Jonathan Cornell on the new Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos mix of Van Morrison’s Moondance.
Moondance (1970) was Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison’s third studio album, recorded at legendary producer Phil Ramone’s A&R studios in New York City and mixed by then-novice staff engineer Elliot Scheiner (who’d go on to work with Steely Dan, Toto, The Eagles, and other notable acts). Whereas his prior album Astral Weeks (1968) failed to immediately attain critical or commercial success, Moondance cemented Morrison as one of the great singer-songwriter acts of the early 1970s.
Fans may recall that in 2013, Warner/Rhino issued a 4CD/Blu-Ray deluxe edition of Moondance featuring a new 5.1 surround sound mix by Scheiner. The new 2023 standalone Blu-Ray edition of Moondance contains not only the same high-resolution stereo remaster and 5.1 mix from the 2013 set, but also new stereo, instrumental, and Dolby Atmos mixes from Steven Wilson. Interestingly enough, it was through working with Scheiner on the 5.1 mix of Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia way back in 2002 that Wilson was first introduced to the idea of immersive music.
As is often the case in his 5.1 surround mixes, Scheiner’s multi-channel interpretation of the album drops the listener in the centre of the band with key musical elements such as acoustic guitar, backing vocals, piano, horns, and even the drums in ‘Crazy Love’ isolated in the rear speakers. Van Morrison’s vocals are woven into all speakers, but appear most prominently in the front channels. It’s also= noticeably drier than the original 1970 stereo version, which I felt somewhat took away the album’s trademark ‘warmth’ and ethereal vibe.
“The album was recorded onto eight-track, one-inch analog tape. This was the newest format at the time and the cutting edge, believe it or not. The eight tracks were relegated to one track of drums, one for bass, one for keyboards, Van’s vocal on one, Van’s guitar on one, backgrounds on one, and the last one for horns. I thought it wouldn’t be easy to take an eight-track master and make a 5.1 version, but it’s amazing how great it turned out. I hope enough people get an opportunity to hear this version. After 44 years, this music still holds up and commands your attention”
Elliot Scheiner, 2013
Similar to his recent Dolby Atmos mixes of The Who’sWho’s Next (read the review) and The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty – both titles of a similar vintage – Steven Wilson’s immersive take on the album spreads the instrumentation far and wide, carrying over many of the hard pans from the original stereo release. The addition of the side surround and height speakers in Atmos allows him to take the ‘listener in-the-centre-of-the-band’ concept even further, making this the ultimate Moondance experience.
‘And It Stoned Me’ immediately fills up the entire soundstage with the rhythm section upfront, vocal in the centre channel, acoustic guitars in the sides, piano mostly in the left rear surround, and horns taking up both the front right and rear right height speakers. The thick plate reverb that was key to the sound of Moondance is back and now reassigned to the height channels, giving the vocals a multi-dimensional quality not found in the prior 5.1 mix.
The Moondance blu-ray audio features the Atmos Mix, a 5.1 mix, new stereo mix and 2013 remastered stereo (click to order a copy)
Moving into the classic title song, the iconic piano melody mostly emanates from the right side speaker accompanied by an acoustic guitar floating off to the left. Horns extend upward from the rear surrounds up into the heights (flute on the left, brass on the right), while the sax solo hovers between the centre channel and front heights.
Van Morrison’s vocal is almost completely isolated in the centre channel for ‘Crazy Love’, while vibes emanate mostly from the left side speaker and the backing vocals appear suspended between the rear surrounds and rear heights. The rhythm section, originally pushed way off to the left side of the stereo image, is now centered in the front channels. Piano from the side left speaker brings us into ‘Caravan’, as the drums thunder in from upfront and acoustic guitar floats off to the right. Horns and backing vocals emerge from the rear heights, while a second acoustic guitar part pops up in the left rear speaker towards the end.
“Think of [the Atmos mix] as a new perspective on something familiar, a version that plays with the possibilities of spatial audio rather than trying to sound as if you’re sitting in the performance space with the band (which is kind of the approach that Elliot’s mix took). This is my interpretation, made with love and respect for the masterpiece that is Moondance, and I hope you enjoy it”
Steven Wilson
‘Into The Mystic’, perhaps my favourite song on the album, is another highlight with the acoustic guitars again filling up the side surrounds and the ‘foghorn whistle’ brass in the height speakers. Piano floats over your left shoulder and tambourine off to the right, both elements slightly elevated into the height array. Morrison’s voice seems to extend a bit further out into the room during this song, perhaps to cover up the vocal bleed in one of the guitar parts (as revealed in the instrumental mix).
Percussion from the left rear speaker complements the rhythm section upfront throughout ‘Come Running’, with horns mostly in the right rear height speaker and backing vocals over to the left. Harmonica then pops up from behind for ‘These Dreams Of You’, while the sax solo comes blaring from the front heights.
‘Brand New Day’ again features backing vocals from Judy Clay and Cissy Houston in the rear height speakers. Electric and acoustic guitar parts alternate between the side speakers, while the piano appears centered in the rears. Perhaps my one gripe with the Atmos mix is that the piano solo in this song is quite buried in comparison to past versions, coming off almost like a ghost in the mix.
Clavinet from the left side speaker kicks off ‘Everyone’, quickly joined by an acoustic guitar over on the right side and Van’s centered vocal. Flute appears mainly in the left rear height speaker, but switches to the front heights for the solo.
‘Glad Tidings’ then closes out the album in glorious fashion with handclaps and horns raining down from above, while Morrison’s overdubbed harmony vocals alternate left-centre-right in the rear surround speakers. That said, one fun touch I do miss from Scheiner’s 5.1 mix is the handclaps at the beginning of the song playfully rotating from speaker-to-speaker around the room.
Though the music has now been spread over twelve speakers instead of merely two (in a 7.1.4 set-up), I feel Wilson has succeeded in maintaining and even enhancing the intimate atmosphere of the original production. If you close your eyes, at times it almost sounds as if you could be sitting at a campfire surrounded by these great musicians. Needless to say, this reissue comes highly recommended to fans of Moondance and immersive audio.
