Black Box Recorder were a turn-of-the-century Luke Haines ‘side project’ which featured Haines (from The Auteurs), John Moore (of The Jesus and Mary Chain) and vocalist Sarah Nixey. Best known for their 2000 hit single ‘The Facts of Life’ (the title track of the second album) the band’s best work was actually their 1998 debut EnglandMade Me, with accompanying non-hit singles ‘Child Psychology’ and ‘England Made Me’.
The album has a wonderfully restrained, languid charm and many brilliant songs, including opener ‘Girl Singing in the Wreckage’, ‘Child Psychology’ (sample lyric ‘Life is unfair, kill yourself or get over it”), ‘Swinging’ and a fine cover of Althea and Donna’s 1977 UK number one ‘Uptown Top Ranking’.
England Made Me was originally issued on CD and as probably fairly limited 2LP vinyl set pressed at 45RPM. Its other vinyl outing was as part of the Life Is Unfair box set, issued in 2018 by One Little Indian (now One Little Independent).
This new 25th anniversary edition has been curated with the assistance of the band and features a newly remastered version of the album via the original production tapes by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering. It was cut by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios (see Luke and Sarah at the famous North London studios, below). Update: Luke has tweeted that BBR are in dispute over streaming royalties and therefore do not approve/support this reissue.
The album is pressed on 180g black vinyl and comes with a bonus 10-inch (140g pressing) featuring six b-sides, four of which are on vinyl for the first time. It also comes with an 6-page booklet featuring photos and lyrics with the vinyl housed in poly-lined inner bags.
England Made Me is reissued on 17 November 2023 via Chrysalis Records.
Singles is a brand new compilation of Yes A-sides on vinyl.
This collection moves chronologically through the band’s output starting in 1971 with ‘Your Move’ (from The YesAlbum), which was a top 40 hit in the USA, and ends in 1984 with ‘Leave It’, the second top 30 single in America from 90125.
Coloured vinyl limited edition
Along the way this set touches on the band’s different eras with songs like ‘Starship Trooper’, ‘America’ and the chart-topping ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’.
Singles will be issued on 6 October 2023 via Rhino. There’s quite a nice looking ‘mouldy yellow with orange and black splatter’ coloured vinyl edition available from indie retailers (note painful UK v USA price differential).
Thin Lizzy’s breakthrough album, 1973’s Vagabonds Of The Western World, is being reissued for its 50th anniversary via multi-disc vinyl and CD box sets, with the latter including a blu-ray audio with a Dolby Atmos Mix of the album (a first for Lizzy!).
The band’s third studio album features the single ‘The Rocker’, although despite the top 10 success of the 1972’s ‘Whiskey in the Jar’, they left it off Vagabonds, although that hasn’t stopped the song being added to the various reissues over the years. That song was the last Lizzy release to feature original guitarist Eric Bell. After an unsuccessful New Year’s Eve show in Belfast, Bell was no longer in the band, which paved the way for Lynott’s idea about having twin lead guitarists, which led to the recruitment of American Scott Gorham and 18-year-old Glaswegian Brian Robertson.
Vagabonds 3CD+blu-ray box set (click image to enlarge)
Vagabonds was also the first album to feature artwork by Jim Fitzpatrick, who would go on to work with the band on classic albums such as Nightlife, Jailbreak, Johnny The Fox, Black Rose and Chinatown.
For the 50th anniversary reissue a 3CD+blu-ray box set delivers bonus tracks, rare radio sessions, live performances and 10 demos and outtakes. The blu-ray offers Vagabonds of the Western Worldmixed in Dolby Atmos (by Richard Whittaker) along with A-sides and B-sides from singles also in Dolby Atmos (including both single edit and the full length versions of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’). Sleeve notes come courtesy of Mark Blake.
A 2LP edition pressed on purple vinyl will be available which features B-sides and alternates on the second record, alongside a 4LP vinyl box which offers the BBC Sessions and In Concert performances on the three extra LPs. The box also comes with a large format hardcover book.
