Deacon Blue / multi-disc reissues

Got the first two sets and they are excellent but my rain town DVD had something in the sleeve and consequently was scratched to fk when i pulled it out. Those card sleeves do let reissues down, trays are better.

For anyone with spotify, the DB reissues are now on there (prior to official CD release) – all except homesick I think. The Love and Regret 12″ version is the 10 minute long version (I was expecting about 7 mins I think like the CD single) though I think this was my error as it was covered above, nice surprise. A couple of the live tracks off the QOTNY live 12″ are missing of spotify as I type.

Today i received my Aztec Camera deluxe cd from edsel. I must say that i don’t really like casebound book cd or digipacks. Prefer jewel case. Right from the start cd is scratched and have some marks. This things will happen also with Deacon Blue deluxe editions. Recently, same thing happen with Icehouse reissues, even Pet Shop Boys new album. It’s suppose to be collectors edition and not scratch or marks edition. Also i don’t see any “luxurious” in those packages. I’ll want to buy new cd and not pretty litlle book with damage cd.

In depth interview with Ricky Ross about the new album, the reissues and the forthcoming tour: http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Deacon_Blue_Exclusive_indepth_interview_with_the_returning_hitmakers/49392/p1/

Price seemed to drop on Amazon today………..

@ Dougie – The Riches stuff was definitely in need of remastering! Hope that WTWKYN is a decent improvement on the current CD too.

@ Mike: if my hunch is correct that we’ll see the 2006 remaster of Raintown reused on this reissue we’ll still see 25 new remastered audio tracks plus 6 videos on the Raintown set over and above the 2006 Legacy edition.

If I’m in the car and there’s background noise I don’t mind if the quiet bits are a bit louder than on the original mix.

I think Ricky would be up for the stuff coming out on vinyl if there was a big enough demand for it.

@ Dougie. Raintown 2006 was once the first remasters I was disappointed with. It definitely has more detail, but the range between the loud and quiet bits was reduced too much for me. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous edition, which wasn’t quite as good as the vinyl for me! (Which wasn’t perfect either, but more enjoyable for me!)

It’s worth pointing out that the Glasgow Skyline website has just relaunched early today and among its many pages they have a full Deacon Blue discography covering albums, singles, promos and rarities on vinyl, cassette an CD: http://www.glasgowskyline.com

I don’t claim to have a great set of ears or great hifi but I thought the remastering on Raintown and Singles in 2006 delivered those songs with more volume and a lot more clarity. I’ve compiled Deacon Blue CDs for the car which has used the remastered stuff mixed with the original CD versions of the other albums and there is a big difference in sound and the old mixes sound quiet and muddy in comparison.

Like Neil I am guessing the 2006 Raintown remaster will be reused on this reissue rather than freshly remastered and the Riches part of disc 1 and disc 2 will be where the new remastering work is done on Raintown. With most of Riches having never been remastered by Sony we have 9 songs there plus disc 2 and the DVDs giving the new release the edge over Sony’s very good Legacy edition.

Seems, at first sight, like a model for catalogue reissues that a lot of other record companies would do well to follow. Deacon Blue isn’t a band that I know anything about, but I’d be tempted to dip my toe in the water since this manages to be both comprehensive and reasonably wallet-friendly.

As they are using the second disc from the legacy edition of Raintown i would imagine it will sound exactly the same and they will more than likely just use the same master for the main album from 2006.

Yes, thanks Dougie. That sounds like a lot of effort on Ricky’s part. I would hope that Raintown sounds better than the 2006 Legacy edition, that WTWKYN has some decent bass on CD and am interested to hear improvements in the sound for Whatever… too.

I interviewed Ricky a few weeks ago and the article will go online in a few weeks time. One reason why there are no unreleased studio songs on the set is Sony’s cataloging system is non-existent! Stuff was recorded that wasn’t used, but it would become a huge project in itself to track all the tapes down and review them and find stuff which years later the band are happy to release.