Review by Jonathan Cornell for SDE. Read more of Jonathan’s reviews atImmersiveAudioAlbum.com.
The Moondance Dolby Atmos Mix is available on blu-ray audio and is in stock and ready to ship from the SDE shop. Place an order using this link or simply use the ‘buy button’ below. Other blu-ray audios, including exclusive titles, can be found on the blu-ray audio section of the SDE shop.
Tracklisting
MoondanceVan Morrison/
2022 Atmos Mix
2013 96/24 5.1 Mix
2022 96/24 Steven Wilson Remix
2013 192/24 Remastered Stereo
2022 96/24 Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix
Initially issued on CD as part of the Archives Vol. 2 box set, Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s album Dume – effectively an expanded version of the Zuma album – will be issued on vinyl for the first time next month.
The 16-song album includes tracks from 1975, recorded during the Zuma sessions. The record gets its name from Point Dume, the area in Malibu where Neil Young, Crazy Horse, and producer David Briggs lived, wrote and recorded the music (Zuma beach in this area, too).
The idea behind Dume was to weave songs from the Zuma album with unreleased tracks and mixes from that period; to use the Zuma album as a starting point and expand it into a brand-new entity, with unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. Eight out of Zuma’s nine tracks are included in exactly the same versions (‘Through My Sails’ is the only one omitted) everything else is unreleased, or was until 2020, when the Archives Vol. 2 CD box came out. This is the first time they’ve been released on vinyl.
Dume will be released on 23 February 2034 via Reprise Records.
Welcome to the traditional SDE Reissue Preview for the year ahead! As usual we will start with the first few months of this year where we have confirmed releases and then move on to what we know/think/presume/hope will be reissued later in the year. Of course they’ll be plenty of things not covered, so please as well as offering your thoughts on reissues mentioned below, do chip in with forthcoming products you know about that SDE hasn’t mentioned! You can do this via the comments section.
Despite the recently announced Band on the Run reissue, the last few years have been very frustrating for Paul McCartney and Wings fans. Yes, there has been product: The 50th anniversary half-speed vinyl editions, for example, the lavish and actually rather impressive 7” Singles box in a wooden crate, endless iterations of McCartney III but the fact remains that Archive Collection series, Paul’s “multi-year” reissue campaign that kicked off in 2010 with Band on the Run, has been effectively dormant since July 2020 when his 1997 album Flaming Pie was reissued. When you consider the re-release before that one (Wild Life / Red Rose Speedway) was released in December 2018, that means we’ve only had one proper reissue in the last five years.
While I do not think anyone has an issue with Paul prioritising new albums over archival projects – 2018’s Egypt Station and 2020’s McCartney III – it has gone well beyond that. Paul milked both albums to an excessive degree, particularly McCartney III with its endless vinyl iterations, the III Imagined release (which appeared literally months later), the McCartney vinyl and CD box sets, and now only three years down the line, a trio of third anniversary vinyl editions!
Add to that Paul’s newly found fascination with books, including the admittedly excellent The Lyrics tome, and there is a sense that he has rather gone off the idea of reissuing his old albums – including latter-day Wings long-players London Town and Back to the Egg. It’s not even a feeling; the evidence is there for all to see: any idea, any flight of fancy, any ‘why don’t we do this?’ gets prioritised above what was once a core interest. Consider that in the first two years of the Archive Collection series McCartney reissued FOUR albums (Band on the Run, McCartney, McCartney II and Ram). A hit rate of one every six months has turned into one every 3 or 4 years. The ever productive McCartney has not slowed down at all, but has either lost interest or just got distracted.
It has been so long that I have to conclude that we will finally see some activity in 2024. The sad news of Paul’s loyal bandmate Denny Laine dying last month must have surely have triggered some stirrings and affection for the good old days. One of the albums that hasn’t been reissued is London Town which, like Band on the Run, was produced by a three-piece Wings: just Paul, Denny and Linda. My money is on that album being next, perhaps with its follow-up, 1979’s Back to Egg reissued simultaneously.
Paul’s box sets have definitely got better over the years (if rather expensive), with more alternative mixes/demos on offer but he continues to have a habit of annoying his core fanbase with strange decisions. This started with the Flowers in the Dirt ‘download-only’ debacle of 2017 where key B-sides and remixes were not even included on CD within the deluxe box set, and continued with interesting demos – not included in the physical product – appearing as low quality MP3s on Paul’s website. In recent times, Paul has finally embraced spatial audio with a series of 50th anniversary Dolby Atmos Mixes but not offered them as a physical product, something which there is clearly demand for. If we do see London Town emerge in 2024 SDE would like a blu-ray included with an Atmos Mix.
John Lennon
There’s a good case for stating that John Lennon has eclipsed his old partner Paul with his own ongoing reissue campaign. When McCartney kicked off his Archive Collection series in 2010 there was, at the same time, a series of Lennon reissues which rather lacked ambition. Decent remasters of the studio albums (and an accompanying Signature box set) along with a couple of different compilations (Gimme Some Truth and Power to the People) were okay… but it was a career overview, rather than a deep dive. Paul’s Band on the Run deluxe edition wasn’t perfect when it came to audio, but the book was excellent, but it felt high quality and ‘deluxe’ and was reasonably priced at the time.
Fast forward to 2018 and the 4CD+2xblu-ray deluxe edition of John Lennon’s Imagine delivered in every way, particularly with a forensic and comprehensive look at the audio. New ‘Ultimate Mixes’ were offered in stereo and 5.1 surround. There were ‘Element Mixes’ which isolated specific elements of a track (sometimes previously unheard contributions), Extended Album Versions, Outtakes, ‘Evolution Mixes’ which tracked the development of a song in the studio, and even the original Quad Mix. Virtually everything was offered in surround sound via the two blu-ray audios. Frankly, this blew any of Paul’s deluxe editions to that point out of the water (he’d released nine, with 2017’s Flowers in the Dirt being the latest at the time). The books with the Lennon deluxe sets matched McCartney’s and had the courtesy to not be so intricate and lavish as to cost a fortune. Imagine was around the £60 mark with its four CDs and two blu-rays. McCartney withheld a CD of audio from the 3CD+DVD Flowers in the Dirt deluxe edition and still managed to charge £125 for it!
