a-ha / more deluxe editions due

Speaking of the NRK show … too bad it was not included on the DVD.

Paul: Unforgivable seems too strong a word… annoying, yes. In the case of that release, all 4 tracks on the 12″ single were different than the 4 an the CD single. All 8 of them included on CD 2 of East Of The Sun West Of The Moon Deluxe.

… correction, I mean horizontally, of course.

About the DVD: Though the original footage is all in 4:3, the DVD is in 16:9 with black bars on the sides. Why this? It wastes screen resolution.

Did they want to stop people from vertically stretching the picture? Many people do.

These are releases for fans – and fans already have all the mixes that were released before. They are interested in previously unissued material, and there are a lot of interesting tracks here.

It is worth noting, though, that the 12″ mixes of You Are The One, The Living Daylights and Move To Memphis are released on CD for the first time here.

After the SDE of Hunting High & Low’s early material and demo stuff, I am now here (as the kids say) for more of the same on Stay On These Roads. Only, I’m not buying it until the booklet fiasco is fixed.

And boo to Warners/Rhino for not crediting your input on the project!

What’s up with the stupid booklet included with Stay On These Roads everythings bloody back to front ?

Hi,
there is a big problem with the booklet of stayontheseroads : the pages are not in the correct order !!
how to have a fixed booklet by Warner or rhino ?

I just now pre-ordered all three (here in the U.S. it’s still a pre-order, as they don’t come out for another week for some reason). I’m especially looking forward to the early versions of the Stay On These Roads tracks.

I wonder, has anyone heard any more about what exactly comprises the c.$200 value-add to the Japanese edition of the Hunting High & Low Suer-Deluxe set?

Best to all the others out there enjoying this wonderful avalanche of new old a-ha!

Anyone know of the format for the DVD that comes with EATSWOTM? Is it Region 0? PAL? NTSC?

Too bad it was not included, they had enough space for it…
What is more, how on earth can they fuck it up by sharing the ONLY track that is not included and then removing it as fast?

It lasted 4:11.

Yes that must be the one. But for me it has to be the definitive version of the song, more layered than the album version. I wish it was released, as it sounded terrific. Were there any other ‘early version’ of Memorial Beach tracks?

Thanks a lot for your answer! I found it strange as it is stated in the booklet that Chris Neil and Ian Stanley each chose 5 songs to produce, and “Cold River” was part of the Neil set.
As for the credit… industry as it worst. Thanks for your work anyway.

Something else, an early mix of “Lie Down in Darkness” (named “demo”) leaked for a few minutes, courtesy of the official website, before being removed. It is a shame as it is way better than the album mix. So there are quite a lot of other tracks that have not been released yet. Hope we won’t have to wait 5 years this time to get them.

Paul, how do you know its Ian Stanley who produced the demos of Cold River and Waiting for Her? It isn’t mentionned anywhere in the booklet.

It’s really funny to read all these comments. Even Howard Jones, Manics and Duran Duran are mentioned at some point. Part of my daily job is to watch and analyse people’s behaviour, that’s what I kind of did after ready twice all the comments. To be honest I think there are different kind of a-ha fans trying to convince one another of their ideal way of (not) buying or collecting a-ha material. First of all I can follow and understand all these arguments and suggestions. Let’s respect them!

In my opinion there are various types of a-ha ‘fans’. [Human beings are not that ‘simple’ to put in a certain box, so below there are only a few types of fans in general decribed. I don’t want to offend anybody, so please read it with a smile. I know what kind of fan I am.]

