The Audience 2LP vinyl reissue
Expanded with 6 bonus tracks
Scottish indie label Last Night From Glasgow will reissue The Audience’s self-titled album. The band featured a young Sophie Ellis-Bextor and the 1998 album delivered a couple of UK top 30 hits including ‘I Know Enough (I Don’t Get Enough’.
This new vinyl reissue features the original 14-track album across three sides of vinyl with six bonus tracks on side four. These are as follows: ‘Mr. Doasyouwouldbedoneby (original version)’, ‘I Know Enough (I Don’t Get Enough)’ (original version)’, ‘A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed (Blah St acoustic version)’, ‘You Get What You Deserve (piano version)’, ‘Keep in Touch (piano version)’ and ‘I Can See Clearly (piano version). All six were originally featured on a bonus CD as part of the original limited 2CD set.
Rough Trade have a very limited white vinyl pressing and there are other options via the Last Night At Glasgow shop.
The Audience will be released on 8 July 2022 (was 29 April).
Update 19 February 2022: Original band member Billy Reeves has stepped in and consulted with the label and changed the bonus material. The bonus tracks are now ‘Magna Carta vs Matthew Arnold’, ‘Boutique in My Backyard’, ‘Je Suis Content’, ‘I’m Always Ready’, ‘Helen & Polly’ and ‘You and Me On The Run’.
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Theaudience
Theaudience (2LP) [VINYL]
Tracklisting
The Audience The Audience / 2LP vinyl reissue
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- A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed
- Now That You Are 18
- Mr. Doasyouwouldbedoneby
- I Know Enough (I Don’t Get Enough)
- Keep in Touch
- I Got the Wherewithal
- Harry Don’t Fetch the Water
- If You Can’t Do It When You’re Young; When Can You Do It?
- Running Out of Space
- You Get What You Deserve
- The More There Is to Do
- Bells for David Keenan
- Shoebox Song
- How’s That?
Bonus tracks
- Magna Carta vs Matthew Arnold
- Boutique in My Backyard
- Je Suis Content
- I’m Always Ready
- Helen & Polly
- You and Me On The Run
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[…] ‘Will You Still Be There’ is a lighter-aloft big ballad which more or less does the job while ‘Good Luck, Bad Luck’ is purposeful enough, albeit with a pretty banal chorus that feels ‘first draft’ rather than finished article. ‘Give Me Strength’ is actually really good and benefits from a minimal arrangement and quite a memorable chorus melody, but the focus that resulted in the inventive arrangement that lifted ‘Like To Get To Know You Well’ isn’t repeated here and production-wise it’s all a bit glossy and baggy, a bit like when Paul McCartney ‘does’ reggae (see ‘Too Many People’ from Flowers in the Dirt). […]
[…] content of the Costello demos and the 1988 band demos (the latter exclusive) are superb. When SDE reviewed it, we called it “beautiful, but flawed”. Anyway, with a fantastic price in Amazon Italy […]
Well I burned a CDR with all the download-only tracks and put it inside the SDE box – there is a special pocket in the black Ruff Book. No big deal.
My larger concern is that, if this doesn’t sell well, we won’t see more physical releases. Although the people who worked on this have a couple they are working on, I could easily see this shut down. I hope it sells well enough to keep interest through Flaming Pie and a couple of other albums.
I agree with Paul’s assessment of this set. It seems like they could have gone the rest of the way and put the two demo discs together on one and then added the b-sides to the third disc. I appreciate getting this stuff but I would have appreciated it even more if they got it perfectly.
Have to share. Scored the 2CD Japanese Version from 1989 for $US20, new with OBI, just a few days back from ebay.com. Got it yesterday, playing disc 2 now, feels new and legit. Laser etching of serialnumber. Sturdy 80s fat box and sturdy discs. If it’s fake, then it’s a good one.
great review.
the whole album is superfluous.
Oh sir Paul, please answer this: should I use my heard earned cash on your product where the best songs are only download or should I spend it on a 6 CD Deluxe edition of your other band called Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band?
Which one do think is better?
Waiting for your reply.
Hey Paul,
What about the 2 other songs that Macca-MacManus wrote? “Veronica” and “Pads, Paws and Claws” from Elvis’ 1989 “Spike” album. Is there not a demo with both of them on it? I know the expanded edition of Spike had demos for both, but only by Costello.
