SDEtv takes a look at the SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio of Soft Cell’sNon-Stop Erotic Cabaret, which is #15 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series. This is a limited edition pressing of 4,000 units. There’s a few copies still available, only from theSDEshop.com.
This is released today! Order from the SDE shop using this link or the button below. Other blu-rays are available in the blu-ray section of the site.
Tracklisting
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret Soft Cell /SDE-exclusive blu-ray
The second disc boasts some indie-pop from the likes of Echo and the Bunnymen and The Primitives before going a bit ‘dance’ with music from Krush, S’Express, Coldcut feat. Yazz & The Plastic Population and The Beatmasters feat. The Cookie Crew.
The third and final disc is a mixed bag featuring more Kylie, Elton John, Bros, Fairground Attraction, Tiffany, Five Star, Milli Vanilli and ends with the magnificent ‘Keeping the Dream Alive’ from (Münchener) Freiheit.
The Now Yearbook ’88 – Extra 3CD set will be released on 12 January 2024.
Trevor Horn’s new album Echoes – Ancient and Modern was released last week. As well as issuing an exclusive blu-ray audio edition of the album, SDE caught up with Trevor recently at his North London home to discuss the record and his experience working with the various guest vocalists who appear on it.
SDE: There’s this quote, isn’t there, about how you are the man “who invented the sound of the 80s”? What do you think people mean, when they say that? Are you pleased when you hear it?
Trevor Horn: I wasn’t pleased when I first heard it, because I thought it was bollocks. But it’s like anything, the more you hear it you just go… [dismissively] yeah, sure, okay. I was just a person that made some records first. I suppose I was ahead of everybody at the time. Only for a few years, for about three years. And then they brought out the AKAI S900 Sampler. And that, was it, more or less.
How would you define your sound and your production style? Has it changed over the years? I think if you asked the average music fan, they’d probably say you had a certain level of perfectionism. Is that still true?
I was only ever a perfectionist about the emotional impact of the record. That’s what I was mainly interested in. When I first started making records in the mid-70s, most of the people who were successful were monolithic, like Queen… How do you compete with a record like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? I mean, that’s so far ahead of what anybody’s ever really been able to do. No one’s made [a] ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ since then. Not even close. But towards the end of the 70s, I had this feeling that the whole next thing with music was techno [technology-driven]. Just listen to The Man-Machine [Kraftwerk’s 1978 album] and stuff like The Normal [the name Daniel Miller recorded under in the late 70s]. I could just feel there was a revolution coming, and I was working in studios all the time, doing demos for people. I watched keyboards go from being a minimoog or a Fender Rhodes to suddenly being a polymoog. Those kind of changes were earth shattering. By the time the 80s started, I’d had a hit record [‘Video Killed The Radio Star’] and it was a huge, huge, hit. So I was uniquely qualified to make records – I understood what we had, and what was coming. And I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
One of the reasons people employed you, in the 80s, was probably because they thought you had the Midas touch and you could give them a hit. But the days of worrying about radio and hits and whether it’s ‘commercial’ or not have rather disappeared…
It’s not the same [anymore]. Back then you had a very narrow window and you had to have something that would get on Top of the Pops, get on the radio. And if you didn’t make it to Top of the Pops, or it didn’t make it on the radio, it wouldn’t sell. There was no other way of doing it. But now people have done it in different ways without really having a hit single. But even having said that, Pulp never really rose much above the parapet, until ‘Common People’. Everybody needs a hit single.
But that isn’t really open to you now, because it doesn’t matter how good this record is or how good the songs are, you aren’t likely to have a hit single from it.
Yeah, I know.
Does that depress you, a bit?
Yes, it does. But I’ve got to a point where I just hope people listen to it, basically. That’s all you can hope for.
So where did the title come from, ‘Echoes – Ancient and Modern’?
I wanted to call it Ancient and Modern. Echoes, I suppose, was the idea that it’s these fragments from the past. It feels like that to me. Although most of the songs are from the 80s, not all of them are.
What’s the art of a great cover version? Because lots of people say the worst thing you can do is try and replicate the original, which seems like a fair point. Was that in the back of your mind when you’re approaching all these?
Yeah, it was. Occasionally it could be quite irksome, because the way I would like to have done the song was the way it was originally done. But I can’t do it that way…
Especially when you’ve done it yourself!
Yeah, in some ways, those songs are easier because, I’ve played ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ and ‘Relax’ loads of times so I know the DNA of those tracks.
When you write a new song, the excitement comes from the fact that you’re creating something from scratch. But when the song already exists, is it harder to get inspired and find a way in?
It can be, but also quite often you’re dealing with a better song. Because you’ve chosen to take it on.
People will look at this and think, it’s a follow up to Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties, which you did a few years ago, but obviously, that was very orchestral, whereas this is less so. There are a lot of super smooth synths on this record. Was that something you really wanted to embrace?
Yeah, I’ve really gone back to liking the sound of synths, again. I’m sick of orchestras. Because I did that with the Rod Stewart record, as well. So I’m orchestra’d out – I don’t want to do that again.
A lot of bands, just for some product, they’re going back and just doing an orchestral album. It’s become the big thing.
Yeah, well, I think it’s probably on the wane again. But it’s like, you have all these record labels sitting on all this product and every few years, they figure out some way of flogging it again. Of course, you will never have quite what we had back in the 80s, when vinyl was replaced by CDs and suddenly, the record labels had more money than they knew what to do with. I still like CDs. One of the things that stopped me from changing my 10-year old car is because it’s got a CD player in it. And I’m just worried the next one won’t have a CD with it and I’ll be forced to play music from my phone. And it won’t sound the same. It’ll be a bullshit streaming services, which isn’t bad, but when you listen to it on proper speakers, it’s not great.
I still like CDs. One of the things that stopped me from changing my 10-year old car is because it’s got a CD player in it
Trevor Horn
I still really like CDs too, but a lot of people feel like the mastering on CDs has got worse over the years with mastering engineers limiting the sound and losing the dynamic range.
Yeah, I hate it. I just remastered Seal’s first album. That’s an album that’s very dear to my heart. It’s one of the best records I made. It’s kind of rough around the edges here and there, but it’s got so much life in it. And when I heard the new mastered version of the tracks I loathed them. I went out and dug out a 1991 copy of the album that I had in a cupboard that hadn’t been played for a long time and in fact, hadn’t been played much at all. I transferred it into Pro Tools, at 96k, and the difference in quality was extraordinary. And I knew why. I said, “you haven’t mastered it from the half-inch tapes”. This album was mixed to half-inch tape. Some of the tracks were 15 IPS and some of them were 30 IPS. I don’t know if you know the difference, but 15 IPS, or 15 inches-per-second on analogue tape has a better base end curve, but it’s not very bright and it’s a bit noisy. With 30 IPS you have to use Dolby and if you use Dolby on it, it’s pretty noise free. It’s okay, but it doesn’t quite have the same gentleness that 15 IPS does. So every track on the vinyl [reissue] was the result of me and the mastering engineer, spending a whole day EQ-ing the tracks to make sure that they sounded really good.
You’ve said the lyrical content of the song is the thing that really engages you and gets you into a track. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Has the art of a great lyric got lost in modern pop music?