1) the ones that ‘just like’ their songs. I guess they are happy with the original albums and the handful of non-album tracks, no matter the quality. So no need to buy any re-issue/remaster. (I wonder why they are visiting this website anyway)
2) there are the ‘sound-freaks’, mostly interested in the graphics and compressions or whatever it’s called, rather than the songs and/or different versions. Personally I don’t think that should be ‘the’ argument to buy a re-issue. However I must admit that I prefer good quality tracks, as in cd/digital quality over vinyl.
3) the ‘so-called-completist’, also often the ‘complainers’, never ever satisfied with any release. Often they post lots of comments, saying they “don’t want to buy”, “boohoo-ing”, comparing with other releases, but I am almost certain they’re all end up buying sooner or later the re-issues anyway, as they have the constantly urge to complain later on (again) about bad cuts, missing seconds et cetera… These ‘so-called fans’ are not always aware of all the releases and cause a lot of unnecessary fuzz at blogs and/or in the comments-area.
4) the ‘über-fans’, the ‘super-deluxe-fans’, the completists, the mega-collectors who are pre-ordering without any hesitation any new release, re-issue, no matter how many times. In fact most of them have already made their own home-ultimate-super-deluxe edition, including every single version known and/or present, no matter the quality of the source. The ones that are happy, thrilled sometimes with the 6 different versions that’ll show the evolution of a song and has the ‘yeah, it has been remixed as well, and oh there’s a very rare Bolivian radio edit available somewhere’ kind of thoughts. These are the true followers, collectors, completists, the ones that should be found here on this website, fulfilled and blessed with the (previously) unreleased tracks in digital quality, but always keep dreaming about the ultimate box-set.

Back to the re-issues… I cannot imagine there will be a box-set, deluxe edition or any re-issue that will be complete. That’s almost impossible to accomplish. For example the record companies don’t have all the legal rights. I think that’s the main reason some tracks, versions, are not present. Then there are the compilers who not always are big fans and dig into it very deep to put all the versions on the re-issue. It seems the last few years more websites like this one or other fan-sites are asked though, which is a good thing. And another argument you shouldn’t forget are the costs to manufacture a box-set, or deluxe edition. Let’s face it, how many people are really buying physical releases these days??

Well, here are a few tracks that are missing from the three new re-issues:

01 The Living Daylights (7″ Version) 4’04
02 The Living Daylights (Instrumental) 4’40 [previously unreleased on CD]
03 Stay On These Roads (7″ Edit) 3’50 [previously unreleased on CD]
04 Softrains Of April (Original) 3’19
05 Touchy! (UK DJ Edit) 3’39
06 You Are The One (Instrumental) 3’55 [previously unreleased on CD]
07 You Are The One (Justin Strauss Dub) 7’23 [previously unreleased on CD]

08 Crying In The Rain (Radio Edit) 3’57
09 I Call Your Name (Special DJ Edit) (Radio Edit) 4’05 [previously unreleased on CD]

10 Move To Memphis (7″ Version) 4’16
11 The Blood That Moves The Body ’92 (The Gun Mix) 4’16
12 The Blood That Moves The Body ’92 (Two-time Gun Mix) 4’08
13 The Blood That Moves The Body ’92 (The Second Gun Around Mix) 5’56

14 Angel In The Snow (Instrumental) 4’15
15 Angel (Edit) 4’06
16 Shapes That Go Together 4’13
17 Cold As Stone (Remix) 4’32
18 Shapes That Go Together (Instrumental) 4’23

Regarding the ‘Live in South America’ versions that were released on the various cd-maxis, I would prefer an audio release as well… Only ‘Take On Me’ and the full length version of ‘The Sun…’ haven’t been on any CD, yet.

19 I’ve Been Losing You / Cry Wolf 9’07
20 The Sun Always Shines On TV (Edit) 4’54
21 I Call Your Name 4’46
22 Early Morning 3’38
23 Scoundrel Days 4’46
24 Slender Frame 4’03
25 Touchy! 6’46
26 Rolling Thunder 6’15 (By the way the overdubbed interview-part is really annoying, who had that ‘luminous’ idea??)

—–

Perhaps I’ve missed it, but would a proper CD-maxis box-set be a good idea? There are a few examples of how it could’ve been done. So, what we ‘need’ in the future…
1) Remastered deluxe edition, including demos and unreleased songs on bonus disc(s)
2) CD-maxis box-set, including all the commercial and promotional versions (and video)

—–

One last thing, there are far more problems in the world at this moment than to worry about missing tracks on a re-issue… (Oops, I sound like a politician, sorry)

—–

(my native language is not English, so I might have made some errors)

is it just me or do others also think that they misprinted the cover for “stay on these roads”? the liner notes are obviously printed in the false sequence and also the lyrics to the songs are printed in random order. i guess something went wrong with the order of the pages of the booklet…

Are vinyl releases of these coming up done in a similar fashion as the excellent first two albums recently were done? Would love to add Stay on these Roads.

Stay On These Roads & Memorial Beach £11.99 each @ base.com and East of the Sun, West of the Moon £15.99. Would have rather got these from HMV but they haven’t even got them listed.