‘Fraid not.
Not in my view either!
On the SDE collection, there’s an extra demo of “The Lovers That Never Were” (Geoff Emerick remix) at the end of the acoustic demos. Is this also on the LP version?
Apparently not.
My SDE box number is 10999, and it’s cool! The artwork is great and the music is very good. And now I understand why PM & Co have decided against including B-sides on a physical CD as much of the Dwnload-only matherial in this edition is crap. The recordings which eventually got on the bonus CDs are fine, especially the 1987 acoustic demos: no wonder they also found their way on the 2nd LP. After all I think that was really a right decision, whatever you may think. I’m happy with this release and already expecting the next one, which would be… Wild Life, I think.
Not putting the B-sides, remixes and cassette demos on a CD was not ‘the right decision’.
Macca, Macca is that you? I told you to stay off the internet….
Where is the source for the claim that Capitol is phasing out physical releases by 2019? I can’t find any corroboration for that except on this site’s comments.
I’ve read a few comments along those lines. Not going to happen. They’re not going to phase out physical if there is still demand and they are profitable.
The package is really mess. The ‘download only’ is a shame, not to mention it keeps out of the release the songs included on the japanese version od FITD (Rough Ride, The Long and Widing Road and PS Love me Do).
A shame.
Have to say after some listening Tommys Coming Home is a nice song. Too bad it never made it out of the embryo. Pretty dark lyrics yet lovely.
Sorry didn’t realize it was an Elvis Costello song. Interesting.
Ridiculous statement in a comment above that the 1987 demos sound the same on the official release as on the Vigotone bootleg. There is an appreciable improvement in quality, including a little thing called THEY’RE IN STEREO NOW.
Thanks Paul, for this excellent review.
Apparently, the rumoured 50th anniversary edition of The Beatles’ “Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album will also have download-only content; content larger(more songs) and more significant than on the McCartney-Flowers in the Dirt” box.
Remember, Capitol Records intends to stop offering music on “physical formats” effective at the start of 2019. This “download-only” content may be Capitol’s idea. With Beatles music, they absolutely can’t be permitted to get away with this stupid idea.
I recall the late great David Bowie insisting that extra tracks be put on a vinyl release instead of a CD (which was the thing at the time, and what the record company wanted) of a ‘best of’… When the puzzled record company suits asked him why, David simply said ‘Because I love LPs… They made my name…’
They don’t make them like David any more….
Capitol/EMI are clowns… See what various members of The Beach Boys, The Beatles (George especially), Pink Floyd, and Duran Duran think of them…
Excellent review, Paul.
There clearly are a committee of people who cannot get on the same page as to what a set such as this should be. But as you revealed in your Scott Rodger interview, Paul himself was the one who vetoed the extra physical CD. It looks to me as if that “third bonus CD” was planned out as such by someone, because all of the download tracks (minus the cassette demos, which restart with numbering 1, 2, 3) would fit on one CD, which perhaps would explain some of the missing tracks others have mentioned.
To me, it looks like Paul M. has an aversion to any bonus CD being longer than the album itself, as if it minimizes the “main course.” Only “McCartney II” breaks that rule. And I think he is very sensitive that he’ll be judged by the least of what’s included, so he seems to strive for the “best of the best” in most cases, rather than completeness for the fans’ sake.
Quite funny about that “one of the most accomplished albums of the eighties” line (and what about “Tug Of War”??). In the strictest sense, considering all of the songwriting with Elvis, the recording of those demos (twice), and all the scheduling and sessions with multiple producers and musicians over years’ time: Yes, it is quite an outstanding “accomplishment”!
I really don’t get it. I like FITD for sentimental reasons. Saw the tour when I was 19. Awestruck- a Beatle, live, me… wow. Over the years I hardly played it but I hardly play a lot of things which I like. Too much music on my shelf. Why the hate for this record? Rough Ride should have been remixed as a 12Inch. Peace.
Thanks Paul again for the coverage on this which has been exemplary. Been meaning to contribute to the premium content. Just done it now.
Thanks very much!
In related news: in my trip to the local independent record sop on Wednesday (where i picked up the Tango in the Night SDE a few days before street date), I noticed they were not stock Flowers in the Dirt. Quick inquiry at the counter–they are boycotting it because they don’t appreciate an major artists charging a massive amount of money to promote non-physical media. I say, good for them.
