Saturday Deluxe / 16 July 2016
Now That’s What I Call A Summer Lull
In the UK at least, we haven’t exactly enjoyed glorious summer weather so far, but there’s definitely a bit of a summer lull at the moment, in terms of activity around music box sets and a general feeling of anticipation as we wait for some big announcements of releases that will hit ‘the shops’ in the Autumn…
We know a fair amount, while at the same time not knowing too much at all. George Michael‘s Listen Without Prejudice is coming, Crowded House reissues are happening, REM‘s Out of Time will get its silver jubilee edition and the Pet Shop Boys are going to be reissuing ‘Further Listening’ versions of their later albums, even if a Please box is now looking less and less likely for 2016. There will be an Erasure box, we expect Demon to put out a Suede Coming Up anniversary set, and we know that Lloyd Cole is busy prepping a solo albums box, to go with the excellent Commotions set from last year. The ‘biggie’ is the second David Bowie box to follow, the first since his death at the beginning of this year.
Also, don’t expect the stalwarts of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who to be ignored, either. In the next six weeks, we will know much of the details, but until then get out your factor 30 and let’s hope for some sun. Next week, school’s out for summer!
SDE ChartWatch
Macca‘s Pure McCartney goes back up the physical albums chart this week and sits pretty at number 18. Paul admitted this week that they deliberately left off Flowers In The Dirt tracks from this ‘mixtape’ compilation because that 1989 album will be the next deluxe reissue. I’m sure internally MPL think this makes sense, although no one else does. You can read the Paul interview here.
The honeymoon period for Bat For Lashes‘ The Bride is over, as it drops from number nine to number 39 in the physical chart. If anyone has any good photos of that box set that came with an ‘air freshener’ send over and I’ll share. I decided to make do with the ‘indies only’ coloured vinyl edition (I’ll take some photos soon).
Not too much going on elsewhere in the chart this week. There is a lot of Paul Simon, ELO, Bowie, Prince and plenty of supermarket-friendly greatest hits packages.
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Dog Man Star is the “alternative sleeve” version, which was a demon website exclusive when it was first released, I guess they had a few left!
I hope that Demon will issue a 20th anniversary edition of Suede’s ‘Coming Up’. Strangely enough, there is a pre order on Amazon with a release date of 22nd July, for the 20th anniversary edition of ‘Dog Man Star’. This already came out in October 2014. Not Sure what’s going on here.
I’m Australian and I LOOOOOVE the ‘Now…’ series (UK version)! I try to collect them whenever the chance arises – eBay makes it quite easy, but not very cheap! Sellers have cottoned on to the fact that there are a lot of collectors out there, so they can be quite pricey (especially with the added cost of postage). I just stick to ‘main’ series (and the 10th Anniversary ‘year’ ones). I stopped at volume 50 because on every volume after that I hate 90% of the songs!
It can be confusing because since the early-to-mid 2000’s Australia, NZ and the US have started their own ‘Now’ series’…but I’m only interested in the UK ones.
One question though – is it just my imagination or are the CDs poorly manufactured? Nearly every volume I have, one disc (sometimes both!) has some sort of flaw that stops some of the tracks playing properly on my CD player. Admittedly 95% of my collection is second-hand so I can’t make an outright claim, but even with the 5% ‘new’/’store-bought’ ones I’ve had a few issues…
I have an issue with poorly manufactured CDs too and not just second hand ones. I recently purchased one of the Twelve Inch Eighties compilations and had read a comment on Amazon to the effect that the discs were prone to skipping, sure enough in the hifi player it was almost unplayable, but the cheapy bedside player plays it fine! I’ve taken to ripping them and rewriting them to get round it which is a pain!
Do those cds that don’t play all the way through say Made in the UK by PDO in the matrix?
@Tim: Hard to say – my eyesight’s too crap to read such fine detail, LOL. Some have ‘EMI Swindon’ on them. Going by the disc art/label alone, they’re a mix of UK/Holland/EU makes. As most of them are second-hand, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether bad pressing or just general wear and tear.
My CD player is usually pretty good (top-loading, they just seem more stable to me for some reason) but if that doesn’t work I have another one. But if the other one doesn’t work, I have my computer. The computer is my last resort – the disc has to be really bad if it doesn’t work on that. The only drawback with the computer is that it’s just a dinky little laptop (or ‘notebook’ as the young people call them nowadays, LOL) so the tiny speakers give pretty poor sound.