I love to hear something about the future release of the instrumental and acapella versions of all the tracks. The music of a-ha its very complex and has a lot of layers to discover listen the instrumental versions.

I truly am excited for ALL of these releases, and I don’t mean to bring the tone down. But does anyone know if they will release stay on these roads from the memorial for the Norwegian massacre. Its truly an emotional and powerful version of the song. I wonder of they have given it any thought??

Paul??

@Neil Kelly, have you got my messages:
A-Ha – The Blood That Moves The Body Rare Cd Single Morton Harket (5~6 days left) Starting bid: GBP 2.99 [ 1 bid]! I hope you’ll win it ;)
Good luck.

The tracklistings on all these 3 reissues are fantastic. As far as a-ha is concerned, I am much more interested in getting as many unreleased songs/demos/early versions as possible than in getting the subsequent remixes (no matter how good they are). If only because they often were not happy with the production on the actual albums.
As far as the Super deluxe treatment is concerned, I think the album that would deserve it is the post-hiatus “Minor Earth Major Sky”. 1. The original album 2. The original demos made by Paul in Magne in NYC 3. The tons of remixes made from the Minor Earth Major Box 4. The album produced by the band with Kjetil Bjerkestrand before it was remixed by the German producers 5. The Homecoming DVD.
I guess it would make more sense for this album than for “Scoundrel Days”, for which I am not sure there is so much unreleased material left.

no tbtmmb gun mixes a seriously missed opportunity

Will have to give these a miss, a lot of mixes missing, might get them 2nd hand at some point, why bother release these if you’re not going to get everything together, yes die hard fans will like the tracks that didn’t get released, but me; not a major fan – just the singles/remixes/b sides and DVD of promo videos/Concerts would do me.

I’m not find pre-order of new deluxe editions in Japan. They are will not released in Japan? It will be very sorry. Super Deluxe of 1-st album in Japan edition was be perfectly.

The HH&L and Scoundrel Days digipaks were also released in the USA–but only as exclusives from Rhino mail order. These deluxe editions were not released in stores in the USA in any format.

I find it hard to believe that Rhino is “holding back” songs for future 5-disc editions of SOTR, EOTSWOTM and MB. No way. These were not huge sellers even back in the day… I don’t think the latter two albums even made it into the Top 10 outside Norway and maybe Germany. These 2-disc (and in the case of EOTSWOTM, 3-disc) sets are a gift, and probably the only deluxe versions we’ll see of these albums.

i play the mixes, a lot more than the demos… those are only listened to once, because they are usually rough,and not worth listening to as the finished, polished versions are there…..

obviously a-ha are not trying to be completists with these, or they just would have included all the tracks..

doubt there will be super deluxe versions of these albums, and they didn’t really succeed as well as their debut album..

will be getting them, but ultimately making my own compilations to complete them…
——————–

by the way, the a-ha live in south america concert (which i’ve got on laserdisc), is one of the worst examples of crowd noise ever for a recording… i still wasn’t sure it was intentional, because it was
recorded so poorly..

very bad choice for a recording, their newer ones are much better. … but for completists its there..

later
-1

ps the Abba Deluxe Edition re-issues were the same. once the digipacks had sold out they were issued in plastic cases!

Glad to see they’re in digipak form, so they won’t match the (UK) jewelcase deluxes of HH&L and Scoundrel Days, and will get nicely damaged in the post/instore. And a lot of the single mixes/b-sides and non-album singles aren’t included despite there being space.

Top stuff!

All CDs are now showing online at Amazon UK (not hidden). UK Amazon priced at £13.37 each

Fantastic! Great albums and superb extra content.
Ordered without hesitation.

Thank you for the heads up, great stuff Paul!

Rhino can include those Demo/Early version/Alternate Version unless all released/promo mixes/dubs/instrumentals are present. No way you can find those elsewhere except an ann./super deluxe edition of that album. I think Rhino left those out on purpose waiting for the “Second” time “Around” (TBTMYB-The “Second” Gun “Around” Mix, hahaha, if you get my joke)! So we can buy the 2 or 3 missing mixes along with what’s on the 2-disc edition already plus a ton of “new” live/concert/demo 1-2-3/early-earlier-earliest/alternate-other alternate….