This quality with John Lennon has continued with similar packages for 1970’s Plastic Ono Band and the Gimme Some Truth set of 2020. Admittedly, it hasn’t been plain sailing with these either, with Plastic Ono Band delayed until 2021 for the more crowd-pleasing ‘best of’ and nothing since then thanks to some hesitation over Some Time In New York City which was apparently done, but mothballed, for the time being at least, to make way for a Mind Games deluxe edition which is confirmed for July 2024. The Mind Games deluxe will feature six CDs and two blu-rays which is the same as the Plastic Ono Band set. The now familiar accompanying book is already available to pre-order.
The Beatles
There was a time when Apple and Universal could do no wrong with Beatles reissues. 2017’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was deservedly well received, as was ‘The White Album’ in 2018. Abbey Road got decent notices and had the first Dolby Atmos Mix released physically but it all started to go a little bit awry around the time of Let It Be, in 2021. With Disney heavily invested in Peter Jackson’s The Beatles Get Back documentary, the tail started wagging the dog. Not only did the box set arrive a year late, the triumphant denouement of those three weeks in Twickenham Studios and then Savile Row – the Rooftop Concert – was almost entirely missing from the Let It Be box set, one presumes due to contractual reasons.
A year later, when The Beatles’ 1966 masterpiece Revolver was reissued there was no blu-ray included which meant unlike the three deluxe sets before it, Revolver had no Dolby Atmos of 5.1 version available as part of a physical product. Apple and Universal shrugged it off and tried to keep their head down, but fans were astounded at this major omission and assumed it would be corrected at some point with a standalone blu-ray. That never happened.
This year Rubber Soul was widely expected but Paul’s interest in reviving the mid-90s attempt to make a Beatles recording of John Lennon’s ‘Now and Then’ threw a spanner in the works. Unwilling to simply release it as a standalone single (not profitable enough!) it was decided that ‘Now and Then’ would be grafted on to the 1967-1970 (‘Blue’) compilation from 1973. Of course releasing ‘Blue’ on its own didn’t make much sense, so the 1962-1966 (‘Red’) best of was also reissued with both rebooted to include extra selections.
The whole thing was a bit of a mess. From the makes-no-sense inclusion of a 1977/1996/2022 track on a compilation that purportedly ‘ends’ at 1970 to the inconsistent treatment of the new selections on CD and vinyl. It also missed out two of the Fab Four’s singles (Free As A Bird and Real Love) for no good reason and to top it all off the 3LP sets were extraordinarily expensive. The most interesting element – Giles Martin’s Dolby Atmos Mixes – were for the second time of asking not included in a physical product, with Apple and Universal apparently ignoring – or not caring – about the significant complaints when the same treatment was afforded the spatial audio mix of Revolver.
There is an assumption that in 2024 we will finally get the Rubber Soul deluxe set but the decision making of the last few years has to be questioned and Apple and Universal Music need to go back-to-basics and ensure that fans are offered a generous selection of outtakes paired with a blu-ray featuring a spatial audio version of the album.
Duran Duran
BMG have done a great job at getting ‘mid-period’ Duran Duran back into the marketplace, including albums such as Medazzaland, Pop Trash, Astronaut, Red Carpet Massacre and All You Need Is Now. The label had actually promised a Medazzaland box for this year, which obviously never happened and Nick Rhodes is on record as talking about a 40th anniversary anthology which seems to be a vague aspiration rather than a set of specific product plans.
The issue is more with the Warner-owned output; the ‘classic era’, if you will. Rio’s 40th birthday came and went in 2022 with no activity barring the odd tweet and in 2023 the 40th and 30th anniversaries of Seven and the Ragged Tiger and ‘The Wedding Album’ respectively also came and went with no physical product to mark the occasion. Barring a 2CD set in 1994, ‘The Wedding Album’ has never been reissued at all; quite remarkable for such a successful and important album for Duran Duran. The good news is that someone called David Hughes posted on Twitter/’X’ alternative BlueSky in October that he was “working with Duran Duran/Warner” on a super deluxe reissue of ‘The Wedding Album’ that has been “delayed twice”. He says “if it all comes together it’ll be something special”.
With Duran Duran the suspicion is always that they are more focused on the here-and-now than the past. So touring remains a key pursuit and as does working on “the new album”. If neither of those things is happening then they have a predilection for material that they own and control which is perhaps why, for them, Medezzaland is a higher priority than Rio, and Pop Trash might be more interesting for than Seven and the Ragged Tiger. This might not align with what fans want, but it’s probably the reality.
With Danse Macabre having been released this year, there’s clearly not going to be any new material in 2024, so perhaps we will get a Medazzland box set or given that message from David Hughes, a ‘Wedding Album’ one. But be warned, the band were working with Warner Music a decade ago on a ‘Wedding album’ reissue and the project failed to reach fruition due to creative differences.
Madonna
It is now 26 months since Warner Music Group excitedly announced “a career-spanning partnership” with Madonna that will see a “multi-year catalog series”. Number of studio albums reissued since that announcement? Zero! We’ve had bits and bobs: ‘Erotica’ picture discs, Record Store Day releases that feature remixes of tracks from American Life, and most notably Finally Enough Love the mildly interesting best of/remix collection from 2022. The sloth-like pace has been frustrating. Madonna and Warners have been guilty of playing with their food and they need to get stuck in. They shouldn’t have missed the 40th anniversary of Madonna’s debut album but surely this will finally emerge in 2024. Only when we get an album box set can we judge the campaign and ascertain if “personally curated by Madonna” is a warning or a recommendation.