You would think that when a band have had a few million selling albums and albums that have stayed on the album chart for 54 weeks (When The World Knows Your Name) and 77 weeks (Raintown) that the record company would keep accurate records from those sessions and know how many outtakes there are and where to find them… sadly not in the case of Sony! The band would need to track down all the original session tapes and hire studio time or analogue 24 track machines and set aside months from their diaries to sit and listen to all the tapes again and note down what is on the tapes and what is worth thinking about releasing. I would also expect the band may have acetates, and cassettes and DAts and CDRs of rough mixes of songs as album sessions were in progress. The other issue with doing that is whether a project of that scale would pay for itself. If you happen to be The Beatles and are guaranteed to sell millions of copies of the Anthology series then it makes perfect sense commercially to hire the studio time and playback all the old tapes. There is no guarantee any of the remastered Deacon Blue reissues will even briefly enter the charts. When Raintown’s Legacy edition came out in 2006 it didn’t chart.

Ricky in particular has done a huge amount of work to get us to the stage where the Edsel deal delivers fans 1 brand new studio album and 6 very comprehensive reissues. The main man even typed up all the lyrics to all the b-sides himself – now that’s dedication folks. I would imagine that Tim Young will have overseen the remastering of the back catalogue and don’t know how long he spent doing that but all in all I think a huge amount of work has been done by the Edsel team on the packaging front and by Ricky to just put out everything that was available via Sony before, and they have taken the view that to begin tacking demos, unreleased songs and going through all the old live tapes, well, that is another project in itself and may or may not happen in future; so let’s start with the released stuff and get that all available again.

Also, as has already been pointed out in earlier posts the band released lots of album outtakes as b-sides and don’t always think the likes of London A to Z should ever have seen release and take the view there isn’t much left to release and there is a reason why most of the stuff in the vaults is unreleased – Ricky calls it quality control I think.

Maybe as the thread develops and grows we’ll start to see posts talking about what will be released on these CDs and what people are looking forward to hearing in new remastered audio.

I’m looking forward to the Whatever You Say, Say Nothing and Fellow Hoodlums and Homesick sets as they are all under-rated albums in my view and I don’t think Sony would ever have got round to remastering them in a million years!

Or maybe it’s real crackle, but the fake end of side sound that didn’t work as well on CD!

And what about the fake crackle at the end of Take Me To The Place on Ooh! Las Vegas???

i like both 12s but the other mp3 isnt great quality but if anyone has a better copy i would love one please! Yes, i wasnt trying to be negative – this is a very good set and has a lot of great stuff and is 7000 times better than the So reissue. As i have all the CDS, i was hoping for unreleased treasures and the legacy Raintown disc has already come out – but thats the point of this forum, we are all obsessives and we all have individual views on what should be there. Finally, we’ve all forgotten the unreleased Peruvian 12” promo of the Funky Drummer Mix of Sad Loved Girl, which was backed with the 12” US House Dub of World Is Lit By Lightning. I demand the band and Edsel hang their heads for that omission…

well if you like the official one,you’ll like the other!

Hi Ragman

I don’t think anyone is complaining particularly, or being massively negative. It’s a discussion of what’s out there that didn’t make it – informative and interesting for me. I don’t think it can be assumed that an acetate will have identical versions to commercial releases, and also to be really pedantic – they are cut to order and not pressed!

I really like the 12″ mix of Fergus – it was the first DB 12″ I picked up too. Can anyone tell me the structure/main differences of the other mix? Run time? I’m also fond of Wages Day and the Dignity re-record in 12″ form.