But CDs can be funny – I have ones that are quite scuffed but play perfectly, then there are ones that look absolutely flawless but for some reason just don’t work.
@Tim no, none have that. Seems fairly arbitrary as to which are affected, it’s not even cheaper stuff cod I’ve bought some Bowie recently and that’s bad and even stuff I’ve had for years eg Beatles White Album which was fine when I bought it, is dodgy in my newer player, I guess some are just more fussy than others. But it’s irritating when you have to faff about ripping and writing onto a blank cd to be able to listen on a particular machine.
Have all original 93 Now’s. Used to buy all the side projects as well ( have the original Xmas and Summer cassettes) but gave up a couple of years ago when they started putting the brand on everything. Now That’s What I Call A Disney Princess?
I suspect ‘Further Listening’ may actually mean the original ‘FL’s are revisited rather than the (far) lesser selling later albums are added to. From ‘Nightlife’ onwards the sales are in considerable decline; not making them an attractive propositions for a label (and frankly, is there fan demand?). The original premise for the ‘FL’ project was that it would be b-sides, demos, unreleased and remixes done by the PSBs themselves (although a few exceptions) so plenty of room for all those early 12″ mixes to be added and re-packaged. Fingers crossed for the breath-taking Frankie Knuckles Royal House Dub of ‘LTMOD’ and Base mix of ‘Domino Dancing’…
Neil’s already said in an interview that the FL are continuing with later albums…
As you said at the time the Graham Norton interview is ambiguous. I suspect it’ll be a mixture of classic and later era releases we see.
I do hope so, but I’m not totally convinced…
Well, their own self-published fan magazine, Literally (published in May), in its news pages specified Nightlife, Release, Fundamental, Yes, and Elysium, i.e. all the remaining Parlophone era studio albums. They’ve also said it wasn’t 100% confirmed if they would be out in 2016 or 2017 at that point.
Have I missed an announcement? Can’t find anything about PSB further Further Listening sets?
Neil mentioned them the recent radio 2 doc. Don’t know how recent they will go up to.
Is George Michael’s Listen Without Prejudice anniversary edition still on schedule for this autumn?
i can only listen to Mungo Jerry and the Beach Boys so many times each summer – i usually make my own mix-discs for my and my partner’s cars. i would love to see a track list for this 30-track set.
Here you go :-)
A1 –The Young Rascals Groovin’
A2 –The Isley Brothers Summer Breeze
A3 –The Beach Boys Do It Again
A4 –Bill Withers Lovely Day
A5 –10cc Dreadlock Holiday
A6 –Astrud Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema
A7 –Bobby Goldsboro Summer (The First Time)
B1 –Cliff Richard Summer Holiday
B2 –The Beach Boys California Girls
B3 –Eddie Cochran Summertime Blues
B4 –The Kinks Sunny Afternoon
B5 –The Drifters Under The Boardwalk
B6 –The Mamas & The Papas California Dreamin’
B7 –Scott McKenzie San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)
B8 –The Beatles All You Need Is Love
C1 –Level 42 The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)
C2 –Katrina And The Waves Walking On Sunshine
C3 –KC & The Sunshine Band Give It Up
C4 –Haircut One Hundred Fantastic Day
C5 –Elton John Island Girl
C6 –Martha And The Muffins Echo Beach
C7 –Barracudas Summer Fun
D1 –The Beatles Here Comes The Sun
D2 –Cliff Richard The Day I Met Marie
D3 –Mungo Jerry In The Summertime
D4 –Small Faces Lazy Sunday
D5 –The Lovin’ Spoonful Summer In The City
D6 –The Lovin’ Spoonful Daydream
D7 –The Monkees Daydream Believer
D8 –Jerry Keller Here Comes Summer
Rare instance of The Beatles (two tracks) being included on a compilation.
Roxy?
(Please please please)
@ Mattt
@ Jarle Lilledal Nyvoll
The Now 1 reissue is flawed as it includes different versions of Only For Love, Double Dutch and Waterfront (no sticks intro). I wouldn’t trust them to get the others right e.g. a reissue of Now 3 would lose the Gary Glitter track while the alternative 7″ mix of the Pet Shop Boys’ Opportunities would surely be replaced if Now 7 ever got a CD issue.