Other artists and activity
2024 is a big year for reissues because it’s the anniversary of such strong years for music. First and foremost 2024 is the 40th anniversary of 1984, for this writer the best year in pop, and that – potentially – means we could get all sorts of favourites reissued. It was the year of Frankie Goes To Hollywoodwho enjoyed three number one singles in ’84 and their chart-topping debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Of course ‘things’ are happening with Frankie what with their Eurovision Song Contest reunion last year. This has led to rumours of a full blown reunion tour. Also, Universal Music bought the ZTT catalogue ages ago and the fruits so far have been relatively modest, with Record Store Day product, ‘vanilla’ album reissues and the FGTH Essential compilation. All this means it’s reasonable to expect Frankie archival activity in 2024.
Nik Kershaw’s two albums from 1984 (Human Racing and The Riddle) got decent 2CD reissues in 2012 and 2013 but that was a decade ago and not a lot has happened since. The good news is that an 9CD+2DVD MCA Years box will be released in 2024 which covers the first four albums (up to The Works) with a comprehensive round up of long-players, remixes, b-sides, live tracks and more. This will be similar to the Level 42 or Swing Out Sister sets (talking of SOS, there will be another Swing Out Sister box set too).
We can expect some 5.1 / Atmos Mixes from Howard Jones and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ Rattlesnakes was another great album from 1984 but I doubt we’ll get any reissues of that record, especially since this period was well covered in the 2015 and 2020 Collected Recordings CD and vinyl box sets. Lloyd spent last year working on his latest album On Pain, but now that is out it clears the decks for the delayed reissue of his 2003 album Music in a Foreign Language. It has been remastered and will include a 10-track bonus album of Lloyd’s rough mixes before other musicians were brought in. According to LC it’s “quite different” to the final version.
Ultravox’sLament album is another from 1984 and Chrysalis excellent deluxe campaign will continue with a 40th anniversary edition and after Sony delivered the Echoes From The Edge Of Heaven singles box and fans enjoyed ‘Last Christmas’ spending a month at number one over the festive period, there should be some further Wham!activity in 2024 since 1984 was of course the year that George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley ‘made it big’ and, like Frankie, enjoyed three number one singles: ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’, ‘Careless Whisper’ and ‘Freedom’.
Suede’s 1994 masterpiece Dog Man Star is 30 years old this year, so an anniversary edition which mirrors the Suede reissue from last year would be most welcome, although as always the availability of multi-track tapes for spatial audio is always an issue. We shall see how things develop.
The Thompson Twins had their biggest album, Into The Gap, in 1984, but for reasons unknown there has been zero activity with this group for years. The last significant archival activity was the SDE-curated ‘Remixes and Rarities’ compilation from 2013 and I’d be surprised if we see anything this year. Tom Bailey continues to enjoy touring though and will be on the road in America next year.
David Bowie’s prolificacy in the early 1970s mean Warners are struggling to keep up with the reissues. The excellent Divine SymmetryHunky Dory box came out in November 2022, which was a year late for the 50 anniversary. Today, we’ve just had the announcement of the RSD Bowie release and this all but confirms that a Ziggy Stardust deluxe set similar to Divine Symmetry should emerge in 2024 and when it does, that will be two years late in terms of the 50th anniversary. Diamonds Dogs is the album that is actually 50 years old in 2024 but aside from maybe a picture disc, nothing much will happen with that album (which is an SDE favourite).
Police fans have good reason to be frustrated since the band (e.g. Sting) has been unwilling to dive into the vaults and offer anything at all and all these years later none of the band’s five albums has ever been expanded for a CD box set. Andy Summers told SDE over two years ago that “a four-disc version of Regatta de Blanc is coming” which got us excited but, somewhat predictably, nothing has happened. From what SDE understands this has been abandoned for a belated 40th anniversary version of 1983’s Synchronicity which could run to as much as six CDs! We could be going from famine to feast – let’s wait and see.
The ongoing Toyah reissue campaign will likely continue this year Love is the Law, her last Safari album (and the last record before she became a solo artist) but I doubt we’ll see any more big super deluxe box sets.
In 2024 it will be seven years since INXS‘s Kick album was reissued (for the second time of asking) as an excellent 2CD+blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos Mix. Shockingly, since then, we still haven’t had any other INXS album expanded and reissued as a physical product. The death of Chris Murphy, the band’s manager, in 2021 was a terrible blow but let’s not forget that INXS issued 10 albums in the original era and this obsession with Kick is becoming very tiresome. The Swing album was released in 1984 – featuring the Nile Rodgers-produced Original Sin – so it’s the perfect time for a 40th anniversary edition, although I get the feeling 1993’s Welcome to Wherever You Are might be top of most fans’ reissue wishlist.
The Killers‘ classic 2004 debut Hot Fuss is 20 years old this year and you’d hope that there would be some activity around that and another album released in the same year, Keane’sHopes and Fears has been confirmed for a 20th anniversary reissue around May time.
There was talk of Kate Bush delivering another vinyl version of The Dreaming, just like she did for the somewhat underwhelming Baskerville Edition of Hounds of Love but fans will be thinking it must be time for a new album. Kate has just quietly broken her own record of 12 years between consecutive studio albums (1993’s The Red Shoes and 2005’s Aerial). It is now longer than that since she issued 50 Words For Snow (in November 2011).
BMG should be continuing their pretty good Bryan Ferry reissue campaign and his debut on Virgin, Bête Noire, would seem a likely contender. Talking of which, we are still waiting for Roxy Music’s second album, For Your Pleasure, to be reissued and this year will be eight years since their debut was released as a deluxe box set! I doubt we’ll see anything this year, to be honest (this year is actually the 50th anniversary of their fourth studio album, Country Life).
Elton John’s wonderful 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road missed its 50th anniversary last year and while the worldonly seems to have ears for Diamonds these days, I still think we’ll see a belated reissue of the 1973 album, especially since the 30th anniversary box set (also issued a year late in 2014) was somewhat lacking in ambition.
Things are quiet at the moment in terms of Tears For Fears but we know Steven Wilson has done an as yet unreleased Atmos Mix of the band’s 1989 album The Seeds of Love and after the success of the SDE-exclusive Hurting blu-ray last year, fans will be hoping we can follow this up with some further offerings. Watch this space.