Meanwhile, I happily paid 75 dollars for Tango in the Night, which came with everything I wanted on CD, as it should. I don’t need the vinyl, but I’m fine with it, because I got everything I wanted on CD. And somehow Fleetwood Mac were able to do three filled-to-capacity CDs, a DVD, and a vinyl and charge only 75 dollars. Odd how that seems to have worked, Sir Paul. Who’s doing your accounting, that you’re losing money on the half-there package you put out?
The deluxe arrived today and I was just surprised by the great quality of the product. So much has been said about the tracklisting and such, now just to emphasize the other side, I think just to carry the weight 2,2kg made me understand that it’s a totally different product to the 2 CD-version. As should be given the pricing, and yet still it’s not about the amount of disc’s, it’s the overall production values. They are great and you get 5 gigabytes of download content including the 24-bit stuff that’s the 3 CD’s. The rest is 16-bit.
I’ve had all the stuff already from the days it was out including all the stuff downloadable (except the demos maybe) but the Voodoo records release on 4 CD’s or if you can get a FLAC version is better then this legal set. seek it out, worth getting that one.
I put the Voodoo version on my BLOG, better then this one any day and misses very little
Agree about ‘Flowers’ tracks being left off ‘Pure McCartney, so fans will buy another release/reissue. That’s the sort of thing Klein might have done… Everyone’s waiting for the upcoming Sgt Pepper 50th anniversary bonanza anyway…
Word is Ringo himself has now heard Giles Martin’s remix of Pepper (Yellow Sub Songtrack style) and has given his approval. No word from Macca yet though…
http://wogew.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/ringo-listens-to-remastered-sgt-pepper.html
Vote with your wallets! I’m curious to see how sales stack up after six months.
Biggest Macca fan here and I agree with your take on the macca/mcmanus story. Not good enough in 1988 but now the selling point to fleece our pockets (again) ? Not right…and yes that album could have been a classic had Macca shown some courage/vision. He certainly had the money in the bank to afford taking a few chances!
Having said that I was overjoyed to be able to catch him live for the first time in 89 for a nostalgia show, even then…
Yes, I saw him live for the first time on that tour (early 1990). That was a really big deal for me.
There is a bonus demo mix of “The Lovers That Never Were” done by Geoff Emerick added as a hidden track and also included as DL. Thanks for an excellent review, Paul.
As a life long Beatles/solo fan I reluctantly bought the FITD deluxe box set. Extremely disappointed the downloads are not on physical CD. (what a hassle trying to down load tracks & then copy to a disc). Especially when the two demo CDs are only about 35 minutes long each. All the demos could have been on one CD. The other CD could have contained all the down load tracks. Also there are no demos of other FITD tracks why not? I cannot believe that whoever put this box set together gave a lot of thought or understands what the fans wanted! With no card in the box giving details of the next release could this be an end to the archive releases or maybe they will become download only releases!! I bought this box & gave it the benefit of doubt but will not buy the next one if it contains any down load tracks. PM has succeeded in disappointing many longtime fans. If PM wanted to redress the situation I’m sure he or his staff could have a CD pressed up of the download tracks & supply fans using the download code card who bought the box sent out via his website.
website?
Quite Simple …
At nearly 100 pounds Paul McCartney is just taking the piss with this random collection !!!!
JUST DON’T BUY IT …….
Why do you think that “Wild Life” will GET a SDE?
I liked “PS Love Me Do.”
I loved “This One”!
Overall, a “very” strong album.
The live versions of the songs from this album from that tour and live album were awesome!
You are entirely too hard on PS Love Me Do. It was a fun little song. Certainly not the worst ( Freedom is).
But color me weird because I love Press To Play
Totally agree Tim, its a better album than anything else from 1980-1984. Pretty Little Head is an amazing track.
I cherish my 3-track cassette single of that song, with all three tracks non-album. It’s really strange with the seven-inch mixed by a different person to the 12-inch. Also, how did Paul get away with using a bit of She’s Leaving Home in the intro to the video?!
btw…I still can’t wait to see what the deluxe and super deluxe sets will be for “Wild Life”. I’m probably in the minority here but it’s in my top 5 for his solo releases.