Vagabonds of the Western World will be released on 17 November 2023 via UMR. The Amazon UK box set price should come down.
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Thin Lizzy
Vagabonds of the Western World - 3CD+blu-ray box set
Bruce Soord is the founding member and chief songwriter The Pineapple Thief. He releases Luminescence, his third solo album, this week and the SDE shop is stocking the limited edition Carl Glover-designed 48-page hardcover book deluxe edition which features 2CDs and a DVD and includes a bonus album called Our Ships Sail at Dusk. 5.1 mixes and hi-res stereo versions of both albums are on the DVD (order here).
A 4CD+vinyl LP box set of The Replacements 1985 album. It has been remixed by Ed Stasium and expanded with previously unreleased studio and live recordings and also includes a complete 1986 concert.
A new CD and vinyl box set called Live 1978-1992 focuses on the live recordings of Dire Straits.
These packages spotlight four main concerts (or live albums): Alchemy (1983), On The Night (1993), the Live at the BBC compilation from 1995 and Live from the Rainbow Theatre, a 1979 gig which is previously unreleased.
Alchemy and On The Night are both newly remastered, with neither having been available on vinyl for ages. Talking of vinyl, in what is a 12LP vinyl box set version of Live 1978-1992, Alchemy is expanded to 3LPs and includes ‘Love Over Gold’ and the extended versions of ‘Telegraph Road’, ‘Solid Rock’ and ‘Going Home’, with the addition of the full length version of ‘Portobello Belle’ (an edit of which is on the 1988 Money For Nothing compilation). ‘Industrial Disease’ and ‘Twisting By The Pool’ are also new to the CD edition.
On The Night is also expanded (on CD and vinyl) to include tracks performed during the tour which have never been released, taken from multitrack recordings of shows in Nimes, Rotterdam and Paris. The seven extra tracks are: ‘Tunnel Of Love, ‘Telegraph Road’, ‘Sultans Of Swing’, ‘Two Young Lovers’, ‘When it Comes To You’, ‘I Think I Love You Too Much’ and ‘Fade to Black’.
Live 1978-1992 is a massive 12LP vinyl box set. The CD version is an 8CD package (click image to enlarge)
The On The Night ‘Encores EP‘ (which was issued on CD and vinyl back in 1993) is included as an extra disc in both the vinyl and CD box set. Same four tracks as before, although this new box uses the Black Friday 2021 remastering. Despite On The Night and the Encores release being issued in 1993, the performances and recordings were made in 1992, hence the 1978-1992 box set title is accurate!
The Live at the BBC selection features the same eight tracks on the 1995 release, seven of which are from a July 1978 BBC ‘In Concert’ performance, although Tunnel of Love is taken from a January 1981 Old Grey Whistle Test.
Finally, the Live from the Rainbow Theatre show from 1979 has been newly mixed by Guy Fletcher and features guest performances from Phil Lynott and Tony de Meur on the last four tracks of the set.
The CD box is eight discs, while as stated earlier, the vinyl box is a massive 12LPs, with a price tag that is not going to appeal to the casual fan. Alchemy and On The Night alone take up EIGHT of these records (if you include the Encores EP). However, the CD box will be a tempting companion to the Studio Albums CD box of 2020. Both live box sets come with a booklet featuring a new essay by Paul Sexton, with the alliterative title: ‘Making Milestones: The Momentous Road Years Of Dire Straits’.
Live 1978-1992 will be released on 3 November 2023, via UMR/Mercury.