I’m impressed that the Chocolate Girl CD single was repressed by PDO. Rich – do you know if the Church 12″ promo/acetate had any different mixes on it?

all in all an amazing achievement by Ricky and Edsel, its good to be reminded of all the other bits and pieces floating around and not worry whether they’re included or not, we are very lucky fans to have these releases…fantastic!

not sure on edit will check,also have 7” acetates of RGK and QOTNY which may potentially be new edits

Personally I am considering boycotting the When The World Knows Your Name set on the grounds that the reissue fails to recognise that in Zimbabwe there were some copies of the album that came in a unique blue picture sleeve with different colour and was pressed on blue vinyl, so if the 3CDs+DVD aren’t printed on blue discs the whole deal is off!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/When-The-World-Knows-Your-Nam-Deacon-Blue-LP-ZIM-/290754830300?pt=UK_Records&hash=item43b2569fdc#ht_2203wt_747

OK… tongue now removed from my cheek, i still don’t give a stuff about blue vinyl and note that in the years that rare Zimbabwean pressing has been offered for sale on ebay no one has been tempte dto part with the original asking price of £150 and there are still no takers at half that price.

btw

white label promos exist fro sufferin’/church and an acetate for the very thing/love’s great fears 2.6.88,so were presumably considered for release…

also fall so freely was knocked up as a 1 track cd promo!

PS if people want to hear previously unreleased Deacon Blue material which they don’t have on vinyl, tape or decaying CD singles, this autumn the band have made 11 previously unreleased top quality songs available on a CD called “The Hipsters”!

The lack of weeping and wailing and general gnashing of teeth over the omission of the 5 Shanghai Surprise mixes of Real Gone Kid on a Deacon Blue promo CD from Sony / BMG in 2006 around the time of the Singles compilation release probably tells its own story too… should there have been a third disc on The Rest devoted to back to back 28 minutes of club mix, instrumental mix, edit mix, edit instrumental mix and acapella mix of Real Gone Kid?

yes 1 loaded promo vid is included my bad grammar I’m afraid by ‘both’ I inferred 2 of them

different edits exist for Circus lights and Love & Regret on South african 7” acetate and also there is a different edit on 1 track cd promo of Hang your Head

I think the first sentence in SDE’s blog mentions reissuing everything which was commercially available before… like Rich I have most of the promos and there are some promos with radio edits which weren’t on the respective standard cd single… I think the only 7″ single edits which were on a commercial Cd single which have been missed out is Love & Regret and A Is For Astronaut.

The Riches promo CD with the proper tracklisting from the 1988 was never sold commercially and I mentioned Angelio (live) and the Raintown (piano version) as examples where Sony re-released Riches in 1993 and 1997 commercially and missed out 1 track both times whereas Edsel’s reissues have the complete thing on CD commercially.

1 version of the Loaded promo IS on the Raintown DVD disc and I am guessing that the band and Edsel didn’t think it was worth having a DVD for Homesick with only 1 promo video on it (Everytime You Sleep) as there was no budget to do a promo video for the second single (A Is For Astronaut)… it might have been nice if they had got round that problem by banging it on The Rest DVD as a bonus promo video?

Every time you sleep promo video is also absent…

oh and the 2nd remix of Fergus is on an official acetate and not a fan mix

Hi

Ragman your knowledge is excellent, well done, I have what i believe to be the biggest DB collection anywhere…tho’ happy to be discounted on that one…lol

A few observations

1. a 3” cds of twist and shout doesn’t exist at lesast in my collection
2.Angeliou did make it onto cd on the rare sony compilation promo called riches collection and would have featured on the final cds of the box set if the final single had been released
3. no mention of the missing cd album sleeper which nearly came out after fellow hoodlums and before WYSSN
4. Chocolate girl on the cds was also remixed by Michael h Bauer
5. You could return any cd rotting cds to a chap at Sony/CBs(the old PDO cds were the problem in their manufacturing) and have them replaced with all info printed back on cds as good as new, my choccie girl cds is still mint as a reslut of this happening, I also have a second copy which doesn’t play because of static problem
6. there were 2 versions of loaded promo video both are not included
7. I think I have the only version of your town extended video with additional footage which also isn’t on the collection

all in all tho’….fantastic!!