There’s still lots of people trying to write good lyrics. To me, it’s the lyrics that make the difference. You want a piece of music? I’ll sit down at the piano and knock out a piece of music for you in two minutes, but it’s the lyric that makes it into something – it’s the combination of the two things. It was a bit like that with Seal and the first album, it had ‘Crazy’, and I loved the lyric. With ABC I was attracted to that, because “Shoot that poison arrow through my heart”, that’s a really cool lyric. I used to love pop songs, you see. And if you liked them, you don’t like them when they’re not very good. So the lyrics are, to me, the most important thing.
There’s a few of your signature songs on here, like ‘Slave to the Rhythm’, ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’. Was that you wanting to put them on, or the record company? Because ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ was on the last one, as well…
I know. So was ‘Slave to the Rhythm’. Actually, I have to say, I quite like this version of ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’. I think Rick Astley does it surprisingly well. But with ‘Relax’ I was definitely kicking and screaming. I really didn’t fancy ‘Relax’. I did it so many times before. I don’t know how well this will translate into print, but with this new version of ‘Relax’, we had this idea of a sex robot [singing it]. That was, sort of, the inspiration. I just sat down at the keyboard and a drum machine and played it, pretty quickly. And then my engineer Tim did this voiceover on it when I wasn’t here and it made me laugh, I really thought it was great. It sounded like a Japanese animatronic. But in the end, I had to get real and use a human being and an artist! And Toyah and Robert Fripp seemed like a wacko idea. The idea of Robert Fripp playing on ‘Relax’! I love his solo and he was so nice. I went to see King Crimson and I have to take my hat off to him – I’ve never heard such amazing organised chaos.
This is very much a Trevor Horn album with guest vocalists. Did you have finished backing tracks and then think “okay, who can we get for this?” With someone like Tori Amos, for example, she’s a great producer herself, so she might want some creative input and not just sing on the song.
There was a lot of creative input from her, on the vocals. We had a demo that was sort of like the finished thing, with a really lovely girl singing on it, a session singer. And it changed quite substantially from that. Because Tori did a version of it and then I did a third version somewhere in-between the two versions which had all of her vocals from her version. She she really liked the idea, and she came around to it. That’s what we did with most of them; we did a semi-complete backing track, but we could only go so far with each track, because, for instance, with Marc Almond and ‘Love is a Battlefield’, we did a really nice backing track for that but it was five semitones down.
Back to the Tori Amos track. You’d normally expect her to play piano on the song that she’s singing. Is that her playing?
Yeah. Very much so. And that’s her daughter doing some backing vocals.
So if Tori Amos had come to you and said, “Trevor, I’m doing this new album, I want you to produce and we’re doing a cover of ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ how different would it turn out from what’s on your album?
It would have been quite different. Because this is essentially my album rather than Tori Amos’ album. I had a bit more say in the matter.
Exactly. But that must have been fun for you. Because normally your role as a producer, you kind of having to kind of go with the whim of the artist, more than you’d have to in this instance, because you are the artist.
Yeah, that aspect of it was, it was pretty good. One of the other problems that we had was COVID, because I started this record just before lockdown. By the time we got to finish off the record, it was literally two years since, Iggy had done his vocal tracks. He’d more or less forgotten it!
Does that mean most of the vocal contributions would have been done remotely?
No, there’s only a couple that were done remotely and he was one of them due to COVID.
So did Tori come in as well?
I went down to her place [in Cornwall] for a couple of days. I worked with her years ago. I did all the music for a film called Mona Lisa Smile. All the music was from 1948 and 1949, which is when I was born. And she sang ‘You Belong to Me’ which was a big hit from that era. She’s good, Tori Amos. She’s a helluva singer, really good piano player, and a great performer. I had a bit of a connection to her because Ash Soan, the drummer from my band, he’s on the road with her, so I could get through [to her] fairly quickly.
I guess it’s always easier if, you’ve worked with somone before?
Yeah. Or if they’ve met you. Because to go to a strange place and start singing, it’s akin to going somewhere and taking your clothes off. I’m always aware of that.
Would you give them the final version to listen to? Give them ‘approval’, so to speak, or was it a case of, you’ve done your vocal now I’m going to finish off this record in the way that I want?
Well, to be honest, most people… it was like Marc Almond, who said “Don’t send me any rough mixes just send it to me when it’s finished”. So I sent it to him when it was finished and he was fine with it. This is slightly different. If it’s their album, they can tweak the hell out of it. I mean, Iggy with ‘Personal Jesus’, he wasn’t happy with a couple of things so we had to cope with that. He was in the middle of a tour. So he had to sing some bits of it again. But you’re right to point that out. It is quite different, when it’s your thing.
I guess people see you as a relatively safe pair of hands.
The singer is always going to end up sounding good, because we put a lot of effort into that part of it.
With Seal, there must be a great shorthand between the two of you having worked together so much and ‘Stepping Out’ has got that pillow soft, super smooth sound…
That’s how I wanted it. You just chill out. Seal sang that in one day and when I finally played it to him – because I was on tour with him – he really liked his voice on it. I was just really delighted, [because] I’ve worked hard on something and I’ve tried to make the person sound good, but you know, occasionally, it doesn’t quite go according to plan.
We talked about ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ with Rick earlier. He seems like a lovely guy.
He’s a much better singer than people give him credit for. He’s actually got a really good voice and he’s kept it in good shape. Obviously, I’d met him before, somewhere down the line, but I bumped into him in Japan. We were in Japan doing four nights at the Billboard Club and a few festivals, with my band and he was there doing a tour and that’s when he ended up singing with the Foo Fighters and they played ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. It made me take the Foo Fighters a little bit more seriously – and he and I talked about it – because what impressed me was that they made an effort to really learn the song properly and they were playing the right chords. Sometimes these rock bands, they’re like one trick ponies; they’ve got a few [chord] shapes and they move the shapes around, but they’ve no clue what they’re doing. But we were playing the same festival that the Foo Fighters – we were on another stage. And then the next night, we were in the Billboard Club, and Rick was there and he asked if he could get up and sing ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’, which we were doing it in the set. So I was like, “sure”. And I remember when he said it, I was thinking, “I wonder how he’s going to deal with the key?” It’s in A minor, and the first line is…. [at this point Trevor reaches for a nearby acoustic guitar and plays the riff and sings the first line “move yourself” in a very high voice]. That’s how high it is and the next bit goes even higher! That was the thing about Jon Anderson, [he sings very high] but Rick got up on stage and did three words like that and then twigged and dropped it down an octave. But him singing it down an octave made me think that it could work, if the backing track was different. I’d never heard it without someone singing it very high. So I had that in the back of my mind.
Were there any tracks that just couldn’t fit on the album or ones with different vocalists where it just didn’t work out? Have you got any outtakes?
We did a great version of [Visage’s] ‘Fade to Grey’. Jakko [Jakszyk] from King Crimson sang on it and he did it like it was prog track. It just never made it. I couldn’t get a definitive version of it and I was running out of money [laughs].
‘Drive’ is one of those songs that’s so embedded in the 80s. And of course you have that unbreakable connection with Live Aid.