Read Alexis’ review • Watch the SDEtv unboxing video
All great lost albums carry a mythology around them, but the mythology around The Who’s unfinished 1971 album Life House might be the most startling and persuasive of the lot. Life House wouldn’t have been just an album but an act of quite astonishing clairvoyance, predicting the internet, crowdsourcing and virtual reality. It’s a mythology that has been burnished by Life House’s author: most artists with great lost albums in their catalogue try to play them down, eager not to have the rest of their career overshadowed by what ifs, but the what ifs of Life House seem to have niggled away at The Who’s Pete Townshend ever since he abandoned the project. This box set is the latest in a lengthy string of attempts to bring Life House back to life. He lobbied The Who to resurrect the idea in 1977 and attempted to turn it into a film in the early 80s. He based his 1993 solo album Psychoderelict on some of its ideas. He co-authored a Life House radio play in 1999; released a 6CD box set, Life House Chronicles and performed two Life House live shows a year later and reworked parts of its concept into computer software, a novella and Wire And Glass, the six-part “mini opera” that concluded The Who’s 2006 album, Endless Wire.
Perhaps the quality of the music The Who recorded in 1970 and ’71 has something to do with Townshend’s inability to leave Life House alone. The album The Who released in Life House’s place, shorn of its concept and a lot of its songs, was Who’s Next, arguably their artistic pinnacle: what if – somewhere within the umpteen demos, live recordings and studio outtakes collected here – there lurks an even better version of their best album? Or perhaps it has something to do with thwarted ambition. Retold in the box set’s 100-page book, the saga of Life House’s making is so extraordinarily convoluted and confused, so filled with cross-purposes, misunderstanding and – occasionally – straightforward sabotage, that this writer confesses he ended up frantically taking notes: not as preparation for this review, but just in a desperate attempt to try and keep up with what was going on.
The Who (image credit: Trinifold Archive)
Over the course of a year, The Who’s next project turns from a TV film, into a new album with an accompanying stage show, into an EP, into a feature film, into a double album with each side devoted to one member. It finally becomes a lengthy residency at The Young Vic, which would be filmed and would ideally have required the same audience members to attend every show and was supposed to culminate in said audience members becoming so immersed in the new music The Who were playing that they would spontaneously come forward and offer their personal stories to Townshend. He would turn them into further songs, and into characters in a scripted drama about a future dystopia in which music is banned and humans are linked to a global computerised network called The Grid which pumps tailored entertainment into “experience suits”, thus keeping them satiated and apathetic. This would be melded with the live footage – intended to represent the quest for “a musical note that holds the basis of existence”, the discovery of which would cause “complete devastation” and destroy The Grid’s stranglehold – and thus become Life House, complete with accompanying album. At least I think that’s right. There seems every chance no one knew for certain even at the time. The Who’s other members were confused, the band’s two managers were befuddled by drugs, several film and theatre executives seem to have thought they were getting a version of Townshend’s previous rock opera Tommy, rather than something new. The best moment in the book may come when Townshend furiously protests that “when people say I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about, what they’re actually doing is revealing their own complete idiocy because the idea is SO FUCKING SIMPLE”, which, with all due respect, sounds remarkably like something you’d say if you had succeeded in completely confusing yourself.
Townshend’s notes offer a lot of explication of the Life House songs’ meaning, which is often revelatory: it turns out that ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, usually framed as his bitter response to the late 60s counterculture’s demands for revolution – a howl of disenchantment at the prevailing order that’s cynical enough to suggest the alternative probably won’t be any better – was actually intended as the voice of those happy in Life House’s dystopian world, satiated by their “experience suits”, which more or less completely changes its meaning: it’s actually a song about apathy, rather than distrust. That said, the box set might be best approached putting Life House’s plot to the back of your mind and concentrating purely on the music. You don’t have to get bogged down in Townshend’s vision to find the developmental process laid out across the 10 CDs in the box set, and what it tells you about The Who, completely fascinating.