While the remixes of Love’s Great Fears and The Very Thing are on the Chocolate Girl CD, this disc is actually decaying. If you can find one that still plays, well… wow. I believe the Queen of the New Year 5″ CD single is also decaying, as is the promo CD of The Riches Collection.

Fergus Sings The Blues (Extended Mix) on Extended 80s Classic Pop 12″ Singles sounds terrible and is clearly a vinyl rip so hopefully it will sound a lot better this time around. The US remixes of “The Very Thing” and “Love’s Great Fears are on the CD single of Chocolate Girl and you really do have to be a trainspotter to notice the differences. I do hope the prices for these go down nearer the release date.

Sorry Ragman – I didn’t read all your stuff before I butted in. As you were.

Just a few minor corrections to Ragman’s vast contribution. Wages Day 12″ also made it to 3″ CD single, and the Minimal Mix of Down In The Flood is the version that appeared on Ooh Last Vegas.

Additional missing stuff: There’s also a version of Riches on the original Dignity 12″ that has some speaking before the track starts proper (that’s the only difference that I recall.)
A CD single edit of Love and Regret (Extended Mix) – about two and half minutes shaved off.
The extended mix of Down in the Flood from the Love and Regret CD single.
The Spanish promo mega mix (released on CBS.)
The Spanish promo live version of Real Gone Kid (and also Dignity???)
The alternate 7″ mix of Your Swaying Arms that appeared on the 10″.
Two additional promo mixes of Will We Be Lovers (which wld make that section of the bonus disc REALLY hard work!)

Anything else?

Does anyone know if the “Church” acetate had alternate mixes?

The Ragman sure knows his stuff. I have found all the info HUGELY informative and helpful.

Last post from me unless any other issues come up. I think the main point about these reissues is we are getting the whole back catalogue remastered, albums, singles, b-sides, remixes, pretty much everything official under one new record deal which will see everything together in 1 place on 1 label and in 6 casebound multi-disc sets. I don’t think the band expect them to be huge sellers or to trouble the charts for very long, if at all. It sounds like a huge amount of work has gone into making these 6 reissues happen… casebound books, all the lyrics, new liner notes, new photographs etc and that is without also trying to do deals with BBC, Virgin, Radio Clyde etc to get unreleased radio session tracks or to go through 100s of DATs finding rare performances that sound good enough for official release or going through all the original session tapes finding alternate takes or unused songs.

I think there was an alternate 12″ mix of Fergus which ended up as an MP3 on one of the fan sites… I think the band had rejected the mix for release and another one was done instead… so only 1 extended mix of Fergus was ever issued officially. I don’t disagree too much that if the aim is to put everything out then hey all 3 mixes of That Brilliant Feeling should be on there… I don’t remember massive differences, from memory Dougie Vipond mixed them and the main differences are the length of the mixes.

I think there is stuff left the band could put out if they wanted to release loads of unreleased stuff. They did a lot of demoing for WTWKYN in 1988 and also cut a lot of songs as potential b-side material at that point. I think the main reason lots of that stuff hasn’t come out is because the band didn’t think the songs were good enough for b-sides or for exhuming when Ooh Las Vegas and Walking Back Home featured some unused stuff from the vaults.

With the first 2 albums we are getting nearly 50 music tracks per set, and most of Raintown was cut early in 1987 so you are looking at 100 tracks culled from 2-3 years… the Fabs would be happy with that level of output!

There are also songs the band tried out live but didn’t put out a finished studio version; eg The Long Homecoming (1988); From Midnight To High Noon (1988); You Don’t Understand (1989); Love Must Be The Reason (1991) somewhere along the line they either forgot about those songs or lost their enthusiasm for them or they tried them in the studio but weren’t happy with the results.

With the Edsel reissues just now I think a no nonsense decision was made – lets include everything (OK well almost everything) that was ever put out by CBS / Sony and then Papillion and even if the band didn’t like some of the b-side material much and often hated the remixes and extended mixes they have been included here anyway just so everything is there.