Boy, did I regret doing that, a few times. I just regretted starting it, because of that. It felt so hard to get away from the chords and the sound of it and of course, it was produced by Mutt Lang, and I hate to follow Mutt, because he’s so good. We got over it by changing a few chords.
Are you done now, Trevor, with producing full albums for other artists. Or are you still open to opportunities?
It’s always something I like [doing]. But it takes up so much time, so I’d have to really be into it. If I heard something I liked, I could get excited about it.
If Paul McCartney came to you tomorrow and said, “Trevor, I want you to produce a new record” would you do that?
That’s an unusual one. I worked with Paul in the late 80s and I don’t know if I’d be able to dedicate the time. He puts so much time into some of those albums. All my life, and everything else, would go on hold while I worked on it. To do that, you got to be pretty inspired.
You did some great work with the Pet Shop Boys. You seemed to get along really well with them. If they came back and said, “Do you want to do another album?”…
Oh, yeah, I’d do them. With the Pet Shop Boys it’s an excuse to hang out with them. They’re so funny and unusual.
Neil Tennant would have been good for this record.
He was one of the early ones that I asked. He won’t do anything that’s associated with reissues or anything from the past. Not interested, unfortunately! I can’t blame him. They’re very nice because they came to the Roundhouse benefit and played ‘It’s Alright’ and ‘Left to My Own Devices’ and they were really good.
Trevor Horn was talking to Paul Sinclair for SDE. Echoes – Ancient and Modern is out now. The SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio features the Dolby Atmos Mix and is the only place to get the 5.1 mix and a set of instrumentals (also in 5.1). You can order from the SDE shop using this link or via the button below.
TECHNICAL NOTES: This blu-ray audio requires a blu-ray player. Decoding the Dolby Atmos mix requires a Dolby Atmos-certified soundbar or a Dolby Atmos-compatible AV Receiver/Amp. The Dolby Atmos mix will ‘fold down’ to 5.1 or stereo if a Dolby Atmos decoder is not detected.
It’s somehow apt that Peter Gabriel released every track on its own during this year because i/o – his eighth studio album of original songs – feels like a greatest hits, of sorts. Granted, we’ve waited 20 years, but with the quality on offer it has been worth the wait. But just what has he been up to? Perhaps Gabriel has suffered from writers block and, with the cork finally out of the bottle, delivered with a splurge of high quality pop, or is i/o effectively a collection of the best three tracks from four never-issued ‘phantom’ albums?
i/o is very much an album that wonders about our place in the world (“let’s find out what’s going on” suggests ‘Panopticom’) and wanders about all over the place, musically, while it muses on mortality, morality and an uncertain future.
Panopticom has that stuttering, clipped pop-funk verse section with Gabriel in tight control of his vocal delivery before it opens up wonderfully for the full-voice choruses and the warmth of that acoustic guitar backing. It boasts different sections, tempos and moods which is typical of many of the songs on the album, but Peter manages to fuse everything together and such is the quality of the production with its textures and layers, the spaces in between are good as the vocal sections.
The Court’s verses pull fruit from the same tree as ‘Panopticom’ but it has a that wonderful air-being-sucked from-the-room chorus. While the break section feels a little forced, flicking the water of musical theatre in your face (“Out of this sentence / The ball and the claw…”), ‘The Court’ also boasts one of my favourite sections of this whole album, when the piano comes in for the wonderfully languid outro (“So many reaching for it…”). Exquisite.
Playing for Time is a moving piano ballad that spotlights Peter’s voice and makes you recall his work in the 1970s. The simplicity and beauty of the melody and the restrained string backing is a welcome change from some of the clatter that precedes it.
The title track i/o is a humble meditation on the human condition and our place in the world. Gabriel sings “I’m just a part of everything” and about how we belong to everything including “octopus’ suckers and the buzzard’s wing”. This is certainly a key track lyrically and Peter chooses to express his feelings in an earnest, almost childlike simplicity (“I got stuff coming out, stuff coming in”) as if to communicate to as a wide an audience as possible. At first this song feels slight, but it gets under your skin. By the end, the relaxed, intimate vibe has turned into a rousing singalong “i/o, i/o I’m coming out, I’m going in”.
Next we’re back to Gabriel at his brilliant best with the brooding Four Kinds Of Horses which is one of those songs you play and then just immediately skip back and play again, while turning up the volume. It’s a magnificent centrepiece to the record and delivers in every respect. It has the dark production complexity that we’ve come to expect from premium PG (Brian Eno contributes additional synths and “Electric Worms”) and you’re listening in rapt anticipation as he half speaks the verse section before the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end with the “Come all the nights” section which would be more than good enough to be the chorus, but is in fact a “pre-chorus” because the actual chorus follows: “Four kinds of horses, four kinds of mеn / Ah, you say you’re something differеnt / But you do it all again”. I think we know what he means with those lines.
The album continues in this vein. ‘Road to Joy’ is vibrant, uplifting and is as catchy as hell, with a massive chorus, while ‘So Much’ is intimate and contemplative. Like ‘Playing for Time’ this is largely just Peter with a simple piano backing. “This edition is limited” he sings, meaning the fragile human body. Love Can Heal is a haunting, meditative ballad, with a pillow-soft, twinkling production and ‘This Is Home’ is a earworm of the highest order, with a great melody and vocal performance from Gabriel. The album ends perfectly with Live and Let Live as Peter sings “it takes courage to learn to forgive, to be brave enough to listen, to live and let live”.
If someone told you that this was a lost, unreleased album from 1989, you’d probably believe them. Peter’s voice is remarkably well preserved and, crucially, he hasn’t decided his ‘sound’ needs updating. Gabriel is loyal to his longtime collaborators such as bass player Tony Levin (who’s played on every PG solo album) and guitarist David Rhodes (a ‘newbie’ who has only been around since 1980). These players, along with the likes of drummer Manu Katché and Brian Eno, give i/o the classic Peter Gabriel sound and it’s one to treasure and enjoy.
In truth, none of the songs on i/o quite match the peaks of gilt-edged Gabriel (‘Solsbury Hill’, ‘Games Without Frontiers’, ‘Mercy Street’ etc.) but the best numbers aren’t far off. It’s the general consistency of the album that really impresses. It’s playability. It’s a record devoid of weak tracks: everything is either good or very good and there’s something for everyone: touching ballads, clipped funk-pop, power-pop, ‘darker’ tracks with hushed atmospherics and lyrically it’s as interesting and aware as ever but Gabriel isn’t banging you over the head (with a Sledgehammer) to drive his point home.
If the album is dead then Peter Gabriel has just revived it and given it new life. Tremendous.
i/o was reviewed for SDE by Paul Sinclair. It’s out now via Realworld and the 2CD+blu-ray edition (with Atmos Mix) is still available via the SDE shop via this link or using the button below.
I’m sad to report that songwriter and musician Denny Laine, of The Moody Blues and Wings fame, has died at the age of 79.
Denny succumbed to interstitial lung disease from which he had been suffering for a while. His health took a turn for the worse earlier this year and his wife Elizabeth Hines was by his side when he died.