No group of their era were obviously more than the sum of their parts than The Who
Alexis Petridis
Baba O’ Riley begins life as ‘Teenage Wasteland’, an impressively epic ballad, with umpteen scene-setting verses (“don’t step on the turnips”!). There are synths, but not the celebrated chattering ostinato line, the crashing introductory chord sequence only arrives midway through, and the famous opening line, “out here in the fields, I fight for my meals” sounds almost piteous. By disc 2, its name and structure has changed, the synth is in place, the song is tougher, but it sometimes still doesn’t sound like ‘Baba O’ Riley’. It misses the brawny spontaneity of Roger Daltrey’s vocal – singing, as the writer David Hepworth brilliantly put it, as if the lyrics were “thoughts that had just entered his head” – and the propulsion of Keith Moon’s drums. Not for the last time, what Townshend’s demos underline is that no group of their era were more obviously the sum of their parts than The Who. You can make a case that they sound a bit tentative on the two CDs of recordings from The Young Vic, feeling their way through fresh songs onstage, grappling with a concept three-quarters of them don’t understand and an audience who frequently don’t so much sound immersed in the new material as impatient with it (it’s certainly a stark contrast with the frankly astonishing December 1971 performance from San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium included on discs 9 and 10).
It’s the same with the abandoned studio sessions from New York’s Electric Ladyland, the first attempt to turn Townshend’s new songs into an album: listening to the takes of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and ‘Pure And Easy’, it’s hard not to feel the decision to start again tells you more about behind-the-scenes turmoil – ostensibly producing, The Who manager Kit Lambert was addicted to heroin – and eventual producer Glyn Johns’ desire to impose order on a project spinning out of control than the band’s performances.
Pete Townshend in his home studio in 1969. Click image to enlarge. (Photo by Chris Morphet/Redferns)
Stymied by the lack of input from his bandmates Townshend’s demos may be, but they’re of pretty astonishing quality for home recordings from 1970 – this definitely isn’t the charmingly ramshackle, lo-fi world of Paul McCartney’s first solo album – and, moreover, the songs were clearly pouring out of him. For every throwaway like the charming but lightweight country pastiche ‘Time Is Passing’, there’s something that suggests that Glyn Johns’ cut-to-the-bone approach to Who’s Next’s tracklisting necessitated the loss of some genuinely fantastic songs. There may well be a double album’s worth of strong material among the demos that never made it further than Townshend’s Eel Pie home and the songs subsequently scattered through b-sides and compilations, and collected on another of the box set’s CDs – ‘Greyhound Girl’, ‘Pure And Easy’, ‘Water’, ‘Let’s See Action’, ‘Naked Eye’, ‘Too Much Of Anything’, ‘When I Was A Boy’, every one of them presumably a reason for Life House’s failure to niggle at Townshend.
Who’s Next was all muscle and power, an album to face down a new decade
Alexis Petridis
Then again, a double album wouldn’t be Who’s Next, which, for all Townshend’s subsequent complaining about a compromise, was the perfect album for The Who to release in 1971: scrupulously fat-free, stripped of the kind of highfalutin’ ideas that had flourished in the wake of Sgt. Pepper, devoid of the cossetting morning-after-the-60s softness that had marked out a lot of 1970s big sellers, from Bridge Over Troubled Water to Tea For The Tillerman and Sweet Baby James – it was all muscle and power, an album built to face down a new decade. It’s here both in stereo (if it’s a new remaster, it doesn’t sound significantly different from the one released in the 2003 deluxe edition, which also included The Young Vic show in truncated form) and in a Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos mix. The 12-inch envelope of memorabilia is nicely-done: the repro programme from a 1971 gig at the Rainbow is a sweet period piece – complete with laudatory quotes from the recently-acquitted defendants in the Oz trial, and a feature on proggy country rockers Quiver, whose lank-haired bassist Bruce Thomas would re-emerge later in the decade, duly shorn, as one of Elvis Costello’s Attractions – the pop-art poster for the same gig is so lovely, it seems a shame most of them will remain folded in the box set, rather than on display. To say this stuff is for Who-obsessives only is both true and a little supererogatory: a 10CD box set retailing north of 200 quid clearly isn’t about attracting floating voters.
