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Out This Week / on 4 August 2017

By Paul Sinclair

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34

Def Leppard / Hysteria (super deluxe edition)

Seven-disc super deluxe edition box set of Def Leppard‘s 1987 album is issued this week. Five CDs and two DVDs offer decent content, although it’s rather expensive. Read more

Blancmange / The Blanc Tapes (9CD box set)

The signed copies Blancmange‘s The Blanc Tapes sold out more or less immediately, although the standard version of this set (which contains three-disc versions of Happy Families, Mange Tout and Believe You Me) is still available. Read more

The Grateful Dead / Long Strange Trip (vinyl)

The 6LP (and double vinyl) edition of the Grateful Dead documentary soundtrack is issued this week, over two months after the original 3CD set was released. Read more

Brian Eno / Half-speed mastered vinyl reissues

Four Brian Eno albums are reissued on 45RPM, half-speed mastered vinyl, namely: Here Come The Warm Jets (1973), Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), Another Green World (1975) and Before and after Science (1977). Read more

Jethro Tull / Songs From The Wood (Steven Wilson Mix) – vinyl LP

Following May’s excellent super deluxe edition of Jethro Tull‘s 1977 album Parlophone are issuing the Steven Wilson stereo mix on vinyl LP.

Randy Newman / Dark Matter (new album)

Randy Newman releases his first studio album of all new material since 2008’s Harps and Angels. Dark Matter shares the same production team: producers Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker and producer-engineer David Boucher. CD out this week, vinyl follows in two weeks.

Status Quo / The Vinyl Singles Collection 1984-1989 (7″ box set)

Universal Music bring together all Status Quo‘s singles from the second half of the 1980s in this box which contains twelve seven inch singles. Read more

Nick Heyward / Woodland Echoes (new album)

Nick Heyward‘s first solo album in 18 years is out this week. Available on vinyl, two-CD deluxe and CD.

Diana Ross / The Boss (coloured vinyl)

Having issued Diana on clear vinyl in June, Culture Factory are putting out a red vinyl edition of Diana Ross‘ previous studio album, 1979’s The Boss. Baby It’s Me is also being issued in similar fashion.

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34 Comments

34 thoughts on “Out This Week / on 4 August 2017”

  3. As per several sellers on EBay, the UB40 Present Arms and Labour of Love Deluxe Editions are finally getting a proper release on Friday. After extensive delays some of these trickled out early last year and then went MIA. See prior posts on these for the full saga. Still don’t see these on Amazon but hopeful they will be available.

    1. It looks like a few ebay sellers have got hold of some of the withdrawn copies and are pretending that they are new releases as nobody else is selling them and they even have the same catalogue number as the withdrawn ones. I honestly cannot see these getting a legitimate release but even though it’s good that these are being made available i still cannot justify paying £17.99 each for these.

        1. Not in stock on HMV.com though. They are both on Amazon but are being sold by marketplace sellers. Shocking distribution you have to say.

  4. Talking about writing one hit, I remember in a school I once taught in the late nineties / early 2000s. Private school, in one of the most expensive areas of the country. We had a boy there who’s father drove a Lamborghini. Lovely bloke – lived in a massive farmhouse.

    Told me he wrote Land of Make Believe for Bucks Fizz and that it meant he never had to work again – although he did. Said that it paid for the house and the car. I was quite surprised as it wasn’t exactly a “cool” song.

    I did love it though.

  6. £15 for an extra 3 songs pass he won’t sell many copies of that and it is reflected on Pledgemusic where there are 452 copies still available. Should have been £14.99 considering the single album is only £9.99.

  7. The 2CD version of Nick Heyward’s album doesn’t seem the best value, the standard version is 42mins and the 2CD version only adds an extra 3 tracks, but is double the price. Ok, it is signed and the packaging is better, so charge maybe an extra £4 or £5 pounds, not double. As said above I appreciate as an artist he may not be rolling in cash, but sometimes there needs to be a pricing that’s not giving it away, but seems reasonable and he’s still making a profit. Granted there are other artists far more guilty of it, for example the recent U2 and Paul McCartney reissues who would be both far, far more financially secure.

    I think there is good discussion to be had about pricing of reissues and SDE’s.

    1. Completely agree Simon – I’m something of a Heyward completist (used to buy all of the CD singles for the B-sides etc.) but I couldn’t justify the huge price difference on the Mediabook version just for packaging and 3 extra tracks. Shame really as that would have been my preferred format.

      1. I feel the same way about the upcoming Robbie Williams fan/website exclusive “Under The Radar Volume 2”. Standard edition is only £10, but the deluxe edition is a whopping £30! And what do you get for that extra £20? Two bonus tracks. Pffft.

        OK, I admit there’s also 5 art cards (yawn), booklet, free download and it’s signed, but those extras aren’t worth £20 in my opinion. And for an eye-watering £50 (!!!) it will be a ‘personalised’ autograph. Oh, and a letter. But (once again) I don’t see that being worth an extra-extra £20. Especially when you see the state of his autograph – https://shop.robbiewilliams.com/collections/under-the-radar/products/under-the-radar-volume-2-deluxe-signed-cd – (nice arse, though…)

        I love Robbie and I’m an RW completist so I am DESPERATE for those extra tracks, but I just can’t talk myself into spending that much money for them. I’d be quite happy with an unsigned deluxe copy if it meant only a few £ more than the standard, but £20-40 extra? Forget it!