Denny was the only member of Wings to stay the course during the 1970s and appeared on every album, co-writing songs such as ‘No Words’ (from Band on the Run) and ‘Mull of Kintyre’, still the biggest selling non-charity single in the UK.
His own compositions also made appearances on Wings records, including ‘Time to Hide’ from 1976’s Wings at the Speed of Sound and ‘Again and Again and Again’ from 1979’s Back to the Egg. Denny appeared on Paul’s Tug of War and Pipes of Peace solo albums in the early 1980s, before the pair fell out, although in later years they patched it up and were photographed together at a UB40 concert in the 1990s.
Rest in Peace, Denny Laine. Leave your condolences and thoughts via the comments.
Back in 2004, UK broadcaster Sean Rowley fronted a CD release called Guilty Pleasures which featured a collection of 70s tunes which were supposedly shameful to love, such as The Alessi Brothers’ ‘Oh Lori’, ‘January’ by Pilot or ‘Howzat’ by Sherbert.
The Guilty Pleasures concept really gained traction 20 years ago and indeed the phrase ‘Guilty Pleasures’ was leapt on by the media and the expression entered into the public domain. Sean started up a Guilty Pleasures club night with a monthly residency at KOKO in Camden Town, and he headlined stages at Glastonbury, Latitude, The Big Chill, Bestival and even the opening of the new Wembley Stadium as support to George Michael!
Guilty Pleasures 4CD set
Now, with the involvement of Rowley, the original 22-track CD has been expanded to a deluxe 4CD set with 70 songs (with red cover) and the ‘franchise’ appears on vinyl for the very first time courtesy of a 2LP vinyl package (with blue cover) featuring 29 songs.
Each of the editions comes with extensive track-by-track sleeve notes from Sean and the compilation’s release will be celebrated with a one-off launch party on 24 February next year at an appropriate venue: KOKO in Camden
Both 4CD and 2LP variants of Guilty Pleasures are released on 2 February 2024 via Demon Music. Amazon exclusive signed editions are limited to 1000 units (4CD) and 500 units (2LP vinyl) imited numbers come with prints signed by Sean Rowley.
Massive reduction in the USA for this Rush box set which features CD, LP, four seven-inch singles and a Blu-ray Audio disc with a Dolby Atmos & 5.1 surround mixes by Richard Chycki, the 2015 48kHz 24-bit stereo remaster, new animated visualisers and music videos for ‘Subdivisions’ and ‘Countdown’. NB: If you’re in the UK price for us goes up to $156!
Good reduction for the recent Yes Album super deluxe edition which features a new Dolby Atmos Mix of the 1971 album from Steven Wilson. His previous 5.1 mix and a hi-res stereo mix are also included on the blu-ray (but not the original mix of the album).
David Bowie/Brilliant Adventure 1992-2001 11CD box11CD box set
If you prefer the 5CD version of Revolver, then head to Amazon France where you can currently pick this up for £73 which represents a saving of over £20 on the UK price.
Neil Young/Time Fades Away clear vinyl LPClear vinyl LP
This 2017 Mono/Death Waltz Recording pressing of the soundtrack of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was £40 originally, so this is a bargain. The label went back to the master tapes in the Warner Archives and had this recut to fit across two LPs as the score clocks in at 51 minutes. Features director-approved artwork and composer-approved audio, with sleeve notes from Mark Kermode. Everything about this is premium, including the die-cut and spot varnished sleeve and the ‘cherry pie’ coloured vinyl pressing. Works out at about $32 shipped to the USA (currently $51 on Amazon US).
Elton John/Madman Across The Water 3CD+blu-ray3CD+blu-ray super deluxe
Paul McCartney & Wings’ classic 1973 album Band on the Run will be reissued for its 50th anniversary in three physical editions, with two of them offering unheard early mixes without overdubs.
The album was an enormous critical and commercial success, topping the charts in both the UK and America and spawning multiple hit singles). Band on the Run became the yardstick from which all future Wings and McCartney albums would be measured (“his best album since Band on the Run” being an oft-heard refrain).
These so-called ‘Underdubbed Mixes’ are not newly created in the studio in 2023, rather they were prepared by engineer Geoff Emerick on 14 October 1973, less than two months before the release of the album. They are effectively unreleased rough mixes without any of the orchestral overdubs which were created by, in haste, by Tony Visconti (“I hardly slept for two days”, Tony recalls in his 2007 autobiography). Furthermore, the tracklisting for these ‘Underdubbed Mixes’ does not follow the sequencing on the original album, it mirrors the original analogue tapes discovered in the MPL archives.
The new 50th anniversary 2LP set of Band on the Run (click image to enlarge)
These unheard mixes will be paired with the US version of Band on the Run (which features the additional track ‘Helen Wheels’) for 2CD and 2LP editions.
The 2LP vinyl edition features a half-speed mastered version of the album along with the ‘Underdubbed Mixes’ edition housed in a “premium slipcase”. The set also includes two Linda McCartney Polaroid posters. The 2CD set offers the same audio content with a 2-sided foldout poster.
The third and final physical edition is a single LP edition of the US version of Band on the Run, half-speed mastered.
Band on the Run has also been newly mixed in Dolby Atmos by Giles Martin and Steve Orchard. Unfortunately, as with previous Wings albums mixed in Spatial Audio, there is no physical edition (call me, Scott Rodgers).
These new editions will be released on 2 February 2024 via MPL/UMe. The 2LP is D2C only, but the 2CD and half-speed should be widely available.
Neil Young’s latest studio album is “a trip into his music history”. The 13-track album is available on blu-ray in Atmos. Secure your copy via the SDE shop.
The cleverly named Extension is a 2LP set featuring extended mixes of every track on Kylie’s recent Tension album. Pressed on neon pink and green splatter clear double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve. There’s no CD version, which is annoying, but no doubt there’s some future deluxe edition planned that will address this omission.
Fiona Apple’s second album, When the Pawn... is reissued on vinyl. It was released in 1999 and includes tracks ‘Paper Bag’, ‘Fast As You Can’ and ‘I Know’. Her debut, Tidal, is also reissued as a 2LP set.
Wham!’s 1984 single ‘Last Christmas’ will be issued on coloured vinyl seven-inch and as a CD single, later this month.
The festive favourite famously peaked at number two in 1984 but finally got to number one just after Christmas in 2020. Over the years there have been various physical reissues including a white vinyl seven-inch in 2019 and a US-only bi-colour RSD 12-inch in 2014 (which featured an unreleased instrumental version).
As far as I can tell, there has never been a CD single of Last Christmas in the UK. The first CD single was a Japanese snap-pack in 1988 (which features the single version and Pudding Mix) and between 2004-2005 there were various editions released in Europe, including ‘Pock-iT’ 3-inch CD for Germany. These always had the same tracklisting, the single version and the Pudding Mix.
The ‘Last Christmas’ CD single for 2023 (click to enlarge)
Therefore the UK CD single is a relatively big deal and it offers four tracks: both versions of ‘Last Christmas’ along with the 5.30 Remix Edit and 6.34 full length Remix versions of ‘Everything She Wants’ (the single was a double A-side in the UK).