Perhaps the 11 discs and two books here represent the last word on Who’s Next, and – by extension – Life House. The plethora of previously unreleased tracks gives anyone who cares to the ability to construct their own version of what the lost album might have sounded like (an activity that seems perfectly in keeping with the Townshend’s early ’70s obsession with working in collaboration with his audience) while the 172-page graphic novel succeeds in distilling Townshend’s ideas into a workable plot: job finally done. Or perhaps not. Said workable plot could finally be turned into a feature film. The end product might look not unlike a superhero movie, albeit one with a downbeat ending, and there’s definitely a market for those in 2023. It’s something you can’t imagine has escaped Pete Townshend’s notice either. Life House finally laid to rest? You wouldn’t necessarily bet on it.
The Who’s Next / Life House box set is out today and was reviewed by Alexis Petridis.
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)*
This release underlines how good ’73 was and includes tracks from Slade, Wizzard, T. Rex, Sweet, Mott The Hoople, Roxy Music, Wings, ELO, Paul Simon, Elton John, Carly Simon and many more.
NOW Yearbook 73 – Extra will be released on 13 October 2023.
Bob Marley & The Wailers’ 1973 album Catch A Fire is being reissued on vinyl and CD for its 50th anniversary.
The 3CD deluxe and 3LP vinyl + 12-inch packages contain the same audio which is the original studio album, a first official release for Live at The Paris Theatre, Londonand a Sessions disc which includes alternate/extended/instrumental versions of album tracks (including the two alternate versions of Stir It Up which were issued on a seven-inch single for this year’s Record Store Day. Three tracks performed at the Sundown Theatre in Edmonton, North London are appended to CD 3 and make up the content of the 12-inch single which comes with the vinyl box set.
3CD deluxe of the Catch A Fire 50th anniversary
Both presentations feature booklets with new notes (by Chris Salewicz) and rare and unseen photos. They also feature both covers the original Zippo lighter on one side and Bob smoking his spliff on the other. A special D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) coloured vinyl edition is also available.
Catch A Fire 50th anniversary will be released on 3 November 2023 via UMR/Island.
Sony will follow up their first Billy Joel vinyl collection box from 2021 with The Vinyl Collection Vol. 2 a new package that includes the remainder of his back catalogue.
The 11LP vinyl box includes Glass Houses (1980), The Nylon Curtain (1982), An Innocent Man (1983), The Bridge (1986), Storm Front (1989), River of Dreams (1993) and, for the first time on the format, the classical Fantasies & Delusions (2001, 2LP) and Live From Long Island (1982, 3LP).
All audio has been remastered from “original sources” at Sterling Sound. The vinyl box comes with a 60-page “booklet”.
The Vinyl Collection Vol. 2 will be released on 3 November 2023 via Sony Music.
Blur’s 1993 album Modern Life Is Rubbish is one of many that is being reissued for National Album Day, which is Saturday 14 October, this year.
None of the three singles from the band’s second album reached the UK top 20 but it arguably built the foundations for the success of 1994’s Parklife and is regarded by aficionados as one of their very best records.
The new edition for National Album Day comes pressed across two transparent orange 140g vinyl LPs and is presented in a gatefold sleeve with printed inners.
You can pre-order your copy from the SDE shop using this link, or the button (‘pre-order’) below. It’s released on 14 October 2023 via Parlophone.
Substance 1987, New Order’s classic 12-inch compilation, will be reissued in November as an expanded 4CD edition and across other formats.
Originally released via Factory Records, Substance compiled all of the band’s singles to that point in their 12-inch versions with many of their respective B-sides (on the CD and cassette versions), along with specially recorded versions of ‘Temptation’ and ‘Confusion’.
The album also included the biggest selling 12-inch single of all time, ‘Blue Monday’, alongside other singles ‘The Perfect Kiss’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ and the band’s debut single release ‘Ceremony’. The compilation also features the classic ‘True Faith’ which was one of two new songs (the other being ‘1963’) recorded for Substance. The single reached No 4 in the UK charts and was the band’s biggest hit single to that point.