Also, despite the “Pure McCartney” set being a total money grab (well, really, aren’t all ‘best of” sets that)…I did eventually buy the 4 LP version and, I have to say, the sound quality is amazingly great and I really love the track list, so maybe all isn’t quite so bad in “McCartney’s World”. I still say there are too many hands in the pot and that’s why his prices are unnecessarily high.
Agree, that most ‘best-ofs’ are cash grabs. But the 1973 ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums were great. Especially the ‘1967-1970’ Blue one… So many unavailable for years standalone singles and B-Sides in one compilation. Mind you, that said, Apple/Klein/EMI only put them out because of the ‘Alpha Omega’ bootleg set. Sadly now it seems it’s only about money these days… The Beatles mono remasters (2009) should have been released alongside their stereo versions as individual albums/CDs, not as an extortionate (at the time) box set. Pure McCartney and this ‘FITD’ reissue also smack of money grabbing that would put Del Boy to shame….
I got the 2 CD set at Best Buy (with the bonus 7″) for $16.99US. That’s about all I was willing to spend for this. Anything more than $20 is a rip….the Amazon US price you have for the 2 CD set seems off…Amazon now shows for $17.99US so if it really was 8.35 pounds then that was sure a bargain (at the time).
Anyway, all of the hubub about the Deluxe set (and there were loads of legitimate complaints) was accurate and it looks like such a horrible waste of money (at most it should be $49.99 in my estimation, but who am I?).
I bought the original CD when it came out in 1989 and I maybe listened to it 10 times but wanted an updated version regardless so the Best Buy option was the best one for me and the only one that made sense cost-wise (plus it got me to the $35 minimum to pay no shipping).
‘I Wanna Cry’ (another This One B-side) also disappeared.
It’s good that the DVD is not 10 or 20 minutes long, but the Music Video collection is also incomplete, as both Put It There and Figure of Eight have 2 versions.
Well, all this seems to be pretty ambivalent to Paul as well: he did not play any song from this album in concert since the tour following its release ages ago, did he?
Nobody wants it 1: The Russian album. Anyone else remember the sign in the window of the Notting Hill Gate branch of Record & Tape Exchange back in the day pleading with sellers not to bring in any more copies of Macca’s Russian album because they were absolutely inundated with hundreds of copies of the bloody thing!
Nobody wants it 2: There’s an old boy who runs a record stall in my local market; he’s been there for years, and naturally one of his many boxes of LP’s is marked Beatles and Related. Whilst other albums and 12″ singles come and go from that box there is a copy of Flowers In The Dirt that has been in there for as long as I can remember (and that’s a very long time). Nobody wants it. Just about says it all….
Dont Ferry Cross The Mersey and fourfiveseconds count as top tenners? This One demo available on McCartney’s site too.
A brilliant piece of writing, Paul (from someone with only a passing familiarity with McCartney’s music).
Its a dog’s breakfast. As a Costello and Macca fan I’ve had the demos since the 98 bootleg release and they sound identical on the official set. Moreover with all the demos on 1 CD they could have added another CD with the cassette demos on it. EC and Paul played a gig at Royal College Of Music in 1995 of which two tracks were broadcast on Classic FM – a mischievous ‘Mistress & Maid’ in front of HRH Sir Prince Charles and a fun romp through ‘One After 909′. Add to this Veronica, Back On My Feet
Twenty Fine Fingers – love the demo – sweet little rock n roll number
Elvis’ version of So Like Candy inferior? – you, outside! Must agree the 88 band demo is magic thou. I have a feeling maybe Macca couldn’t get with the lyric which is allegedly about EC’s old flame Bebe Buell – at least that’s what she says
Excellent review. I was 17 when FITD came out and, while my friends were into Madonna and Def Leppard, I couldn’t get enough new McCartney material.
I still like most of the album (as opposed to Off the Ground, which I just didn’t get) but my discovery of the time was Loveliest Thing – still one of my favourite Macca tracks. I’m very disappointed it’s not on the new CDs or vinyl.
FITD did, by the way, introduce me to Elvis Costello, who became my musician of choice through university. I disagree about his version of So Like Candy being inferior – I can’t imagine Paul giving it the same dark, dirty edge.
