neil Finn and Mitchell Froom who were talking to Paul Sinclair for SDE. Crowded House’s new album Gravity Stairs was released yesterday and is available to buy in Dolby Atmos via the SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio.
The blu-ray is available exclusively via the SDE shop. Order using this link or the button below.
Gravity Stairs is featured on the blu-ray in the following audio streams: Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Mix (DTS-HD Master Audio 48/24), PCM stereo (48/24), Instrumental Mix (PCM Stereo 48/24)
The floodgates have finally opened and – as predicted in the SDE Reissue Preview for 2024 – The Police will issue a 6CD super deluxe edition of their smash 1983 album Synchronicity which offers masses of unheard alternates, outtakes and demos!!
The band’s fifth and final studio album, Synchroncity features the singles ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Wrapped Around Your Finger’, ‘King of Pain’ and ‘Synchronicity II’ and went on to sell 15m globally, with 8.5m in the USA alone.
This reissue has been three years in the making, created with the band’s involvement and endorsement. The accompanying 60-page hardcover book contains extensive new sleeve notes written by music journalist Jason Draper, who details the conception and infamous birth of the album.
The 6CD super deluxe of Synchronicity (click image to enlarge)
The box set contains the following content:
CD1 is the original album including ‘Murder By Numbers’, all remastered directly from the original source tapes
CD2 features 18 tracks containing all original 7” / 12” B-sides plus 11 exclusive non-album bonus tracks, available on CD for the first time
CD3 and CD4 contains previously unreleased alternate takes of all the Synchronicity songs
CD4 also features unreleased Police songs including an early version of Andy Summers’ 1982 track ‘Goodbye Tomorrow’ (later renamed ‘Someone To Talk To’); a demo of a Stewart Copeland penned song ‘I’m Blind’ which later resurfaced as the renamed ‘Brothers on Wheels’ for Copeland’s acclaimed soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Rumblefish’; an unreleased first take of ‘Truth Hits Everybody’ (originally from the 1978 debut Outlandos d’Amour’); and rare covers of the Eddie Cochran song ‘Three Steps To Heaven’ and ‘Rock and Roll Music’ by Chuck Berry
CD5 and CD6 features 19 live recordings – all previously unreleased – captured on 10th September 1983 at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, USA
As well as the hardcover book, the 6CD box includes four art prints. Other formats include a 2CD set (repeats first two discs of the super deluxe), a 4LP vinyl edition (42 tracks instead of the 84 on the 6CD set) and a vinyl picture disc that rejigs the running order.
Synchronicity will be reissued on 26 July 2024 via UMR/Polydor. You can support SDE by ordering the 6CD set via the SDE shop using this link or the button below.
‘Smalltown Boy’, Bronski Beat’s classic debut single from 1984, is being reissued as a CD single and a coloured vinyl seven-inch for its 40th anniversary.
The song has been reworked by London-based DJ and producer ABSOLUTE. (Ant McGinley) and the new version gets the ‘thumbs up’ from Jimmy Somerville: “ABSOLUTE. has kept a strong essence of the period and the song. The Bass 🤩…,” he said. ”I was transported back to our first times writing (banging on a Pro One and a Moog) and me realising I never had to walk around vocally imitating a sequence ever again!”
The transparent CD single of ‘Smalltown Boy’
The new CD single of ‘Smalltown Boy’ boasts a rather groovy semi-transparent design and is housed in a die-cut, numbered sleeve. It features the original 1984 edit of ‘Smalltown Boy’ alongside four new reworkings. The pink vinyl seven-inch features the edit on the A-side and the ABSOLUTE. Rework on the B-side.
Both formats are limited to 1,000 units and are available exclusively from the official Bronksi Beat shop.