There was a big effort and push with Prince last year and Diamonds and Pearls but that was a long time coming and we will need to wait and see what’s in store during 2024. In its 40th anniversary year, fans are hoping they might do Purple Rain ‘properly’ since the 2017 3CD+DVD now looks paper thin compared to the lavish releases that have followed. A straw poll would probably confirm Parade as the album that most people would like to see reissued. With rights split between Sony and Warners there will undoubtedly be activity this year, but another mega campaign like Sign O’ The Times or Diamonds and Pearls feels unlikely at this point in time.
On what would have been David Bowie’s 77th birthday, Parlophone have announced a special vinyl LP called Waiting in the Sky (Before The Starman Came to Earth).
This record features the then provisional tracklisting for what would become Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This early version is taken from the Trident Studio quarter-inch tapes dated 15 December 1971.
There are four songs on Waiting in the Sky that didn’t make the final album. On side one, in the place of ‘Starman’ (one of the last three tracks recorded for the album in February 1972, is the Chuck Berry cover ‘Round and Round‘which was eventually found a home as the B-side to the Aladdin Sane single ‘Drive-in Staturday’, on 6 April 1973. Also, Bowie’s version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’, ended side one (this was sat on for even longer and became the B-side of ‘Sorrow’ on 12 October, 1973. Side two of this RSD release includes both ‘Holy Holy‘ and ‘Velvet Goldmine‘. The former is the re-recording with The Spiders of David’s 1971 single and wasn’t released at the time until ‘Diamond Dogs’ was issued as a single when it became yet another B-side. ‘Velvet Goldmine’ was unreleased for nearly four years, but became the B-side to the 1975 reissue of ‘Space Oddity’.
As well as ‘Starman’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ and ‘Suffragette City’ had not been recorded and are also missing from this early version of the album. Three great late additions, I’m sure you’ll agree!
This vinyl was cut from digital and is a half-speed vinyl pressing. There is no CD version for Record Store Day (see the recent SDE post on CDs!).
Waiting in the Sky (Before The Starman Came to Earth) will be released on 20 April 2024 (this year’s Record Store Day) via Parlophone and will be available at participating independent record shops.
Tracklisting
Waiting in the Sky (Before The Starman Came to Earth)David Bowie /
Lou Reed / Hudson River Wind Meditations (reissue)
Lou Reed’s final studio album was released in 2007 and is be reissued by Light in the Attic, #2 in their Lou Reed Archive Series. The album’s ambient soundscapes combines Reed’s love of creating drone music with his passion for Tai Chi, yoga, and meditation.
Del Palmer, who played bass on virtually all of Kate Bush’s albums – and was romantically involved with Kate for a long time – died yesterday, his family have announced.
Del was there from the very beginning, playing the pub circuit with Kate as part of the KT Bush Band in 1977 and from Lionheart onwards he contributed to all her albums in some way, shape or form. He played bass on most of them and engineered them all from 1985’s Hounds of Love onwards.
Despite the the end of their personal relationship in the early 1990s, Kate stayed loyal to Del and he recorded/engineered later albums such as 2005’s Aerial and what is Kate’s most recent album, 2011’s 50 Words For Snow. Del also played bass on songs on of those both albums.
In return, Palmer was fiercely loyal to Kate as well, and while he made a rare on-screen contribution to the 2014 BBC documentary The Kate Bush Story – Running Up That Hill, he mostly refused interview requests to discuss his work with Kate, including from this writer! But I did meet Del in 2016 (as you can see from the photo above) and he was a sweet and charming man.
Palmer recorded three solo albums in the last 15 years or so and made a surprise appearance at the London’s Islington Assembly Halls in 2018, joining Kate Bush tribute act Cloudbusting on stage for a track or two. He later played with them on a few other occasions.
Del Palmer is also the only man to appear on the cover of a Kate Bush album. He’s ‘Houdini’ on the front of 1982’s The Dreaming and is about to be “passed the key” by Kate.
On her website Kate Bush called Del “a brilliant musician, bass player, a great artist” and said “I’m going to miss him terribly”.
Del Palmer died aged 71. Condolences to family and friends.
The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has published its annual report on UK music consumption and, as usual, it makes for interesting reading.
As has been reported on SDE before – and occasionally elsewhere – the BPI do have a propensity to talk up the ‘vinyl revival’ and marginalise the ongoing success of CDs and this year isn’t much different.
For those who are not aware, the BPI is not an independent organisation, it’s a trade body made up of “music companies” – primarily record labels – including all three major record companies in the UK (Warner Records, Sony Music and Universal Music). So inevitably, the strategies and goals of the record industry at large are reflected in the reporting.
The headline for physical music this year is “Double-digit percentage rise of vinyl salesas CD decline signficantly slowed“. The statistics that support this are that vinyl sales grew 11.8 percent to 6.1m units in 2023 and CD sales dropped 6.9% to 10.8m units (the lowest annual rate of decline since 2015).
So for all those who love to goad with the question: “who buys CDs anymore?”, the fact remains that CDs are the most popular physical format in the UK and continue to outsell vinyl significantly, something they have done for more than 30 consecutive years. How about we celebrate that?
Also, perhaps CDs wouldn’t be declining at all if there was more of a level playing field. The amount of marketing value that the largely vinyl-only Record Store Day benefits from is enormous. Indulge CDs with a similar initiative and I’m sure sales would rise. National Album Day is the same: purportedly a day to celebrate “the album”, it’s actually designed specifically to sell vinyl. It’s so transparent, and I don’t mean the coloured vinyl.
And there’s still plenty of reissues where the labels concerned don’t bother to issue a CD version. Recent examples include Steely Dan albums, Depeche Mode’s ongoing 12-inch box sets, the Talking HeadsStop Making Sense reissue, the Beastie Boys’Hello Nasty 4LP set, and the Bonnie TylerFaster Than The Speed of Night 40th anniversary. Not wanting to state the obvious, but a CD sale can only be registered if a CD edition is actually released and that is controlled by the record labels who benefit from everyone buying into the idea that no one buys CDs anymore and it’s all about vinyl. Earnings and profit will be higher with the vinyl variants (just look at the differential with the recent ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Beatles reissues which were priced at around £70 on vinyl and £20 on CD).