    2. I’ve also been weighing which Nick Heyward to buy. Does the single disc version come with a booklet or is it just a disc stuffed in a cardboard sleeve? The “deluxe” seems rather pricey for what I imagine are three short songs .

  8. Helpful hint that! BTW: only less than 30 pre-order copies out of 500 of vinyl version available a minute ago. Signed and numbered too by the man.

    Can not help but to advertise the tin packaged merchandise, “official Nick Heyward tea, perfect blend toe enjoy whilst listening” to the album. One of the most grown-up fan products of all time, compared to completely useless adolescent merchandise, tacky badges and printed photos etc. – for 40 plus fan base, in mr. Heyward’s case.

  11. I guess it’s the Rick Astley / Andrew Ridgeley thing and who could blame them. Some people just want a normal life and if you are prepared to live like a “normal” person in a normal house or you invested your money wisely it can be done.
    The thing about these people that disappear for years / decades is that once you peel back the media bullshit of lies and exaggerations they come across as thoroughly decent “normal” people with their feet on the ground. Given that if you make £40-50K a year in worldwide royalties (or whatever it is) you can live on that, particularly if you bought a decent house in 1981 and still do a few things under the radar (produce / write for others). I could be waaaay wrong but it seems doable. The rewards for one successful thing would / could set you up for life if you don’t want to be Elton.

    2. Agreed. What I think is sad about music these days is that apart from a TINY minority (Adele, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran etc.) writing a great pop song can’t transform or change your life like it used to. Tears For Fears were a ‘normal’ band, doing okay and then they wrote ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ and they never had to work again – or at least Roland, Chris Hughes and Ian Stanley didn’t! :). One song (Ordinary World) rebooted Duran Duran for at least another decade. It’s a romantic notion, but I loved the idea that in ‘the old days’ however bad things were going, if you got lucky and wrote a BIG hit. It really could change your world.

      Because of the changes in radio in the mid-1990s and of course the way most young people listen to music (i.e. not buy it) that has all gone.

      1. You need to write a song for a movie these days. Or a football anthem – the TV companies pay royalties to Skinner, Badiel and Broudie every time the crowd sing “Footballs coming home”. Robert Altman’s son wrote “Suicide is Painless” for the MASH movie and earned ten times the money his father got for directing.

      2. I mostly reference Stephen Duffy on things like this. For all of the brilliance of The Lilac Time (worldwide sales – pffft) his financial life has been made by two things. Writing Kiss Me as a teenager and an album and a bit with Robbie Williams. So for everything he has done, everything he has contributed from Duran Duran & The Hawks up to No Sad Songs it’s all down to just those two things to pay the bills for a lovely married life in Cornwall.

        The other thing that adds to the coffers (to add to CJs point about films & football) is Commercials. Nick Duffy’s big-ish payday came when Flora bought the rights to use Trumpets from Montparnasse for their margarine ads. A lifetime of artistic brilliance and it comes down to a tub of Marge.

        As a sidepoint. How many thousands of streams does one need to account for the sale of one CD or Vinyl record?

      3. “What I think is sad about music these days…”

        Are you a songwriter? I could understand a songwriter being a bit put out by the fact that writing a song is unlikely to put you in a position where you’d never have to work again. As a music buying customer, I think things have changed for the better and I couldn’t care less if fewer artists are afforded the opportunity to be set for life on the back of one song.

          1. So you prefer an industry where most upcoming/middling acts struggle to make a living? I was chatting to the guitarist from newish band Findlay the other day. He works part time in a pub. The album is really good but has probably sold sod all. 30 years ago they’d have had a few UK top 40 hits and maybe sold 60,000 copies of the album. But you and RJS are pleased that people can’t get decent financial rewards (or get rich) from recording great music. Smacks of ‘we hate it when our friends become successful’!!

          2. Ah the politics of the “Crab Bucket”. If anyone doesn’t know it, it’s very interesting and sadly true.

            Personally if someone writes something that brings millions of people pleasure, such as a book, a film and, yes, music, then why shouldn’t they make their living from it and a good one at that? It’s just up to us not to buy it if we don’t like it, it’s so much better than just being bitter and despising someone for making a decent living.

            Anything else is just petty jealousy, as I am pretty sure if anyone here were talented enough to write a big hit they would want to be financially secure from it…or would we all be super generous and sign over all rights to….what? The bottomless pit of the NHS? Yeah right.

        1. My point is why should anyone other than songwriters be upset that the chances of writing one song that can set you up for life almost impossible in the digital era. Your initial comment would have made more sense if you’d turned it around – much like you did with your follow up comment – and stated that it’s sad that some songwriters barely earn enough to live on nowadays, as highlighted in this article:

          http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/will-streaming-music-kill-songwriting

          As for up and coming bands such as the one you mentioned, maybe you should post links to their releases alongside the likes of The Smiths. Personally, I’m more of a fan than a friend of Morrissey, but I’m not in the slightest bit jealous of his success!

  12. It’s nearer 19 years, actually: his last solo album was The Apple Bed in August 1998. He did also release a largely overlooked album with India Dupre in 2006.
    I presume touring on the nostalgia circuit has been keeping the wolf from his door in the meantime, and there was also a Haircut 100 reunion tour a few years ago.

  13. Like, what has Nick been doing the past 18 years?? Being a hermit?? Hiding in a cave?? Does he have a day job or his own online business?? His own studio?? I don’t think he makes millions in royalties…

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