The CD sets look to be stacked with tracks as well, it is not like they have put the studio album remastered on disc one and left the rest of the space empty, some disc have 20 odd tracks on them.

I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if at some point in the future some stuff from the vaults did emerge. There are a lot of good radio sessions (often acoustic) which haven’t been issued this time round where the band would need to reach an agreement with BBC, Radio Clyde and Virgin Radio etc and hope the stuff is still in the various archives. So i could see some of that maybe coming out in future and maybe a few demos or rough mixes like “All I Want” which was found in 1999 when Ricky went through some DATs of the band rehearsing before they went in and recorded Whatever You Say, Say Nothing. I don’t know if Sony ever recorded many live shows as multitrack recordings… the band probably have lots of soundboards where they would have to sit through lots of shows and pick out great performances of songs and hope the soundboard mix has a good balance of the vocals v instruments and bass v treble and if the audience weren’t miked for the soundboards then its going to sound pretty quiet at the points where the crowd sing the first verse of Dignity on their own etc.

But I know some collectors would guess there might be as many as 50 unreleased Deacon Blue songs that they reckon must have been recorded and that there were lots of unused songs for the 4th album etc… some of this may just be fans picking up stuff that was said in interviews the wrong way: eg when they went in to record Whatever You Say, Say Nothing Ricky had written over 40 songs befor eteh sessions began… it doesn’t mean the band tried to record all 40 at the album sessions and it is a lot more likely that the band and producers attempted about 20 songs, chose 10 for the album and used most of the 10 outtakes as b-sides… we get 9 studio b-sides with that collection a few of them were from an album the band wanted to put out between Hoodlums and Whatever but Sony didn’t want to put out a new DB album less than a year after Hoodlums so ‘Sleeper’ and many of its tracks either got re-recorded at the Whatever sessions or used as b-sides and in some cases Ricky or the band re-recorded the songs later (solo – The Further North You Go, band did a new version of Jesus Do Your Hands Still Feel The Rain in 1999 which they preferred to the version they cut around Our Town in 1994)

Demon/Music club released a 2cd compilation called extended 80s (i think) about 6 or 7 years ago which featured the extended mix of ‘fergus sings the blues’ although it may be hard to find now.

yes, very good work ragman sir – so 6 and 7 new to CD for the first two albums, i guess sounds better but i’ll keep the moan about TBF# as they should be on there (if we have to have several versions of Your Town, Swaying Arms etc). Do you think there really is nothing left as you say, as the material issued between 1986 and 89 was considerable in volume! Arent there two 12s of Fergus too – I have two different mp3’s – though one could be a DJ service or fan mix?

Do you know what format the DVDs are going to be? PAL or NTSC? Region 0 (zero) or other? I live in Canada so I’m hoping for NTSC/Region Zero like the Nick Cave reissues.

Sony’s history of Deacon Blue compilations as a point of comparison with Edsel’s 6 casebound multidisc sets

1. 1988 “Riches” (B-sides compilation, limited edition LP and cassette but you had to re-buy Raintown a year after it was first released to get a copy)

2. 1990 “Ooh Las Vegas” (B-sides compilation, double LP, double CD, cassette) a few more tracks from the later Raintown b-sides, most of the When The World Knows Your Name b-sides but still misses out some b-sides which were vinyl only… adds a few new recordings from 1989 and 1990 and remixes and re-recordings of some old stuff in the vaults.

3. 1993 a box set “The Riches Collection” is brought out to accompany 3 of the singles from the “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” and “Our Town”. The box holds 4 singles but only 3 are released and the live version of “Angeliou” doesn’t feature on any of the discs but was on the original LP and cassette version from 1988.

4. 1994, Our Town – greatest hits collection which doesn’t include Hang Your Head or Closing Time but has 3 newly recorded songs on the CD version and 4 on the double LP

5. 1997, Riches and More… the more turns out to be the 1990 EP “Four Bacharach and David Songs”… this time round Sony forget to include the piano version of “Raintown” from the original 1988 Riches release, meaning they have twice re-released the b-side compilation on CD with 1 track missing both times!