Demo/Early version/Alternate Version are nice to have a listen. But I doubt I would keep listening to them over and over. Those were the ones A-ha or the album producer(s) didn’t find those were good enough & ditched & released the final product the album version. For example You are the one, Early Version/Alternate Version/Demo! Perhaps the Alternate Version I would listen more than once (unless it’s very similar to the album version or single remix)! On the other hand I will listen to the 12″ Remix or the Dub much more often. As I liked the Album Version/Single Remix so much that I wanted to hear the different things/parts/bits of the song which the Remixer(s)/A-ha had high-lighted/show cased & wanted us to hear (these are my personal opinion of course)! ;)

i had hoped that the South American DVD might have been expanded to provide the entire concert. Alas…. And, i would love more live tracks – particularly on the memorial beach album (my favourite) – but you can’t have everything i guess.

Howard Jones did it perfectly IMO.

He released (on his own label) his first 5 albums in remastered single-disc editions with beautiful new packaging. All the b-sides and extra tracks were on separate discs as an optional extra, in a box set.

I wish all my favourite artists released their back-catalogue that way.

Personally, I’m tired of these super-duper, special, over-kill editions.

I’d be happy with the remastered album on disc 1 and original b-side and unreleased tracks on disc 2.

I’m not interested in hearing 5 versions of the same song.

Think I’ll hang until each album becomes 30 years old and
…..lets face it there’ll be a Super Deluxe Edition released

‘Shapes That Go Together’ in my humble opinion is the best track that they have ever done…it’s so melodic I just love the song…it should have got a lot higher than the poultry 27 in reached in the uk singles chart.

The first 3 albums are the best of A-ha’s career in my opinion.
But the lack of the instrumental versions of “You Are The One”, “The Living Daylights” and the promo 12″ dub mix of “You Are The One”
is not excusable. Sorry. Enough space on CD #1.
Maybe they’ll release special bonus tracks on the German Amazon site
as they did with “Hunting High…” & “Scoundrel Days”…

Really too bad all the edits, mixes and instrumentals are not included, especially since it should be the same as for the Hunting High & Low great set.
There is space enough to include everything.

Like other ones, I was waiting to have the vinyl only dub/mixes of You Are The One for example, on cd.

And where is the new edition of Scoundrel Days ?

It is like there is missing something now in between…

Just ordered ‘SOTRoads’ – love this album … Does anybody know if the first G Hits album ‘Headlines & Deadlines’ was remastered? On Amazon it’s listed as 2006 re-release remastered – but i’m dubious – it’s a great compilation and i’d re-buy it for improved quality?….

Paul,
Was ”Live in South America” remixed or remastered in any form for this particular edition?
I was wondering on what the sound is going to be like…
2.0 or 5.1?
Cheers

I know the links for these are at the top of this page but if you do a search on Amazon for any of these 3 reissues they are nowhere to be seen. I will wait till they appear on HMV at a decent price.

Once the band break up and reunite again, we’ll have a career spanning box-set that will include everything they left off…..(being cheeky – looking forward to hearing CAST IN STEEL soon too….)

I will deffo buy stay on these roads. I’ve been after the extended versions for ages so this will add to hunting high and low and scoundrel days. Not fussed about the other two CDs though but if they had included many more remixes/extended versions then I might have considered them.

Stay on these roads : that’s definitely a shame that the whole remixes are not on these…Missing edits, and all the 7″ versions plus instrumentals and the ’91 version of “The blood…” !!!Aare they just kidding and waiting for these to be released and then afterwards make a 4 disc set with everything in it ? that’s just not profesional from Rhino …

“East Of the sun” seems to be the only one that looks complete, but I would definetley have pu the single and 12″ version of “Move to memphis” in this one! (The single is related to the 1st compilation just afterward, and the “Memorial beach” version has nothing in common with the previous version….

Memorial beach : There were not that many edits and remixed from “Memorial beach”, they should all have fit in !!! :-( “Shape that goes together” should have been included here, at its place…

I’m really unpleased with these sets… Are they going to re-release “scoudrel days” in any form ?

Isn’t there a version of “You Are The One” on one of its 12″ releases that’s different then on another one of it’s 12″ release.
It seems we’re getting one 12″ remix of “You Are The One” while there are two if I am not mistaken. That would really be a missed chance, but again I am not sure what the deal was with the different versions and releases of this song.