Substance 1987 is expanded to four CDs for the 2023 reissue (click image to enlarge)
The 2023 reissue sees the audio remastered and expanded to four CDs. This 4CD version includes the original 2CD set and adds two further discs. CD3 expands the collection with alternate versions and extra B-sides, while CD4 features an unreleased concert, Live from Irvine Meadows, California, 12th September 1987, where the band uniquely played the entire album in sequence!
There will also be 2LP and double cassette editions of this reissue with the former available as black or blue/red coloured vinyl. The tape is only available from the New Order shop. There will also be three 12-inch singles released at the same time: ‘True Faith’, ‘True Faith Remix’ and ‘Blue Monday 88’.
Substance 1987 is reissued on 10 November 2023 via Warner Music
Nirvana’s 1993 album In Utero will be reissued for its 30th anniversary in October.
The band’s final album, produced by Steve Albini, will be re-released across four physical formats with the key bonus material for the super deluxe editions being two complete concerts – Los Angeles in December ’93 and Seattle in January ’94. Five previously released B-sides, six bonus live cuts (all unreleased) and the remastered album complete the audio for the massive box sets. That’s 72 tracks in total, with 53 unreleased.
The 8LP vinyl, 30th anniversary super deluxe edition of Nirvana’s In Utero (click to enlarge)
The 8LP vinyl super deluxe edition rather demonstrates how poor a format vinyl is for archival releases. It takes SIX records (LPs 3-8) and 12 sides of vinyl to deliver two concerts, with the original album on LP 1 and extra tracks on the second LP.
The CD box set has identical audio but delivers it across five CDs (two each for the concert). The five bonus B-sides are appended to the album on CD 1 and the six bonus live recordings are tacked onto the end of the Seattle concert.
Both super deluxe editions are extraordinary expensive, thanks to fancy/convoluted (you decide) packaging. Both CD and vinyl box sets ‘boast’ a removable front-cover acrylic panel with the album’s iconic Angel; a 48-page hardcover book with unreleased photos; a 20-page newly designed fanzine; a Los Angeles tour poster lithograph by hot rod artist Coop; replicas of the 1993 record store promo Angel mobile, three gig fliers, two ticket stubs for Los Angeles and Seattle, an All-Access tour laminate, and four cloth sticky tour backstage passes: Press, Photo, After Show, and Local Crew!
The 5CD, 30th anniversary super deluxe edition of Nirvana’s In Utero (click to enlarge)
There are other options. A 2CD deluxe features the newly remastered album with live version of the entire album culled from both concerts, plus Nirvana’s covers of The Vaselines’ ‘Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam’ and David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’. This version doesn’t include the five B-sides, but pIcking the 2CD over the 5CD saves you at least £160!
The 2CD edition of In Utero includes the album live constructed from both concerts in the box sets
Finally, there’s single vinyl LP edition with premium ‘tip-on’ sleeve (as per Nevermind in 2021) and this comes with a 10-inch single that includes the five B-sides.
All four formats of this 30th anniversary edition of In Utero will be released on 27 October 2023
‘The Joker’ is appropriate for this reissue since it costs as little as £16 for the 2CD edition of what looks like an interesting exploration (27 unreleased tracks) of the Steve Miller Band’s 1973 album. But THE SAME content as a 3LP box set is up to £200! Too much midnight toking from the executives involved, surely?
Alive! at Reading is Slade’s legendary 1980 performance at Reading Festival. First issued in last year’s All The WorldIs A Stage box, it’s now available as a standalone release on CD and splatter coloured vinyl.
A 40th anniversary reissue of Huey Lewis & The News’ 1983 album. Black vinyl, no bonus tracks. If that’s disappointing, there is some good news: Bob Clearmountain has created a Dolby Atmos Mix (he’s done Fore! as well). If any Capitol executives are reading this, get in touch because we’d LOVE to issue this on blu-ray as part of the SDE Surround Series.