6. 1999, Walking Back Home… a love song compilation with 3 brand new recordings, and 3 unreleased songs from the vaults and several rarities appearing on CD or a DB album colection for the first time… alright value.

7. 2001, The Very Best of Deacon Blue (2 CD release with copy protection)… the hit singles minus Closing Time and Hang Your Head yet again and with a few choice album tracks and b-sides added plus 3 new songs from the Homesick recordings on Papillion.

8. 2006, Raintown remaster Legacy edition… Raintown remastered and with a second disc with live tracks from 1986 and 1987, a couple of demos, and radio session tracks and the 2 b-sides released on the original CD version as bonus tracks… great package with new notes from Ricky Ross… the first time DB fans say ‘well done’ to Sony on a compilation / re-release!

9. 2006, Singles – the hit singles remastered… well you can guess which two singles from the years 1987-94 aren’t there but the one disc compilation does look quite nice and the sound quality is excellent as are the 3 new recordings… surely Sony are now a decent way down the road to remastering the studio albums from 1989, 1991 and 1993 now? Think again! There is however time for yet another Sony best of compilation…

10. 2009, Dignity – The Best Of… 2 CD budget compilation… mainly the hit singles again. CD1 has all 18 singles from 1987-94 on it, so Closing Time and Hang Your Head finally appear on a best of / hits DB .compilation! CD2 is album tracks and b-sides and has the extended mix of Real Gone Kid on a compilation album for the first time… the plot and number of hit singles hasn’t really advanced much since 1994’s Our Town and indeed none of the new material released in 1999, 2001, or 2006 is included!

The list of stuff appearing on CD for the first time is as follows:

1. Long Distance From Just Across The Road (b-side to Loaded, previously only on vinyl and cassette version of Loaded single and passed over by Sony when they issued Riches (1988, 1993), Riches and More (1997) and Ooh Las Vegas (1990)
2. Town To Be Blamed live (from the vinyl only original 12″ release of the first When Will You Make My Telephone Ring)
3. That Brilliant Feeling #1 (previously a vinyl only 7″ b-side to the second single release of When Will You Make My Telephone Ring… there were 2 other mixes of the song on the 12″ single and CD single, so i guess this leaves one mix which has never been released on CD before and one CD mix missing from this set as well… given the stature of the song maybe it is understandable all 3 mixes weren’t included?)
4. Dignity (live at Barrowlands 1988) and 5. Love’s Great Fears (live at Barrowlands 1988) were on a vinyl only 12″ release of Chocolate Girl.
6. Dignity (extended 12″ version) was a vinyl only mix from January 1988 and has never featured on any of Sony’s 8 DB compilations.
Punch and Judy Man, and the US remixes of “The Very Thing” and “Love’s Great Fears” were also missed by Sony when they put out “Riches”, “Riches and More”, “Ooh Las Vegas” and the “Raintown” remaster.

So on the Raintown set we have 6 tracks appearing on CD for the first time and lots of other tracks which are from deleted CD singles and which were bypassed on Sony’s many previous compilation attempts.

On When The World Knows Your Name set, some of the 12″ extended mixes were available on really rare 3″ CD singles (Real Gone Kid and Queen of the New Year) but weren’t on the more widely available standard 5″ Cd singles of those releases and so for most fans it is fairly safe to say that:

1. Real Gone Kid (extended mix) is a CD debut … OK Sony did put it out on the recent (Dignity 2CD compilation as well)
2. Wages Day (12″ mix) is a genuine CD debut and one of the highlights of the reissue series for me at least… always loved the acoustic mix with the harmonica
3. Fergus Sings The Blues (extended mix) previously vinyl only
4. Queen of the New Year – for most people this will be its CD debut
5. Queen of the New Year live was vinyl and cassette only as was:
6. Chocolate Girl live
7. Undeveloped Heart live
8. Town To Be Blamed live
9. Down In The Flood minimal mix was vinyl only (I think)