As for the extended version of Once Upon a Long Ago, the two 12″ releases each had a different extended version – one (from memory) with an extra-long guitar solo (may have been saxophone!) and the other with an extension of Nigel Kennedy’s violin solo. Again, I can’t believe these were left off!
Kevin S, I know what you mean. In my case, I loved the 2 bonus tracks from the Put it There single and was sorry they weren’t included here (download or otherwise!). I especially like ‘Same Time Next Year’. I later learned they were out-takes from late-era Wings sessions c May 1978 so maybe they are being kept back for a closer-to-that-time deluxe reissue, who knows.
Really excellent summing up of this impressive but equally frustrating package. Well done.
After all is said and done I will stick with my Japanese 2xCD set which is just wonderful with tracks that are not even on this SDE! And, of course, the great Download In The Dirt bootleg that is out now with all those SDE download tracks.
Great review. Over here in the States, I was a Teen during this time and Paul was viewed as a rock dinosaur and didnt fit in with our New Wave/Alternative heroes. I remember watching his music videos on VH1 which seemed to strengthen our view of him as an oldie and the music never didnt much for me. Some of my favorite albums are from Paul (Band On The Run) but the mid to late 1980’s were not very kind to him. I may give this album a listen but based on what they write and the ridiculous price they seem to view the album entirely different than the rest of the world. I’d say in the next year this will drop dramatically but unless it $40 or so I wont bother.
Excellent and insightful review, although it really went beyond just a straight review and gave an interesting context to the album and the material included with (and excluded from) the super deluxe. I am almost persuaded to buy it (at the right price). Thanks also for the embedded material – I had heard some of it before, but I especially enjoyed the version of Beautiful Night from ‘Return to Pepperland’. Now that would be a lovely surprise for us if it ever appeared officially – on a CD of course.
@Alastair, I may be wrong but I thought the Pepperland version of Beautiful Night is on CD 1 of the BN single as part of Oobu Joobu part 5?
Excellent review of FITD and agree it is beautiful but flawed package and that the extra audio is the best yet. I think I may eBay my download card to recoup some of the expense, otherwise it will end up in the draw along with my other unused DL cards from the other sets. I now have seven of those tracks on CD anyways. Don’t do DLs and never will.
@DaveM – thanks for the steer. I have that cd single somewhere, although I really meant the whole Pepperland album. Never going to happen I suppose.
Paul – I’m not sure you mentioned this, but a few McCartney-Costello co-writes ended up on “Spike”, some even in EC demo form on the bonus disc to the 2001 Rhino/Warner reissue.
Anyway, this is what I think is going to happen with this reissue (at least, this is what’s happening to me): most of the fans who have purchased all previous Deluxe Archive sets, being seriously disappointed with this item (what with the download-only silliness and all) will go for the 2-CD set for the time being, thinking *maybe* they’ll get the Deluxe down the line, if the price drops significantly.
So now they are listening to the 2-CD set, and they’re thinking – yes the remastering is great, the demos are wonderful, but the production is still sO 8Os, the record itself is still what it is, certainly not Macca’s finest hour, not even in his Top Ten solo albums, do I really need this in Deluxe format? – and they’ll gradually but inexorably lose interest in the Deluxe version. After all, each day some interesting new release comes out.
So I bet my two cents that this Deluxe version is going to be the less sold of the whole Archive series so far…
Great review Paul – thanks. Been listening to the Macca-Costello demos all week and loving them while trying hard not to wonder about what might have been…
Great article! And far from making me want to purchase Flowers, the posting of the Pretty Little Head video, a song I’ve never heard before, makes me want to seek out Press To Play. And look: there’s a very young Gabrielle Anwar as the girl in the video! What a find! Cool song, nice bass line.
Press to Play is a pretty bad album with some pretty bad lyrics! For what it’s worth, the 7″ mix of Pretty Little Head is significantly different to the album version.
Nice review. Reading it makes me sad how they botched this release. Not only the download issues, but also missing content. Boooo!
The 1988 Band Demos are the most interesting new material in this package for me. I love the original demo of Twenty Fine Fingers, but wince at some of the changes made in the 1988 Band version, and now can see why it wasn’t released as it wasn’t being taken in a good direction.
Excellent review, can’t agree about the dreadful Rough Ride though, and there are a no. of tracks on side 2 far superior to it.