I have NM copies of Nows 1 – 9, Now Dance / Now Dance ’86 and have done my own vinyl rips. I have also done the same for the first six Hits albums and other compilations like Out Now and Hungry For Hits. That’s the only way to go if you want them on CD.
The Avalanches new album Wildflower is expceptionally good if anyone is short of inspiration of what to buy.
Paul,
I’ve heard there may be some King Crimson re-issues coming this autumn, have you heard anything? And what do you know about the Stones, as you alluded to in your text.
King Crimson are releasing the 80s studio albums Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair as per those before with a Steven Wilson 5.1 mix on DVD. However if you hang fire another KC megabox of the whole 80s period is promised later in the year that will hoover up these releases (and probably present the surround mixes on Blu-Ray as with previous boxes) along with a load of live material from that time. In the meantime a set of the 2015 tour is forthcoming. All info available at https://www.burningshed.com/store/kingcrimson/
There’s a Rolling Stones in Mono set listed on jpc.de with a price of €165 but no other details:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/detail/-/art/the-rolling-stones-the-rolling-stones-in-mono/hnum/4070471
There was a listing on Amazon.it for it with a release date of 30.09.16 but it’s been taken down.
There is more to come from Siouxsie and the Banshees reissue-wise (which as they have recently done all the albums means it will be rare / unreleased material) and Julian Cope has been in talks regarding more re-issues. Neither may hit before Xmas but they’ll be nice additions when they do arrive.
Would it be too much to ask to get the Kate Bush “Before the Dawn” blu-ray beofre the end of the year???
Love the Now album cover from 1986 you used. Reminds me that I would love more reissues of the early now compilations – from Now 2 on. Happy summer.
I couldn´t agree more! I have No. 1 on CD – the reissue, of course, and every release of the albums since No. 9. I would love to buy the missing links.
Me too…
Drake has been No 1 in the UK singles chart for 14 weeks, will he beat either Wet Wet Wets 15 weeks or Bryan Adams 16 weeks run though..?
Muck Jagger is to be a Father again too…
Jagger seems to be a father again every other week. :-)
I read on marcalmond.co.uk that a 10cd box is due soon. Pre-orders with an additional EP Ltd to 500 are already gone.
i suppose an extensive pet shop boys please box set wouldn’t be a very pet shop boys thing to do since their not into looking back too much. although that’s what i would part cash for rather than 2 cd editions of their later albums. though i’m sort of glad “there’s a bit of a lull” though when there’s bowie, simple minds and new order box sets still forthcoming!
Please tell me more about the upcoming New Order box set. I haven’t heard of that. I know the 2-CD ‘Singles’ reissue will coming out in September… and an Erasure Box Set is in the works….
I mean the singles vinyl box set. Sorry if I insinuated there was something entirely different to the 2 CD version!
I look forward to seeing more Pet Shop Boys ‘Further Listening’ issues. I own the first five they put out. It was odd that after the release of Behavior that they didn’t continue, but now’s a good time. I’m all in.
Unfortunately where they left off on the reissue series also dovetails with two things. First you have where mixes went off of the rails and the singles had 8 mixes but none of them were any good. Tribal/Trace/D&B/House/Noise Mix 1/Noise Mix 2/Noise Mix 3. The b-sides were good however they have already been anthologized.
The other problem is that you hit some of their weakest albums of the catalog here. The uber-disappointment named Super probably won’t fall under this deluxe program but you have “Release” and “Nightlife” which I have no interest in paying for again. “Fundamental,” while not a weak album overall isn’t great enough where I want to pay for “Further Listening” release. Then you hit the newer ones that I actually like a lot, “”Yes” and “Elysium” and unless there’s quality material in the vaults that we haven’t heard I’ve already bought everything that I need from there, too.
The guys create a lot of great music but really FL entries for this part of their career are not needed. If they really want to go SDE then do a box that has some quality content, if you’re going to ask me to pay for the albums again there needs to be an incentive because what we’re looking at is all regurgitated content. Commission some decent mixes for this that are exclusive to it and not the “tinnitus in my tribe extended stutter and skip mix”, a dvd of the videos for the tracks, a decent book.
they did continue after ‘Behaviour’… I have the “Further Listening;s” for ‘Very’ and also ‘Bilingual’