Tracks that Sony passed over on the Ooh Las Vegas compilation: It’s Not Funny Anymore; London A to Z; Sad Loved Girl (full length version); and all the live tracks from the Love & Regret and Queen of the New Year live EPs

On the Fellow Hoodlums set

1. Friends of Billy Bear was vinyl and cassette only until now
2. What Do You Want The Girl To Do live is another CD debut
3. Real Gone Kid (Halfway to Paradise session version) is a CD debut
4. Loaded (Halfway To Paradise session version) is a CD debut
5. One Hundred Things live is a CD debut
6. Christmas (Baby Please come Home) live is a CD debut
7. I’m Down live is a CD debut
8. Twist & Shout (extended mix) was on a rare 3″ CD single but not on the more common standard CD single and so for most fans will be another Cd debut
9. Closing Time (extended mix) was vinyl only
10. the 3 extended, dub and drumapella mixes of Your Swaying Arms for most fans were vinyl only unless they found the rare promo CD which had them… none of them cropped up on the more common standard CD single. Pedants could also have argued that the studio versions of “Christmas & Glasgow”, “When You Are Young”, and “Walking Back Home” (all found on “The Rest”) could just as easily have included here as they date from the Hoodlums era / sessions.

If you want to be pedantic the Spanish single of “A Brighter Star Than You Will Shine” had a live version of “Real Gone Kid” from Radio Clyde’s recording of the band’s SECC gig in May 1989 which has been overlooked but this was only ever released in Spain, where there was also a horrible edit of the extended mixes from When The World Knows Your Name which hasn’t been included on any of the sets either.

Moving on to “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” and we reach the point where things were calming down a bit with the amount of B-sides and single formats being released… Sony did bring out a set of CD singles called the Riches collection where everything apart from the live version of Angeliou was issued from the vinyl and cassette only “Riches” b-sides album from 1988. All the b-sides are included on the same disc as the album and the second disc has 5 mixes of Your Town most of which will not have been on the average fan’s CD collection before (there is a US CD single with all 5 mixes but most fans will have the Euro radio edit and maybe the Perfecto mix on CD but not the Barrio mixes) then there are the honking 5 mixes of “Will We be Lovers” and i doubt even DB completists will moan that there is a 12″ promo out there which had another 2 mixes not included here!

Arguably “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” is the album which is most deserving of a re-evaluation by fans as many didn’t like the new direction the band took at first and have only gone on to re-assess the album years later. With that in mind, and also interviews at the time mentioning that the band had about 30-40 to choose from when they began the recording sessions it is the one album where there may be a decent amount of studio outtakes or where the band’s demos and rehearsals could sound pretty different to the final versions after the Perfecto team oversaw the album sessions. Having said that, it is also feasible that even though the band had 30-40 songs to choose from this doesn’t mean they were all taped in the studio… usually the band recorded about 20 songs in the studio per album and used the outtakes as b-sides.

2001’s “Homesick” on Papillion suffered from being put together after Ricky had just recorded his own epic solo album “This Is The Life” (whose release was put on hold until after the DB album was recorded, released and toured). Also with Graeme Kelling fighting cancer at the time, Lorraine being pregnant and everyone having other day jobs the album was pieced together slowly and didn’t feature many songs where the band all played live in the studio together…. beyond the 11 tracks on the album it looks like there were only 2 studio b-sides used and a couple of alternate edits of the 2 singles… hence the 1CD-only remaster with everything except the alternate edit of “A Is For Astronaut” crammed on the one disc.

Over the reissue series there are plenty of songs on most of the sets appearing on CD for the first time. Everything has been remastered, the lyrics have all been included, new photos and liner notes from Ricky. I think if you compare the pricing of these to other reissues they are good value, if you comapre the way Deacon Blue / Ricky Ross and Edsel have handled these re-releases with how Sony put out most of their 8 DB compilations I think the current set up Edsel is a vastly superior state of affairs for collectors and more casual fans too.

Oh yes, that’s the stuff!!! Just have to persuade the missus to get out her wallet now…….

It looked like Sony were going to make this happen years ago when they put out the “Raintown” remaster in 2006 and remastered the hit singles the same year and then there was nothing except the crazy decision to re-release “Our Town” (the first greatest hits album) in a new slipstream case just after “Singles” was released and then about a year later they put out another greatest hits and album tracks and select b-sides 2 CD set called “Dignity” (making that Sony’s 8th compilation album from a band who had only recorded 4 studio albums with the label).

For the most part the Edsel releases are looking excellent… some of the albums come with almost 50 music tracks and fans can look forward to them all being remastered in better audio than ever before and the packaging sounds great as does Ricky Ross’s personal involvement in the project and his decision to write notes, provide all the lyrics and include new photos. I also like the no-nonsense aspect of attempting to squeeze the entire CBS / Sony catalogue on to these sets… the first 4 studio collections all have a number of songs which are appearing in CD format for the first time.

Here and there one or two quibbles could be made about the minutia of some of the tracklisting choices eg if the tracklistings above are correct then the vinyl only 12″ original studio version of “Dignity” from March 1987 (with alternate lyrics on verse 1) has been missed from the Raintown set which finds room for an Ooh Las Vegas track “Don’t Let The Teardrops Start” which was written and recorded 18 months after Raintown was recorded and would probably belong chronologically with When The World Knows Your Name or on The Rest since it was never really recorded to go on any proper studio album anyway, the same could be said of the songs recorded for the TV play “Dreaming” which are found on the second set. On the whole very few people will miss other very minor omissions like radio edits of singles like “Love & Regret” or “I Was Right & You Were Wrong” or the alternate mix of “A Is For Astronaut”. Two songs which were given away as free downloads by the official website over the years also fail to be included anywhere: “I’ll Be Your Fool” (which had been scheduled to be the final b-side to the second single from the “Our Town” compilation until Sony decided to drop “Bound To Love” as the single and released “Dignity” in its stead) and “Love Is Plenty” (recorded for 2006’s Singles compilation but not included there). It is possible some of the tracklisting decisions could be down to finding space on a disc somewhere for the song in question as I suspect only allowing 2 discs to cover “The Rest” wasn’t enough to include the songs recorded for “Ooh Las Vegas” as well as the 29 songs which feature there.

If I was awarding marks out of 100 for comprehensiveness these reissues would score 99… yes its a minor bummer if the original 12″ vinyl mix of “Dignity” has been overlooked but hey the Raintown 3CD+DVD does have the album version, the re-recorded Bob Clearmountain single version, the Bob Clearmountain extended mix (on CD for the first time) and live versions from 1986 and 1988 as well as 3 different promo videos… 8 Dignities isn’t a bad haul on a 4 disc remastered set retailing for under £20 on Amazon! I’m not hugely bothered that at this point no new demo versions or studio rough mixes or live tracks have been added since the band feel that in the heyday of the multi-format single (get it on 7″, 12″, cassingle, 3″CD, 5″ CD, and a 7″ or 10″ EP) they had pretty much cleared out the vaults to keep up with the demand for new b-side material especially from 1987-89 where over 100 tracks were released in under 3 years and even then Sony put out “Ooh Las Vegas” in 1990 which included stuff which had been passed over as b-sides previously alongside a few new recordings. Who knows, maybe come the 30th anniversary we’ll see the one or two missing mixes come out alongside a few decent demos, a few nice live tracks and some of the fondly remembered stripped down radio sessions, but for now at least getting the CBS /Sony catalogue all out on 6 multi-disc sets has been no mean feat. Well done to the band and the people at Edsel.

i’m quite disappointed as i have all the vinyl / cd singles and there isnt anything new and its missing oddities like all the different versions of That Brilliant Feeling. Its a lot of money for just the 12s being on cd for the hardcore, close but no cigar..