8CD set in 10-inch packaging with hardcover book • Features singles, album favourites, B-sides, remixes, demos and live tracks
See That Girl 1979-2000 is a forthcoming 8CD box set featuring music from the all too short career of Kirsty MacColl.
Kirsty released five albums during her lifetime – Desperate Character (Polydor, 1981), Kite (Virgin, 1989), Electric Landlady (Virgin, 1991), Titanic Days (ZTT, 1993) and Tropical Brainstorm (V2, 2000). See That Girl brings together 161 tracks recorded between 1979 and 2000 and has been compiled in collaboration with Kirsty’s estate. The audio includes 47 previously unreleased recordings including her second album ‘Real’, recorded in 1983 but never released. ‘Lullaby For Ezra’, which was on this album, can be heard below.
Other highlights include nine tracks from Kirsty’s 1992 Glastonbury performance, a Jazz Cafe set from 1999 and live performances originally recorded for BBC radio and television.
The eighth and final CD in this set features a selection of collaborations with other artists, as either singer or songwriter, and illustrates how in-demand and versatile Kirsty’s extraordinary talents were.
The eight CDs are packaged in two folio/slipcases and these sit alongside the 60-page hardcover book with new and extensive sleeve notes from Jude Rogers, who speaks with close family, friends and fellow musicians who contribute
See That Girl 1979-2000 will be released on 27 October 2023 via UMR.
Steven Wilson’s new album The Harmony Codex is released at the end of this month and among all the formats and pre-order options is a signed CD version, available from Amazon in the UK, and priced at just £10.99.
It’s not clear whether the booklet will be signed or if it will include a signed card insert (the latter is more likely) but it’s still a great price for a signed item.
The Harmony Codex will be released on 29 September 2023 and you can read all the details on the original SDE post which includes formats, tracklistings and more.
Newly remixed & remastered • 4CD & 8LP sets with two complete shows • 2LP highlights edition
Columbia and Sony’s Legacy Recordings will issue The Complete Budokan 1978 a new 4CD or 8LP vinyl box that marks the 45th anniversary of Bob Dylan’s 1978 world tour and includes two complete shows from Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan Hall (February 28 and March 1, 1978). There’s 58 tracks in total, 36 of which are previously unreleased. The audio is newly remixed from the original multi-track tapes.
For his 1978 performances, Dylan (rhythm guitar, harmonica, vocals) led an ensemble featuring Billy Cross (lead guitar), Ian Wallace (drums), Alan Pasqua (keyboards), Rob Stoner (bass, vocals), Steven Soles (acoustic rhythm guitar, vocals), David Mansfield (pedal steel, violin, mandolin, guitar, dobro), Steve Douglas (saxophone, flute, recorder), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Helena Springs (vocals), Jo Ann Harris (vocals), and Debi Dye (vocals). The original Bob DylanAt Budokan album was produced by Don DeVito, who also helmed Dylan’s Street-Legal, recorded and released during the 1978 world tour, featuring the same musicians.
With more than a nod to the Tokyo venue, the 4CD box set is imported from Japan and includes a 60-page photo book of sleeve notes and previously unpublished photos of Dylan on-stage and behind-the-scenes. It also includes facsimile memorabilia such as concert tickets, pamphlets, posters, and flyers etc.
This box set is also available in full as an 8LP vinyl collection but that’s only available in Japan. A 2LP vinyl ‘highlights’ edition, called Another Budokan, features 16 previously unreleased tracks from the big box.
The Complete Budokan and Another Budokan will be released on 17 November 2023 via Columbia/Legacy Recordings.
The Rolling Stones will release their much teased new album, Hackney Diamonds in October.
The album marks the band’s first studio album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang (2016’s Blue and Lonesome being made up of cover versions).