Of course, the other rapidly developing concept is one of offering multiple vinyl versions of a product to increase sales. There was only one CD single of The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then’ but four different seven-inch vinyl editions. Not only that, Apple and Universal Music held back the announcement of the CD until the last minute, to maximise vinyl sales. Remember what I said about level playing field? Despite this, the one CD single still almost matched those vinyl sales in the UK put together (18,738 CDs vs 19,358 seven-inch singles) to help ‘Now and Then’ get to number one in the UK single charts.
It’s almost routine now for run-of-the-mill album releases to have a standard black vinyl, an artist store coloured vinyl exclusive, maybe an Amazon coloured vinyl exclusive and perhaps a deal with Blood Records to come up with a ‘zoetrope’ picture disc later in the campaign. Oh, and you can also buy a CD in a plastic jewel case that that has been mastered to within an inch of its life. The superfan buys FOUR vinyl editions and just one CD. Of course, that’s marketing; that’s how organisations make money. They influence and direct consumers to the products they want them to buy – I get it. But the BPI report these figures as if we are seeing a natural shift in consumer behaviour and act as if they are impartial observers when its members are responsible for stacking the cards in favour of vinyl. Box sets to one side, the humble CD is arguably being subjected to death by neglect, both in presentation and the quality of the audio. Still it endures! This is the unwritten story.
Here’s an example. Even though streaming dominates “music consumption” in the UK, with a massive 87.7 percent of the market, the BPI point out that “physical continued to dominate the top of the Official Albums Chart”. A key statistic is that out of the 44 albums that debuted at number one in 2023, 86 percent of them had “more than half their chart-eligible sales made up of physical sales”. And in 35 weeks physical was behind more than 70 percent of chart eligible sales. Blur’sThe Ballad of Darren (89.6 %) and The Rolling Stones’Hackney Diamonds (89.5%) being great examples. Since CDs outsell vinyl by almost 2:1 in the UK, CDs are a big part of the physical sales that help albums to the higher reaches of the chart.
I’d like to see the UK music industry do more to promote and protect sales of what is still its biggest selling physical format. Apart from a few exceptions, labels show no interest in coming up with special CD products for Record Store Day, or National Album Day, for that matter. There is no ‘CD Day’ and there are no cross-label ventures specifically designed to slow the decline of their biggest selling physical product. With the media annually picking up on the so-called “vinyl boom” it negatively influences stakeholders. Supermarket buyers decide to stop selling CDs, car manufacturers stop supporting the format and the sales decline becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The CD is still an excellent and robust format and can still look good and sound good when it’s given some love by audio engineers, product managers and marketeers within record labels. It’s surely time for the industry to stop being a curious spectator and actively support and celebrate the format that poured so many millions into the coffers in the late 80s and 1990s. With some effort, I’m convinced the “slow decline” of CDs could be turned around by the BPI’s members and within the next fews years CD sales could start to grow again.
What do you think? Leave a comment. You can read the details of the BPI’s report, here.
1985 is a new 6CD box set that tells the story of the making of The Waterboys‘ third studio album This Is The Sea.
Curated by the band’s leader Mike Scott, 1985 takes the listener through 95 tracks including a staggering 64 previously unreleased recordings of home recordings, early demos, alternate versions, outtakes, live recordings, and tv/radio sessions. It covers the recording process of the album and the sixth and final disc is a remastered version of the This Is The Sea album.
The box set comes with a massive book 220-page hard cover book containing a first-hand account of the creation of the album with deep recording details, background, cultural context, photographs (many previously unseen), songwriting pages, lyrics and previously unseen writings. Text is by Waterboys’ singer and songwriter Mike Scot with additional sections by Anthony Thistlethwaite and Max Edie.
This large format presentation (288mm x 255mm) is a limited edition of only 3,000 units worldwide. A clear vinyl 180g pressing of the remastered This Is The Sea will also be available.
The 1985 6CD box set and the vinyl reissue of This is The Sea will be released on 23 February 2024 via Chrysalis Records.
As we will cover in more detail in the forthcoming SDE Reissue Preview of 2024, John Lennon’s 1973 album Mind Games is set to be reissued this year as a 4CD+2xblu-ray box set, featuring 72 audio tracks.
In what is now a familiar pattern, a special standalone book is being issued to mark this occasion and is already available to pre-order.
The 288-page hardcover tome is published by Thames & Hudson (in the UK) and offers the “definitive exploration – told in revelatory detail – of the writing, recording, and release of John Lennon’s celebrated and magical fourth solo album Mind Games, and the era that inspired it”.
Anyone who has bought the books that were issued around the time of Imagine or the Plastic Ono Band reissues will know how great these are. They are expanded versions of the ones that come in the box sets: extra photos, more detail, bigger pages etc. Well worth having! These do tend to fall in price between announcement and release date, but if you choose to shop at Amazon at least you have ‘locked in’ and will benefit from any price-drops due to the pre-order price guarantee.
As with the Plastic Ono Band book, there looks as if there’s only going to be one version of Mind Games. With Imagine there were three editions: standard, deluxe and Yoko Ono-signed deluxe.
This Mind Games book will be released on 4 June 2024 with the box sets expected some time in July.
Amazing price for the box set edition of Neil Young’s 2023 album Barn. The included blu-ray features a film of the band performing the songs live, directed by Daryl Hannah (aka Mrs Neil Young).
Neil Young/Barn CD+blu-ray+LP box CD+blu-ray+LP box
Great price for this super deluxe 5-disc set that features a new stereo mix, the original stereo mix, a trove of unheard outtakes from five recording sessions and a Dolby Atmos Mix on the blu-ray audio. Sleeve notes from Peanuts historian, Derrick Bang.
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).
George Harrison/All Things Must Past 5LP box5LP box set
This is £84 in the UK so an excllent price in Germany for the 5LP vinyl super deluxe of George Harrison’sAll Things Must Pass 50th anniversary edition. You get the album across 3LPs and 2LPs of outtakes.
Fantastic version of the excellent Future Past album which contains 15 tracks including all the extra tracks from the deluxe CD plus Duran Duran’s cover of Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ (which prior to this was only available on the Japanese CD version of this album). This is a gatefold with RED and GREEN vinyl records and TWO excellent booklets (‘Future’ and ‘Past’). A total STEAL at this price!
Duran Duran/Danse Macabre 2LP coloured vinyl2LP ‘translucent galaxy’
OMD will re-release Atmospheric & Greatest Hits in March, a live album of their Royal Albert Hall show in March last year.
The show comprised two sets: the atmospheric (Stanlow, Our System, Statues, Ghost Star) along with some rarities, followed by a second set which was a celebration of their hit singles spanning 40 years.
The 2CD edition is neat by having each set on one disc, whereas the 3LP orange vinyl edition is slightly messier by having three sides of vinyl for each set. The vinyl comes in a gatefold sleeve with a booklet.
Atmospheric & Greatest Hits will be released on 29 March 2024.
Compare prices and pre-order
Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark
Atmospherics and Greatest Hits at RAH - 3LP coloured vinyl
Religion, Revolution & Railways is a forthcoming archival 7CD box set featuring ‘The Complete Recordings’ of The Dream Academy.
The Dream Academy were a British band that featured singer/guitarist and songwriter Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist Kate St. John, and keyboardist/songwriter Gilbert Gabriel. In I985 the group achieved worldwide success following the release of their first single ‘Life In A Northern Town’ which saw their subsequent debut album going into the American Top 20.
They released two further studio albums and had a close musical association with David Gilmour who co-produced two of those records. Hugh Padgham worked on the second album (Rememberance Days) although Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Dashut (who had been working on Fleetwood Mac’sTango in the Night) helped to produce the cover of the Korgis’ ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’ that featured on that album. The group disbanded in 1990.
The new box set features their three official albums and includes all official B-sides and remixes along with a few unreleased tracks. The band’s Nick Laird-Clowes has been involved both with overseeing the remastering (by Tony Dixon of Masterpiece Masters) and in terms of searching the Warner Bros archives to find rarities and unreleased tracks. Nick has also written comprehensive sleeve notes for the set and selected photographic material for the booklet.
Religion, Revolution & Railways will be released on 23 February 2024 via Cherry Red Records.
For the last few months we have been trialling having local currencies on the SDE shop to see if it’s something that adds value to our international audience and affords them a better shopping experience.
The general idea is that you can shop in USD, EUR, CAD, etc. which should make life easier for international shoppers inasmuch as they don’t have to do thumbnail currencies conversions in their head when looking at products that are all priced in GBP (UK Pound Sterling). Another aim was to remove currency conversion fees applied by your international card providers when buying a products in a currency that is not the same as your local currency and avoiding your payment providers maybe blocking a transaction because the ‘foreign’ currency purchase looks suspicious.
Shortly after we introduced this, in October 2023, we had some informal feedback from some of you, but the point of this post is to collect data properly and give you the chance to have your say. So below is a poll that we’d love you to complete if you do not live in the UK and have brought a product from on the SDE shop. It’s very straightforward: Please just indicate whether you are happy with shopping in your local currency; would prefer to go back to GBP (sterling) or have no preference.
Thanks for taking the time and we look forward to reviewing the results! Feel free to leave a comment if you wish to expand with further details, but do please complete the form also.
SDE Poll
As an international customer, how would you like to shop on the SDE shop?
As we approach Christmas Day I’d like to say thank you for your company in 2023. It has been a very interesting year, even if it was perhaps not a classic in terms of album reissues and box sets.
To be honest, there have been some trends that I have not particularly enjoyed, namely the concept of producing multiple coloured vinyl editions of new albums in order to increase sales figures. Labels know that some fans will have deep enough pockets and not be able to resist collecting them and it has started happening with CDs as well, with artists like Taylor Swift offering different artwork editions of one album.
The other trend I have not enjoyed, which really does ride roughshod over loyal fans, is the special ‘digital deluxe edition‘ which normally gets offered on the Monday after release date. Physical editions get shipped the week before and suddenly a digital deluxe appears with exclusive bonus tracks that could have been included on the vinyl or CD versions (that fans have pre-ordered months before) but have been ‘saved’ for digital marketing purposes. These digital deluxe editions are priced competitively, the idea being that fans who’ve ordered the physical sets will also order the digital deluxe to get the otherwise unavailable bonus audio. The album therefore enjoys one more sale and this helps the release achieve a higher ‘week one’ chart position, in the UK.
On a more positive note I have enjoyed bringing you more SDE exclusives this year than on any other previous 12 month period. We announced 11 titles in the SDE Surround Series of blu-ray audios in 2023 compared to seven last year and I hope to at least match that number in 2024. Thanks for embracing the concept and allowing this to continue. Don’t forget to get your order in for Paul Young!
To everyone who has read a post on SDE, left a comment, ordered something from the SDE shop, engaged with SDE on social media or watched a video or subscribed to our YouTube channel – thank you! SDE has always been about a community of likeminded people coming together and sharing and exchanging views in a friendly and respectful way. This site has grown in terms of readership and influence over time, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed that much, which I’m quite pleased about. It’s not perfect, but it is still totally independent, not ruined by a proliferation of advertising and has retained its focus. Best of all, it’s still here after all this time! Long may it continue…
One last thing…For the first time since I started this site in 2011, I’m going to take a proper break during the festive period and have the next week off. That means, barring any dramatic news (let’s hope not), there will be no new posts and no comments published between Christmas Day and New Years Eve. After recharging my batteries I will be back soon and you will be able to enjoy the traditional SDE Preview for the coming year early in January!
Thank you again and the very best to you and yours. Wishing you a healthy and prosperous 2024.
SDEtv shines a light (geddit?) on the new ‘Baskerville Edition’ of Kate Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love. At £138 it’s extremely expensive, but does the package justify the price? Watch the unboxing video to find out.
The ‘Baskerville Edition’ of Hounds of Love is only to be available via Kate’s site. Don’t forget you can order the standard coloured vinyl indie editions from the SDE shop as an alternative to the above (ships in early January).
The pre-order window for the Paul YoungNo Parlez SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio – number 17 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series – is about to close.
This limited edition blu-ray features the classic 1983 album – with three bonus tracks – in a multitude of mixes, including Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround, new stereo mix, and instrumentals. The original 1983 mix gets an audiophile remastering with no peak limiting and to top things off the blu-ray also includes the original CD master of No Parlez (in stereo) which features five extended versions. That’s eight audio mixes for a truly fantastic product!
Don’t miss out! This is your last chance to guarantee you get a copy. There may be some cancellation/contingency stock closer to release next year, but this is not guaranteed (it didn’t happen with Duran Duran, for example).
The No Parlez SDE-exclusive blu-ray will be released on 15 March 2024 via Edsel. Secure your copy by pre-ordering via the SDE shop using this link or the pre-order button, below.
The 2CD editions remain available, but remember that the SDE-exclusive is limited to 1000 units and I can guarantee that we’ll reach that number well before release date!
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
No ParlezPaul Young/SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio
No Parlez: UK Vinyl First Pressing version with 3 bonus tracks (as below) in the following audio streams: 2024 Dolby Atmos Mix, 2024 5.1 Mix (TBC, although expected to be 96/24), 2024 New Stereo Mix (96/24), 2024 Dolby Atmos Instrumental Mix, 2024 5.1 Instrumental Mix (TBC, although expected to be 96/24), 2024 New Stereo Instrumental Mix (96/24)
Come Back and Stay 4:57
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 5:18
Ku Ku Kurama 4:19
No Parlez 4:57
Love of the Common People 4:56
Oh Women 3:35
Iron Out the Rough Spots 4:47
Broken Man 3:54
Tender Trap 4:32
Sex 4:49
Bonus tracks
Behind Your Smile 4.08 (B-side)
Yours 5.39 (B-side)
I’ve Been Lonely For So Long (No Parlez outtake) 3.39
No Parlez: UK Vinyl First Pressing version newly remastered with no peak limiting
Come Back and Stay – 4:57
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 5:18
Ku Ku Kurama – 4:19
No Parlez – 4:57
Love of the Common People – 4:56
Oh Women – 3:35
Iron Out the Rough Spots – 4:47
Broken Man – 3:54
Tender Trap – 4:32
Sex – 4:49
No Parlez: Original 1983 CD Master
Come Back and Stay 7:56 (scratch mix)
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 6:01 (extended club mix)
Ku Ku Kurama 4:19
No Parlez 4:57
Behind Your Smile 4:08
Love of the Common People 5:51 (extended club mix)
Oh Women 3:35
Iron Out the Rough Spots 7:28 (extended club mix)
Broken Man 3:54
Tender Trap 4:32
Sex 6:51 (extended club mix)
Tracklisting
No ParlezPaul Young/SDE-exclusive 2CD set and standard 2CD set
CD 1
Come Back And Stay 4:57
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 5:18
Ku Ku Kurama 4:19
No Parlez 4:57
Love Of The Common People 4:56
Oh Women 3:35
Iron Out The Rough Spots 4:47
Broken Man 3:54
Tender Trap 4:32
Sex 4:49
CD 2
Behind Your Smile 4:08
I’ve Been Lonely For So Long 3:38
Iron Out The Rough Spots [7” Mix] 3:41
Love Of The Common People [1982 7” Mix] 3:43
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) [7” Version] 4:52
Come Back And Stay [Single Remix Version] 4:23
Love Of The Common People [Remix] 3:41
Iron Out The Rough Spots [12” Mix] 7:29
Love Of The Common People [Extended Club Mix] 5:51
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) [Extended Club Mix Version] 5:59
Sex [Extended Club Mix Version] 6:52
Come Back And Stay [Extended Club Mix Version] 7:24
SDEtv explores the various physical formats (all vinyl) that comprise the 40th anniversary reissue campaign for ABBA’s 1981 album, The Visitors.
The 40th anniversary editions of The Visitors are out now, via UMR/Polydor. The seven-inch box set is only available via ABBA/Universal channels such as The Sound of Vinyl.
A new 4CD set compiling Kim Wilde’s output for RAK Records will be released in February.
Love Blonde: The RAK Years features three studio albums along with a bonus CD of remixes. Those records are Kim Wilde (1981), Select (1982) and Catch as Catch Can (1983), each remastered and expanded with bonus tracks, plus a disc of ‘Special Disco Mixes’.
The bonus tracks don’t include everything previously issued on individual album releases. For example there was a 2CD+DVD deluxe of Kim Wilde in 2020 and the four bonus audio tracks (not including the disc of remixes) were ‘Shane’, ‘Boys’, ‘Water on Glass 7″ Version’ and ‘Tuning In Tuning On 7″ Version’. The two seven-inch versions are missing here, but you do get ‘He Will Be There’. Similarly, ‘Rain On’ is a new bonus track on Catch As Catch Can, but the original 7″ and 12″ Versions of ‘Love Blonde’ and the Nile Rodgers and instrumental mixes of ‘Dancing in the Dark’ are not included. There are new remixes of both songs on CD 4, however.
This final disc includes 10 remixes, none of which were issued at the time and six of which are brand new to this box set including ‘Water On Glass [Project K Soundtrack]’ and ‘House Of Salome [Luke Mornay Mix Of The Seven Veils]’.
The CDs come in a lift-off lid box with each album in this package is housed in a gatefold sleeve with original vinyl artwork. It comes with a 48-page booklet with new sleeve notes written by Kim Wilde expert Marcel Rijs.
Love Blonde: The RAK Years will be released on 1 March 2024 (was 23 February).
SDEtv examines Suede’s new 3CD expanded edition of their last studio album Autofiction and concludes that the packaging is “rubbish”. Watch the unboxing video.