The new seven-inch, which is pressed on green vinyl, features the standard single version of ‘Last Christmas’ on the A-side with the Remix Edit of ‘Everything She Wants’ on the flipside.
Both physical editions of ‘Last Christmas’ are described by the label as “very limited” and are released on 15 December 2023 via Sony Music.
The pre-order window Def Leppard’sDiamond Star Halos SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio – number 16 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series – closes tomorrow.
This physical product is the only way to own Steven Wilson’s Dolby Atmos Mix of the album from 2022 and it also contains an exclusive instrumental mix of the record. Along with the standard stereo version, the blu-ray features two rare bonus tracks, unreleased outside of Japan.
The Diamond Star Halos SDE-exclusive blu-ray will be released on 12 January 2024 via Mercury/UMR. Secure your copy by pre-ordering via the SDE shop using this link or the pre-order button, below.
Don’t miss out! This is your last chance to guarantee you get a copy. There may be some cancellation/contingency stock around the time of release, but this is not guaranteed (it didn’t happen with Duran Duran, for example).
TECHNICAL NOTES: This blu-ray audio requires a blu-ray player. Decoding the Dolby Atmos mix requires a Dolby Atmos-certified soundbar or a Dolby Atmos-compatible AV Receiver/Amp. The Dolby Atmos mix will ‘fold down’ to 5.1 or stereo if a Dolby Atmos decoder is not detected.
Tracklisting
Diamond Star HalosDef Leppard /
SDE Blu-ray Audio
Diamond Star Halos:| Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos Mix, Instrumental Stereo Mix (48/24) and Stereo Mix (48/24)
Take What You Want 4:14
Kick 3:42
Fire It Up 3:19
This Guitar (featuring Alison Krauss) 3:50
SOS Emergency 3:25
Liquid Dust 4:01
U Rok Mi 3:33
Goodbye for Good This Time 4:27
All We Need 4:46
Open Your Eyes 4:19
Gimme a Kiss 3:12
Angels (Can’t Help You Now) 4:57
Lifeless (featuring Alison Krauss) 4:19
Unbreakable 3:46
From Here to Eternity
Rare bonus tracks (stereo 48/24)
Angels (Can’t Help You Now) (Stripped Version) 4.57
In what must surely be some kind of record, The Rolling Stones will issue an expanded ‘live edition’ of their six-week old album Hackney Diamonds, in December.
The limited edition 2CD version includes the standard album on CD 1 paired with Live at Racket NYC on the second disc, which features the seven tracks the band performed at the launch event in New York on 19 October 2023 including debut live performances of ‘Angry’, ‘Bite My Head Off’, ‘Whole Wide World’ and ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’ (with Lady Gaga). The 24-page booklet includes photos from the performance by Kevin Mazur.
This Live Edition of Hackney Diamonds will be released on 15 December 2023, via Polydor.
A new 27CD Dead Or Alive box set called Still Spinnin’: The Singles Collection 1983-2021 collects all the band singles that were originally released on CBS Records along with independent releases in the post-Sony era.
The band chalked up nine top 40 singles over the years including the chart-topping ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’ which appears in this box set four times, thanks to its various re-releases (there’s 28 different remixes, in total!).
Still Spinnin’ contains 27 CDs (click image to enlarge)
Each CDs contain remixes, B-sides and live tracks associated with the original release and that means quite a lot of music (CD 15, ‘Baby Don’t Say Goodbye’ has 13 tracks).
The music is newly mastered and the CDs are packaged in replica mini-sleeves from across Dead Or Alive’s domestic and international releases.
Still Spinnin’: The Singles Collection 1983-2021 will be released on 16 February 2024 via Edsel.
Still Spinnin’ Singles Collection 1983-2021Dead Or Alive/
CD 1: Misty Circles
Misty Circles 3:48
Misty Circles [Instrumental] 3:44
Misty Circles [Dance Mix] 9:12
Misty Circles [Dub Mix] 6:14
Selfish Side 2:34
CD 2: What I Want
What I Want [Original 7″ Version] 3:44
The Stranger [Re-Recorded Version] 4:51
What I Want [Dance Mix] 6:14
What I Want [1984 7″ Remix] 3:50
What I Want [1984 Dance Mix] 5:53
CD 3: I’d Do Anything
I’d Do Anything 4:04
Anything [Dub] 4:26
I’d Do Anything [Megamix] 5:24
Misty Circles [7″ Version] 3:48
What I Want [Original 7″ Version] 3:42
CD 4: That’s the Way (I Like It)
That’s the Way (I Like It) 3:08
Do It 3:55
That’s the Way (I Like It) [Extended Version] 6:00
Keep That Body Strong (That’s the Way) 3:41
CD 5: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) 3:19
Misty Circles 3:48
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Murder Mix] 8:03
Misty Circles [Extended Version] 9:12
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Performance Mix] 7:27
Mighty Mix (Pt. 1): Wish You Were Here/What I Want/Do It/Misty Circles 7:48
Mighty Mix (Pt. 2): Absolutely Nothing/Sit on It/You Make Me Wanna/That’s the Way (I Like It) 8:18
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Big Ben Mix] 3:41
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Buzzing Bees Mix] 10:12
CD 6: Lover Come Back To Me
Lover Come Back to Me 3:08
Far Too Hard 4:33
Lover Come Back to Me [Extended Version] 5:27
Lover Come Back to Me [7″ Bonus Mix] 3:23
Lover Come Back to Me [Extended Remix] 5:47
Lover Come Back to Me [Instrumental] 4:45
CD 7: In Too Deep
In Too Deep 3:50
I’d Do Anything 4:03
In Too Deep [‘Off Yer Mong’ Mix] 6:19
I’d Do Anything [12″ Version] 5:25
You Make Me Wanna 2:55
In Too Deep [Instrumental] 4:12
CD 8: My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor)
My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor) 3:13
Big Daddy of the Rhythm [Live] 3:29
My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor) 7:18
Cake and Eat It [Live at Hammersmith Odeon] 5:37
In Too Deep [Live at Hammersmith Odeon] 4:38
My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor) [American ‘Wipe-Out’ Mix] 6:46
My Heart Goes Bang [Instrumental Version] 4:33
CD 9: Brand New Lover
Brand New Lover 3:37
In Too Deep [Live] 4:37
Brand New Lover [The Dust Monkey’s Love Bubble Club Mix] 9:05
Brand New Lover [Instrumental] 4:18
Brand New Lover [Up Ducky Mix] 6:29
Cake and Eat It [Live at Hammersmith Odeon] 5:37
CD 10:
Something in My House [7″ Remix] 3:50
DJ Hit That Button 3:27
Something in My House [Mortevicar Mix] 6:59
Something in My House [Flamenco Version] 4:22
Something in My House [U.S. Wipe-Out Mix Part 2] 7:22
Something in My House [House Instrumental] 5:25
Something in My House [Naughty XXX Mix] 7:00
Brand New Lover 3:37
In Too Deep [Live at Hammersmith Odeon] 4:35
CD 11: Hooked on Love
Hooked on Love [Edit] 3:36
Hooked on Love [La Vie en Rose Mix] 3:54
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Recorded Live at the Golden Suspender] 6:56
Hooked on Love [The Big Revolver Mix] 8:25
Something in My House [U.S. Wipe-Out Mix Part 2] 7:21
Hooked on Love [Remix] 4:30
Something in My House 3:51
DJ Hit That Button 3:28
Hooked on Love [Instrumental] 5:04
CD 12: I’ll Save You All My Kisses
I’ll Save You All My Kisses [Remixed-7″ Version] 3:30.
Lover Come Back (To Me) 3:09
I’ll Save You All My Kisses [The Sonia Mezumbda Memorial Mix] 5:19
I Wanna Be a Toy 3:59
I’ll Save You All My Kisses [The Long Wet Sloppy Kiss Mix] 7:10
Whirlpool 4:19
Nowhere to Nowhere 2:35
CD 13: Turn Around and Count 2 Ten
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten [7″ Version] 4:51
Something in My House [Short House Instrumental -Instru-Mental Mix] 3:30
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten [The Pearl & Dean “I Love” – BPM Mix] 8:36
Something in My House [Instru-Mental 12″ Mix] 5:24
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten [The Pearl and Dean “I Had a Disco Dream” Mix] 7:15
Then There Was You 3:43
Come Inside 4:28
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten [Instru-Mental Mix] 3:00
CD 14: Come Home with Me Baby
Come Home with Me Baby [7″ Version] 3:52
I’ll Save You All My Kisses 3:30
Come Home with Me Baby [12″ Version] 6:21
I Want You [7″ Mix] 4:03
Come Home with Me Baby [The Deadhouse Dub] 6:26
Come Home with Me Baby [The Deadhouse Dub 7″ Edit] 3:31
Come Home with Me Baby [Instru-Mental Mix] 3:33
CD 15: Baby Don’t Say Goodbye
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Edited House Version] 4:03
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Edited Pop Version] 4:01
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [12″ House Version] 6:09
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Pop Version] 4:17
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Extended Mix] 6:46
Mini Megamix: Come Home with Me Baby/Stop Kicking My Heart Around/Give It Back (That Love Is Mine) 2:54
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [The Powerful Club Twelve] 5:48
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Club Mix] 8:33
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Instrumental] 4:51
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Cheer’s Vocal] 7:09
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Danny’s Dub] 3:32
Baby Don’t Say Goodbye [Radio Edit] 4:29
Nude Mega Mix: Come Home (With Me Baby)/Stop Kicking My Heart Around/Give It Back That Love Is Mine/Baby Don’t Say Goodbye/ Turn Around and Count 2 Ten/I Don’t Wanna Be Your Boyfriend [Unreleased] 8:43
CD 16: Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness)
Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness) 5:51
Blue Christmas 3:57
Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness) [Instrumental] 5:50
CD 17: Been Gone 2 Long
Been Gone 2 Long 5:48
Live in Nagoya, Japan 29 November 1990: Turn Around and
Count 2 Ten/Blue Christmas/Your Sweetness 11:05
Beats 2 Long 2:55
CD 18: Unhappy Birthday
Unhappy Birthday [Radio Edit] 5:09
Total Stranger [Remix] 7:07
Unhappy Birthday [Ninja Billy Mix] 7:33
Unhappy Birthday [Japanese 7″ Mix] 6:04
Unhappy Birthday [Rockin’ Instrumental] 4:45
CD 19: Rebel Rebel
Rebel Rebel 4:05
Rebel Rebel [Extended 12″ Mix] 6:29
Rebel Rebel (The Hole Mix) 6:38
Rebel Rebel [The Safe Hands Remix] 5:18
The Right Stuff 4:05
CD 20: You Spin Me Round (’96 Remix)
You Spin Me Round (’96 Remix – Sugar Pumpers Radio Mix) 3:41
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [’96 Remix – Sugar Pumpers Extended Mix] 5:14
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [’96 Remix -Sugar Pumpers Pumpin’ Mix] 7:09
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [’96 Remix -The Yummi Mix] 3:27
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [’96 Remix -The Yummi 4Am Mix] 6:00
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [’96 Remix -The Vicious Mix] 8:14
International Thing [International 7″ Edit] 3:47
International Thing [Nu-Nrg 7″ Remix] 4:20
International Thing 6:59
International Thing [Nu-Nrg 12″ Remix] 6:59
CD 21: Sex Drive
Sex Drive [Radio Edit] 4:24
Sex Drive [Album Version] 5:15
Sex Drive [Sugar Pumpers Extended Mix] 5:56
Sex Drive [Peewee’s Radio Mix] 4:10
Sex Drive [Scream Driven Edit] 3:56
Sex Drive [Peewee’s Remix] 5:56
Sex Drive [Scream Driven Mix] 7:01
Sex Drive [Peewee’s Extended Remix] 9:35
Sex Drive [Album Radio Edit/Original Radio Edit] 2:54
Sex Drive [Dead or Alive Original Mix] 6:38
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Tyme Vs Hoops Mix] 6:48
What I Want 5:25
Come Home (With Me Baby) [12″ Version] 6:2
Your Sweetness [Live in Nagoya, Japan] 2:36
CD 22: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [400 HZ – Kleopatra Edit Remix] 3:21
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Jail House Club Edit Remix] 4:19
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [400 HZ – Kleopatra Remix] 6:46
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Jail House Club Remix] 4:36
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [400 HZ – Marc Antoine Remix] 7:03
You Spin Me Round [Time Vs. Hoops Club Mix] 6:48
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Edouard’s Mix] 4:07
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Kalk’s Underground Mix] 5:19
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Blue Sky Mix] 4:02
CD 23: Hit and Run Lover
Hit and Run Lover [Radio Version] 3:40
Hit and Run Lover 4:42
Hit and Run Lover [Hit Remix] 4:4
Hit and Run Lover [Instrumental] 4:42
Hit and Run Lover [Acapella] 4:09
Turn Around and Count 2 Ten 2000 [Radio Edit] 4:02
CD 24: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Metro 7″ Edit] 3:47
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Metro 12″ Extended Mix] 6:57
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Punx Soundcheck Vs Princess Julia Remix] 5:49
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Mark Moore & Mr Motion Remix] 6:20
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [D-Bop Club Mix] 7:15
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Alternative Metro 7″ Edit] 4:25
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) [Original 7″ Mix] 3:16
Isn’t It a Pity 4:44
CD 25: Even Better Than the Real Thing
Even Better Than the Real Thing 4:26
Pop Life 4:16
Why’s It So Hard 4:50 Released As a Single in 2007
CD 26: Tonight
Tonight… 4:02
Tonight… [Extended Version] 6:03
Tonight… [Instrumental Version] 4:02
Tonight… [Extended Instrumental Version] 6:01
CD 27: Hurt Me (Did You Have to Hurt Me)
Hurt Me (Did You Have to Hurt Me) 4:28
Hurt Me (Did You Have to Hurt Me) [Extended Version] 6:54
Hurt Me (Did You Have to Hurt Me) [Instrumental Version] 4:28
Hurt Me (Did You Have to Hurt Me) [Extended Instrumental Version] 6:50
The Pogues’ lead singer and songwriter Shane MacGowan has died, his family have announced.
A statement read: “It is with the deepest sorrow and heaviset of hearts that we annouce the passing of Shane MacGowan. Shane died peacefully at 3am this morning (30 November, 2023) with his wife Victoria and family by his side.Prayers and the last rites were read which gave comfort to his family. He is survived by his wife Victoria, his sister Siobhan and his father Maurice, family and a large circle of friends.Further details will be announced shortly but the family ask for privacy at this time”.
The Pogues released seven albums between 1984 and 1996 before MacGowan formed The Popes who were active for most of the 1990s. The Pogues reunited in 2001 and toured on and off for over a decade. Shane will be best remembered by the public at large for The Pogues’ 1987 single with Kirsty MacColl, ‘Fairy Tale of New York’.
Jonathan Cornell on the new Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos mix of Who’s Next
The long-awaited 10CD+Blu-ray super deluxe edition of The Who’s 1971 opus finally arrived in September 2023, featuring new 5.1 and Dolby Atmos mixes from in-demand surround sound mixer Steven Wilson. This comprehensive reissue undoubtedly delivered the final word on that period of the band, including dozens of previously-unheard studio and live recordings from 1970-72 across a massive eleven-disc box set (read Alexis Petridis’ review on SDE).
This set was among my most-anticipated releases of the year not only because of Steven Wilson’s involvement, but also for personal reasons: Who’s Next was among my Dad’s, and thus my own, all-time favourite classic rock records. He’d once described to me in detail the experience of first listening to the album on LP way back in 1971, on a friend’s pair of JBL L100 Century speakers with the built-in tone controls ‘cranked to eleven’.
My Dad had been interested in surround music since the early-1970s (our stereo setup includes both a working SQ decoder and CD-4 demodulator, two very obscure pieces of gear required to properly play back quadraphonic vinyl) and always lamented that Who’s Next was never reissued in a multichannel format. The album did not receive a quad mix during the 1970s, and – despite Pete Townshend expressing interest in creating a 5.1 version in around 2004, as he had done so successfully with Tommy – it was passed over again during the early 2000s heyday of the SACD and DVD-Audio formats.
I couldn’t have imagined that my Dad would unexpectedly pass away from a stroke on 2 September, at the age of 68 – a mere two weeks before the box set and Atmos mix would be released. So listening to this fantastic reimagining of a classic for the first time was a strangely bittersweet experience, knowing I’ll never get to share it with him or hear his thoughts on it.
Though Who’s Next isn’t as layered as other albums from this era that Steven Wilson has remixed in 5.1 surround or Dolby Atmos, I think he’s made the most of the original multitrack recordings to craft an exciting new immersive experience. The Atmos mix is chock full of newfound detail, yet also respectful to the iconic original Glyn Johns production.
I was somewhat skeptical at how impressive ‘Baba O’Riley’ could be in surround sound given the limited source, but the Atmos mix of this song works remarkably well. The iconic opening organ line swirls all around and above just as I’d hoped, while Roger Daltrey’s lead vocal is almost completely isolated in the center speaker. ‘Bargain’ is unfortunately presented as an up-mix from the stereo master due to the loss of the original multitrack, but it does sound appropriately ‘big’ and fills out the room nicely.
“Love Ain’t For Keeping” again features Daltrey in the centre channel, with the acoustic guitars almost entirely isolated in the side speakers and background vocals placed primarily in the rear heights. Despite being recorded to a single mono track for this song, Moon’s drums sound absolutely thunderous coming from the front stage.
I imagined Wilson would do something fun with the horn parts in ‘My Wife’ and I’m not disappointed: they come screaming from the rear surround speakers, while Townshend’s guitar swells swirl all around the height channels. Another one of the most exciting passages in the album would have to be the ending of ‘The Song Is Over’, with the big drum rolls crashing all around the room.
Moving into what originally constituted side two, ‘Getting In Tune’ kicks off with the piano in the side right speaker and then electric guitar appearing directly behind the listener’s head. The backing vocals wildly swing between the rear height speakers. ‘Going Mobile’ again makes heavy use of the side speakers for acoustic guitars, with the ARP synthesizer filling up the rear surrounds and crazy wah-wah guitar isolated in the rear left height speaker.
The one track that didn’t quite stick the landing for me was perhaps my favourite on the record, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. The cathedral-like ambience at the beginning is perfect, but the vocal harmonies–now relocated to the rear height speakers–seem much louder and drier than in the original stereo. Nitpicks aside, there are definitely some fantastic moments in that great song, such as when Townshend’s harmonies on specific lines (“I blame you” and “can show through”) pop up in the front heights, directly above Daltrey’s lead in the centre channel. Unlike the rest of the album tracks, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ was captured using a 16-track recorder, making the scope for the new immersive experience that much greater. Keith Moon’s ferocious drums thunder across the front soundstage, while Townshend’s acoustic guitar emanates primarily from the left side surround. Backing vocals again pop out of the rear heights, and the handclaps bouncing all around during the first instrumental break (just before “I move myself and my family aside”) perfectly adds to the mania of the song.
For those who haven’t yet made the leap to Dolby Atmos, fear not as the DTS-HD 5.1 mix also makes for a fabulous listening experience. Note that this is not a ‘fold-down’ of the Atmos presentation, but rather a completely unique mix intended specifically for six speakers. Many of the elements that appear isolated in the side surround speakers – such as the acoustic guitars in ‘Love Ain’t For Keeping’ – instead hover in the ‘phantom’ spaces between the front & rear channels in the 5.1 mix. Another interesting difference is in ‘Baba O’Riley’ where the Atmos mix had the electric guitar coming from above and fiddle in the rear surrounds, the 5.1 version instead positions the guitar in the back speakers and fiddle in the centre channel. I could try to eloquently conclude my thoughts on this fabulous new immersive remix of an album I’ve long loved, but Steven Wilson himself sums it up best in his short essay included in the box set’s liner notes:
For me, the economy inherent in the recording process of Who’s Next actually makes for a really engaging surround experience. You can hear the space between all the instruments, every gesture in the music. Even the sound of the room they were recording in. Both compositionally and performance-wise nothing on Who’s Next is superfluous or wasted, everything counts. It’s almost a cliche with surround sound to say that it’s like you’re in the studio with the band, but that really is the way it feels on these iconic recordings. You can almost reach out and touch the music.”
Steven Wilson, August 2022
As far as surround sound mixes of classic albums go, it simply doesn’t get much better than this. Was the Blu-Ray worth the high price of admission? For me, the answer is a resounding “yes.” I only wish that my Dad was still here to enjoy it with me.
CD 2: PETE TOWNSHEND’S LIFE HOUSE DEMOS 1970 – 1971 – PART 1
Teenage Wasteland (Demo)*
Too Much (Demo) *
Going Mobile (Demo)*
There’s A Fortune in Those Hills (Demo)*
Love Ain’t For Keeping (Demo)*
Bargain (Demo)*
Greyhound Girl (Demo)*
Mary (Alternate Mix) (Demo)**
Behind Blue Eyes (Demo)*
Time Is Passing (Demo)*
Finally, Over (Demo)**
Baba O’Riley (Original Demo)**
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 3: PETE TOWNSHEND’S LIFE HOUSE DEMOS 1970 – 1971 – PART 2
Pure And Easy (Home Studio Mix) (Demo)*
Getting In Tune (Alternate Mix) (Demo)**
Nothing Is Everything (Let’s See Action) (Demo)*
Won’t Get Fooled Again (Demo)*
Baba O’Riley (Demo)*
Song Is Over (2021 Remix) (Demo)**
Pure And Easy (Olympic Studios Mix) (Demo)**
Mary (Original Mix) (Demo)*
Baba O’Riley (First Editing Demo)**
Song Is Over (Original Demo)*
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 4: RECORD PLANT, NYC SESSIONS MARCH 1971
Don’t Do It (aka Baby Don’t You Do It) [Take 2, Unedited, March 16, 1971]**
Won’t Get Fooled Again [Take 13, March 16, 1971]*
Behind Blue Eyes (Version 1) [Take 15, March 16, 1971]**
Love Ain’t For Keeping [Take 14, March 17, 1971]*
The Note (aka Pure and Easy) [Take 21, March 17, 1971]*
I’m In Tune (aka Getting in Tune) [Take 6, March 18, 1971*
Behind Blue Eyes (Version 2) [Take 10, March 18, 1971}*
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 5: OLYMPIC SOUND STUDIOS, LONDON SESSIONS 1970-72
Pure And Easy*
I Don’t Know Myself [B-side with Unreleased Count-in]
Time Is Passing [Stereo Mix]**
Too Much of Anything [Original 1971 Vocal]**
Naked Eye [1971 Remake]**
Bargain (Early Mix)**
Love Ain’t For Keeping (Unedited Mix)**
My Wife (Unedited Mix)**
Getting In Tune (Take 1 with Jam)**
Going Mobile (Alternate Mix)**
Song Is Over (Backing Track) [with Nicky Hopkins]**
When I Was a Boy**
Let’s See Action (Unedited Mix)**
Relay (Unedited Mix) [Alternate Vocal]**
Put The Money Down [Remix with Original Vocal]*
Join Together [Unedited Remix]**
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 6: SINGLES & SESSIONS 1970-72
The Seeker (Original Single Mix)
Here For More [Original Single Mix]
Heaven And Hell [New Stereo Mix]**
Water [Eel Pie Sound Studio – New Unedited Mix]**
I Don’t Know Myself [Eel Pie Sound Studio – New Unedited Mix]**
Naked Eye [Eel Pie Sound Studio – New Unedited Mix]**
Postcard [Eel Pie Sound Studio – Original 1970 Mix]**
Now I’m A Farmer [Eel Pie Sound Studio – New Remix]**
The Seeker (Unedited Version)**
Water (IBC Version)**
I Don’t Know Myself (IBC Version)**
Let’s See Action (Original Single Mix)
When I Was a Boy (Original Single Mix)
Join Together (Original Single Mix)
Relay (Original Single Mix)
Waspman (Original Single Mix)
Long Live Rock (Original Olympic Mix)
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 7: LIVE AT THE YOUNG VIC, LONDON – APRIL 26, 1971
Love Ain’t for Keeping*
Pure And Easy*
Young Man Blues*
Time Is Passing*
Behind Blue Eyes*
I Don’t Even Know Myself*
Too Much of Anything*
Getting In Tune*
Bargain*
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 8: LIVE AT THE YOUNG VIC, LONDON – APRIL 26, 1971
Pinball Wizard**
See Me, Feel Me**
Baby Don’t You Do It*
Water*
My Generation*
(I’m A) Road Runner*
Naked Eye*
Bony Moronie*
Won’t Get Fooled Again*
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 9: LIVE AT THE CIVIC AUDITORIUM, SAN FRANCISCO – DECEMBER 12, 1971
Introduction**
I Can’t Explain*
Substitute*
Summertime Blues**
My Wife*
Baba O’Riley**
Behind Blue Eyes*
Bargain*
Won’t Get Fooled Again**
Baby Don’t You Do It*
Magic Bus**
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
CD 10: LIVE AT THE CIVIC AUDITORIUM, SAN FRANCISCO – DECEMBER 12, 1971
Introduction To Tommy**
Overture**
Amazing Journey**
Sparks**
Pinball Wizard**
See Me Feel Me**
My Generation**
Naked Eye*
Going Down*
* Previously released with new remix
** Previously unreleased tracks
Blu-ray Audio
Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit)**
Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (96kHz 24-bit)**
Steven Wilson Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)*
Original 1971 Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)
Baba O’Riley
Bargain
Love Ain’t For Keeping
My Wife
The Song Is Over
Getting In Tune
Going Mobile
Behind Blue Eyes
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Bonus Tracks: Steven Wilson Atmos Mix (48kHz 24-bit) & Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix (96kHz 24-bit), Steven Wilson Stereo Mix (96kHz 24-bit)*
The soundtrack to Robert Wise’s film version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Musicis being reissued across multiple formats, with a super deluxe edition offering “every musical element” from the film and a Dolby Atmos Mix.
The musical features classics such as as ‘My Favourite Things’, ‘Do-Re-Mi’, ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Edelweiss’ and Robert Wise walked away with Best Picture and Best Director Oscars (being director and co-producer) at the 1966 Academy Awards.
The new reissue is led by a 4CD+blu-ray super deluxe which features over 40 previously unreleased tracks, including 11 never-before-heard alternate takes and instrumentals of each song for that singalong-a-Sound-of-Music experience. The blu-rays capacity allows it to deliver the full score in hi-res stereo audio and well as a Dolby Atmos Mix of the 16-track original soundtrack.
The 4CD+blu-ray super deluxe of The Sound of Music
The box set edition also features new, in-depth sleeve notes by the writer, and Robert Wise associate Mike Matessino, who also remixed and remastered the album from the original multi-track tapes. In his detailed essay, which delves deep into the making of the film and all of its music, Matessino writes, “You will hear what you’ve heard before, famous songs with the mellifluous tones of Dame Julie Andrews leading the way, but the experience has been transformed beyond what the 1965 soundtrack album offered—with extensions to the songs, a brilliantly arranged underscore, and even some segments not used in the completed version of the film.”
2CD deluxe and 3LP vinyl editions include the film’s full score. The Sound of Music will be reissued on 1 December 2023 via Craft Recordings.
Rhino’s latest releases to feature archival quadrophonic mixes are now available on Amazon in the USA having previously been D2C (direct-to-consumer) only.
These new ‘Quadio’ titles are a quartet of albums originally released within a year of each other. They are America’s George Martin-produced Holiday (1974), Gordon Lightfoot’sSundown (1974), Charlie Mingus’Mingus Moves (1973) and The Spinners’ fourth album Spinners (1973).
All four of the albums are pressed on blu-ray audio and feature 24/194 four channel (4.0) audio as well as 24/192 stereo. They come in those ‘super’ jewel cases that SACDs used to be presented in.
The ‘Quadio’ initiative started back in 2016 with a Chicago box set, which was later followed by a Doobie Brothers box is 2020. Rhino have recently rebooted it for some individual releases, which is most welcome. Four other titles were issued earlier this year including Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper.
The four titles listed above are released on 8 December 2024. There doesn’t appear to be any UK availability at this point.