The album has been produced by Andrew Watt and features contributions from former Stones bass player Bill Wyman, new drummer Steve Jordan, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
Angry by The Rolling Stones
There’s two CD versions of the 12-track offering (jewel case and digipak), various coloured vinyl versions and perhaps most of interest to SDE readers, a CD+blu-ray edition with a Dolby Atmos Mix and a 24/96 hi-res stereo version. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these discs come wrapped up in a box set with a 64-page book and a lenticular sleeve, so it’s not cheap. If you wish to support SDE you can pre-order this edition from the SDE shop.
No track listings has been officially released yet although you can preview the first single, ‘Angry’, above. Hackney Diamonds will be released on 20 October 2023, via Polydor.
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The Rolling Stones
CD + blu-ray box set with book in lenticular sleeve
Now That’s What I Call Music continue with their 80s, year-themed, collection of 12-inch mixes with NOW 12″ 80s:1981.
This is a 4CD set in an 8-panel card sleeve and features a collection of extended versions of hits from 1981 including from artists such as Blondie, Duran Duran, Soft Cell, The Human League, Heaven 17, OMD and more. Full tracklisting is below.
NOW 12″ 80s: 1981 will be released on 20 October 2023.
Arther Baker’sDance Masters series continues in November, as the spotlight turns to another remix legend, one of the originators of the form, John Luongo.
Hailing from Boston, John ‘TC’ Luongo is widely seen as one of the most influential DJs and mixers of the Disco era. For over a decade, until he stepped away from mixing, almost everything he touched was a hit, including classics such as Jackie Moore’s ‘This Time Baby’, ‘Vertigo / Relight My Fire’ by Dan Hartman and Patti Labelle’s ‘Music Is My Way Of Life’. He also worked on music outside the disco genre, which is why these new sets include artists such as ZZ Top, Billy Idol, Tina Turner, Cabaret Voltaire, ABC, Wang Chung, Soft Cell, Level 42 and many more.
The 4CD set with Arthur Baker signed print (click image to enlarge)
Arthur Baker presents Dance Masters: John Luongo – The Classic Remixes (to give it its full title) is available as 43-track 4CD set – with a limited quantity available with a signed print – a 36-track 6LP vinyl set (which all come with a signed print) and a cut-down 2LP, 16-track ‘essentials’ vinyl edition. These sets have been compiled by Wayne A. Dickson in conjunction with series curator Arthur Baker (full tracklistings for all formats, below).
The 4CD media book edition includes a 32-page booklet featuring a foreword by Arthur Baker, an in-depth essay written by Alexis Petridis, a track-by-track from John himself and rare photos from Luongo’s personal Collection.
Arthur Baker presents Dance Masters: John Luongo – The Classic Remixes will be released by Demon Music on 17 November 2023.
6LP vinyl edition of Dance Masters: John Luongo (click image to enlarge)
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Various Artists
Dance Masters John Luongo - 4CD set with signed print
Thank you for all your enthusiasm for the Duran DuranDanse Macabre blu-ray audio, which is No 13 in the SDE Surround Series. The pre-order window officially closes today, so this is your last chance (on the stairway) to secure a copy, although we’ll extend it for another couple of days until we reach the weekend!
The album features three brand new Duran Duran songs, covers of tracks by other artists including Talking Heads, Billy Eilish and Siouxsie & the Banshees and re-recordings of a few old Duran numbers, including B-side Secret Oktober. Andy Taylor returns to play guitar for much of this record!
The title track of Danse Macabre features Warren Cuccurullo on guitar
The Blu-ray Audio is a global exclusive for SDE and not available via any other retailer. It features two new immersive spatial audio mixes of Danse Macabre by Bob Clearmountain (Dolby Atmos and 5.1) as well as a hi-res stereo mix (96/24).
Don’t miss out! Place your pre-order by either heading off to the SDE shop using this link, or alternatively use the buy button (‘add to cart’) below. We ship worldwide and there’s now no extra charges for EU customers.
The Danse Macabre blu-ray audio is a collaboration between BMG and SDE and will be released on 27 October 2023. Your blu-ray will ship with a free collectors’ edition SDE Surround Series slipcase!
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
Danse MacabreDuran Duran /SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio
