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Saturday Deluxe / 29 May 2021

World Party, Queen & Blondie

By Paul Sinclair

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70

World Farty: Typos and errors mar Karl Wallinger’s vinyl reissue campaign

Three albums into the World Party vinyl reissue campaign and the quality control aspect has left much to be desired.

While Karl Wallinger’s debut as World Party – 1986’s Private Revolution – appears to have had been unaffected by gremlins, the same cannot be said for some of the other records. The second album, 1990’s Goodbye Jumbo had some production problems which resulted in the reissue falling out of sequence, pushing the release date all the way back to October (SDE’s analysis of vinyl pressing plant logjam will shed some light on why the delay is so lengthy) and then the Bang! album also had issues.

The rear artwork of the ‘Bang!’ sleeve doesn’t reflect the changes made to the running order (taken from Discogs).

The new vinyl reissue of that 1993 album omits ‘Give It All Away (Reprise)’ from the end of the album (in itself a questionable decision) and the running order was shuffled forward, so that the last track on side 1 (‘Sooner or Later’) became the first track on side 2. However, no one thought to update the artwork, so both the sleeve and the label on the vinyl record have ‘Soooner or Later’ as the last song on side 1 and suggest that ‘Give It All Away (Reprise) does indeed finish the album – which it doesn’t!

If you’re the forgiving type, you might put that down to a bad day at the office, and remember that we all make mistakes, but sadly the errors have continued and the most recent one is a clanger of almighty proportions.

The last World Party studio album Dumbing Up (originally released in 2000) was reissued on vinyl yesterday, but the spine on the 2LP gatefold package takes issue with traditional naming convention and proudly declares the album is called ‘Private Revolution’. D’Oh!

“You gotta be shitting me…” – Dumbing Up vinyl has the wrong name on it (click image to enlarge)

The odd typo is one thing, but such high-profile mistakes should really not be happening “at this level” (as football pundits like to say). SDE takes no pleasure in reporting these cock-ups (there but for the grace of God go I) but would urge Karl Wallinger to employ the services of a proof-reader. If he’s already done that, then dispense with said proof-reader and get another one!

It has been two and a half years since Blondie announced their box set

Blondie box set ‘definitely’ coming in August 2021 – says someone in the know

When questioned on twitter about when the long-awaited Blondie box set will be coming out, drummer Clem Burke was definitive with his answer.

Tweeter ‘Simon’ referenced an Uncut article from October 2020 which mentioned the box and asked Burke directly “is the box set still happening this year?”. The answer as you can see below states “Yes definitely August 2021”. As fans, we have no reason to doubt this, although the announcement in 2018 telling fans that the box would arrive in 2019 seemed fairly definitive as well, especially since there was artwork to go with it! SDE will maintain a watching brief.

“Happy 40th birthday, Greatest Hits. I got you this slipcase… No, really it was nothing”

Queen reissue Greatest Hits for its 40th birthday but it’s all about them and not you

Queen’s 1981 Greatest Hits is the biggest selling album in the UK, having clocked up sales of over six million copies (6.75m, to be exact). That’s 22 times platinum in the UK!

The reason for mentioning this is because the album is 40 years old this year (it was released in October 1981) and it seems that the 900+ weeks on the UK chart aren’t enough to satisfy band and label and so they have decided to plan another assault on the UK pop charts and reissue it for the 40th anniversary.

Of course, you’d hope they would do something very special for a very significant birthday. Perhaps a CD+blu-ray combo-pack which offers a Dolby Atmos surround mix of every song on the album, linked to restored and remastered video footage? Or how about a two-CD set that offers remixes and rarities on disc two? Or what about a 17-disc CD singles or 12-inch box set that offers each song on its own disc with accompanying rarities?

They haven’t done any of that. What Queen have decided to do is reissue the standard CD with a slipcase around it and offer some limited edition ‘collectors edition’ coloured cassettes.

The four collector’s edition cassette tapes of ‘Greatest Hits’

To be fair, yesterday when this was announced they did offer a bundle of the four cassettes and the slipcased CD with a signed insert (Brian May and Roger Taylor, only) along with a badge. This was priced at £55 and limited to 1000 units. It sold out in about 10 minutes.

What is disappointing about all this, is that the cassette tapes and the signed bundle are a blatant attempt to get the album back to number one in the UK charts. The label deliberately limited the signed bundle to UK fans so that every sale counted towards the UK chart. Each bundle is five sales (four tapes and a CD) so in the 10 minutes or so that it took to sell out that bundle they registered 5000 sales for the chart which will be announced on 9 July (a week after the reissue date). Albums in Britain tend to get to number one these days with between 30,000 and 40,000 sales so that’s already a big step. If 10 thousand further fans buy all four cassette tapes then they are more or less home and dry. The other aspect to bear in mind here is that they are not starting from zero. This very Greatest Hits album is number 12 in this week’s album chart, just through standard catalogue sales!

Of course, there is nothing new in trying to get to number one with multiple formats (hello, Paul McCartney), but this is squeezing fans until the pips squeak! Everyone has this album already. Queen and their record label could have – should have – made some more effort and delivered a product that gives them the sales, but also rewards fans with something new. Anything. Tapes and a slipcase around the standard CD is a bit pathetic, to be honest. We should be thankful there’s no capacity at vinyl pressing plants right now, otherwise we’d almost certainly have had multiple coloured copies and/or picture discs with band members’ faces on them in addition to what has already been announced.

If you want to buy any of this stuff then you need to head off to the Queen Store.

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70 Comments

70 thoughts on “Saturday Deluxe / 29 May 2021”

  1. The Queen site has reduced the price of the coloured cassettes to £5 (or 4 for £16, but currently Roger’s is sold out) – and the ‘new’ CD and cassette are slashed to £4.99 on Amazon UK – to boost their chart-topping bid. Currently Queen are heading the mid-week album chart sales flashes with 11.9K ‘sales’, but looks like they’ll lose out to Olivia Rodrigo when all streaming sales are added by the end of the week.

  2. RE: Blondie

    It’s June.
    Wouldn’t a promotional push be well under way right now for a massive career-spanning box releasing in August?

    1. It’s now July and not even a proper announcement. Maybe they’re planning to tie the publicity around the release of the live concert film/EP later this month?

  3. A slipcase now denotes it being a collector’s edition, wow, talking about pushing it too far. Maybe they should also re-license their slot/fruit machines.

  4. If I remember correctly some of the Queen 7″ single B sides have never been reissued on CD. A Dozen Red Roses for my darling, for example, from the B side of AKOM. Nobody really needs another copy of Greatest Hits..do they?

  5. There are many albums I own that the only version I would buy again would be a hi-res stereo mix (if I really like the album), 5.1 mix, or Dolby Atmos mix on a Blu-ray. So Paul, you pinned me down exactly with your suggestion for Queen – GH.

    I will find 2021 satisfactory if we get Human League – Dare and Ultravox – Rage in Eden 40th anniversary boxes with remastered albums, b-sides and extended mixes, instrumentals and demos plus multi-channel mixes of the albums. The Ultravox is apparently going to get the Steve Wilson treatment after last year’s Vienna but have not heard anything about Dare.

  6. A Double CD with Era Remixes plus a deluxe version with a Blu-ray/4K remastering of the video flix would have been a great idea Paul. Fantastic opportunity missed! Roll on their next Super Deluxe Box Set which ever album they choose, Miracle/Hot Space/Game/Works/Magic any of them would be great to re-live even if some fans find these some of their worst releases. I personally think all of their albums contain classic songs and some poor ones but each album was perfect at the time of release and their deluxe box set campaign gets my full support!

  7. Definitely a cynical cash grab and attempt to score a number one from the Queen camp! Why anyone needs to buy another copy of this album is beyond me although admittedly it is absolutely superb. But you’re right Paul more effort should have been made with regard to content but why would they do that when people will still buy it again regardless?! I resisted the temptation for the signed bundle because I’d already nabbed the bundle with the Brian Roger and Adam signed insert from the recent live album as a ‘complete’ signed item from a Q+AL release makes a lot more sense than a Queen release with two signatures. I absolutely adore this band but I really wish they’d try a bit harder to give fans something rarer. I’d love a standalone release of the 12 inches album from the box set many years ago – but expanded to a two or three disc edition with all of the other original 12 inch mixes added to complete it. I guess I won’t hold my breath for such a release!

  8. Massive Queen fan, but was hoping for something more to celebrate 50th anniversary of band. Greatest hits offers nothing new, and as 1 in 3 households have a copy, not sure why you need to purchase again, great album but why. Could have been tempted with a vinyl, maybe UK release of Target/Walmart coloured vinyl, possibly another HMV exclusive vinyl coming. Brian May had teased that something else is coming soon. Would myself like some career spanning rarities set or Live Killers box set which has been rumoured for a while.

  9. “Give It All Away (Reprise)” was left off the Seaview CD reissue from 2006, so I guess it was hardly surprising that they left it off the vinyl. The record company probably didn’t even know it was on the original release!

  11. I may be completely wrong about this, but regarding Bang! by World Party, I have this downloaded from iTunes, and my version also has no reprise at the end, but the actual track Give It All Away is over 8 minutes long. Does this mean that my version is the track and the reprise squidged together? Is that what they’ve done with the vinyl, too?? I never thought to compare tracklistings and only just discovered it. Not that that excuses them from a faulty tracklisting, of course.

    1. Yes, the ‘new’ running order seems to be the extended version of Give It All Away and no reprise. But obviously the artwork doesn’t reflect that…

  12. I agree with nearly all of what you say, Paul, but Gigantic CD singles boxes with 5-20 minutes of music on each disc has always been a terrible idea. Cds should always be 70-79:57, filling them up with b-sides, demos, unreleased songs, etc. Physical sales continue to decline, at least make every disc sold have some sort of value to the buyer. Labels and artists continue to deliver multi disc sets that could be less discs and have more music. Sad.

    1. I agree. A 17 CD box set would be as pointless at the cassettes. No on would play them – it’d just be a collector’s piece. It’s a waste of money “holding the music in your hands” if you’re not going to listen to it.

  13. Looking ahead to next weeks Super Deluxe I have heard that the announcement of the All Things Must Pass box is happening this week.Don’t get too excited though.Have also heard the price is $US600+.
    Stand by for the vitriol if this is true.

  14. I bought the Queen bundle – I’ve absolutely zero need for four cassettes and a CD version, but having been a fan since I was about six years old, I’ve never owned a copy of any of their Greatest Hits comps, and I figured it’d be nice to have something signed by them (does John still get hassled for autographs, one wonders?).

    1. I think John still considers himself as retired.

      I wonder if he’s given his consent for the cassette release with his face on the cover or if Queen’s EMI contract of the 1970s allows the label to do so without asking.

      Maybe they threatened to release two more different covers with the likes of Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert on them and John felt the need to prevent them from doing so…

  15. The queen stuff is sooo annoying, unless your refreshing the page almost every second all day it’s impossible to get any of the good deals, I’ve missed so many on that site :(

  16. There have been some fairly significant 40th anniversaries passed by without any attempt at doing something special with them (Bat Out Of Hell in 2017 being an obvious one for me). I suspect there’s sales data somewhere telling the labels they’re not really worth the effort. It’s a shame, there have undoubtedly opportunities been missed

  17. Excited for the Blondie box. I hope it’s not just the original run of albums with the extra tracks we already have. I could even go for that if it also included the albums since the reunion happened with extra tracks on them. I just worry that they cashed out their vault a long time ago. With all the years of reissues between the original breakup and the reformation, we didn’t get much in the way of revelations: mostly b-sides and a few demos. I’m hoping for something really amazing, but I’m not holding my breath on it. Maybe I’m wrong and there is an entire trove of things we have not heard or seen, but I haven’t even really heard “legends” of what was recorded but never released. In most of my collecting, you hear about this or that track that people in the know agree should have made the album but never did or the scrapped beginnings of one album or the sudden shift in direction that led them to record another album differently. But I’m not aware of any of that with Blondie.

  18. Last year (2020) Universal Japan released the 2 disc “Greatest Hits In Japan” (Limited Edition) (SHM-CD+DVD/NTSC Region 0) by Queen. It has the Japanese version of “Teo Torriatte (Lets Us Cling Together) with the choruses entirely in Japanese and an all together different tracklist than the UK and US released “Greatest Hits” selected from 20,000 japanese fan votes. There is still 1 (as in only one!) available on Amazon UK for the price of £ 35.21 or Amazon DE for the price of € 36.40 including free shipping, so cheaper if you are in the EU.

    And if you like me have no interest in World party “Bang!” you can wait for a much bigger bang!
    Because on July 9, Mercury (Universal Music) will release the 4 disc “A Bigger Bang, Live In Rio 2006” (Limited Deluxe 2DVD+2CD) Or (2Bluray+2CD) by The Rolling Stones. In addition to the concert on Copacabana Beach it will also feature a bonus disc of the never before released concert From Delta Center in Salt Lake City. In addition to the boxset it will also be available on DVD or Bluray only, without the 2CD’s and on 3 black or coloured LP vinyl.

    I would also like to mention the (hopefully soon to be) limited release from the label “Red River Exports” of “The Beatles In Tokyo” (Limited Deluxe 2 white LP+DVD Set) featuring a 90 page hand numbered hardback book, with double white coloured 180 gram 12″ LP. It includes a replica concert ticket and an exclusive DVD and is sealed with Japanese OBI. It features the entire NTV Channel Four broadcast of The Beatles two nights at the Nippon Budokan on June 30 and July 01 in 1966.
    It is also available in a 2 disc CD+DVD release containing a 36 page hardcover booklet and an OBI strib.

    And don’t forget the new 2 disc release from the label “Real Gone Music” with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys “Way Out West – The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Mu”. And the new 2 disc release from the label “Morello Cherry Records” with Lefty Frizzell containing the three original albums “Saginaw Michigan/Sad Side of Love/Puttin’ on”. These two releases is every cowboy and cowgirl’s dream come true, so saddle up your horses and Yippee Ki Yay the MF…

      1. I agree with you but I still have to get everything released by The Stones, I can’t help it.

        Bob Wills is still the king.

    2. There is no “Japanese” version of Teo Torriate. The album version also has the Japanese choruses. The only alternate version available is the “HD Mix” which was created in the early/mid 2000’s for a Japan-only compilation. It was also reissued on the 2011 40th anniversary remasters.

      1. I have just compared the two versions and you are right, they are in fact the same. But the version from “Greatest Hits In Japan” are superior in sound to the album version, way superior. As are all the tracks on the “Greatest Hits In Japan”. But again you are absolutely right, so thank’s for correcting me on that one.

    3. I’ve had the cd/dvd version on pre-order from Amazon since (possibly) last year, every couple of months I get an e-mail pushing the release date back again and again and again and again and again and again and again – “rock me” (see what I did there ;-)) ). To be honest I can’t see it being released at all – surely Apple claims ownership of absolutely everything (except for the stuff “belonging” to MJ). Also, if you haven’t already, check out the Blackpool Night-Out on YouTube – it’s an unbelievably powerhouse performance and I defy anybody to not be a Beatles fan after seeing this.

      1. I am sorry to hear that as I was looking forward for this to be released soon.

        Thank you very much for the Blackpool tip which I will surely check out.

    4. The Stones must be running short of shows they can release in the CD + DVD/Bluray format.
      Copacabana Beach was released 15 years ago in the Biggest Bang DVD box.I know it was short 4 songs and there was no CD but still…
      Also the Salt Lake City show has a pretty poor reputation among Stones fans so hardly a big draw card.
      If they have just about run out of film they should move to audio only shows from the Taylor years.

  19. Probably worth being a pedant and pointing out that it’s likely that Queen’s GH isn’t currently charting high due to ‘catalogue’ sales but due to people lazily streaming Queen playlists on Spotify. (Or iconic Queen tracks appearing on other playlists).
    All those tracks that are on GH1 must be combining into that album. It’s not even in the Top 200 sales chart on Amazon. (Surely everyone who wants a copy has one?)
    That’s what the ‘album’ chart has become these days.

  21. What annoys me most about queen always promoting their greatest hits is that it only has the first few years – its like rewriting history. I only started to be interested in queen from hot space onwards so it doesn’t contain any songs I remember from the time of release.

    Oh and I would love a 5 disc release of their best album Hot Space. They could do some new extended remixes of most dancey tracks. Staying Power (their best song), Dancer, Body Language, Under Pressure, Back Chat should all be on a greatest hits. Well maybe on a ‘best of’, as they weren’t particularly great hits :)

    On spelling – Gary numan intruder CD has ‘the world is enough’ instead of ‘not enough’ printed.

    Also wondering if someone knows what’s going on with the amazon uk pricing algorithm the last few days? A lot of CDs and vinyl are reduced to ridiculous prices (between £1 and £5 for the CDs). And they do ship. Received a 5cd crusader box set this morning (£5.90).

    1. Have you ever thought of buying a copy of Queen’s “Greatest Hits Vol. 2” album?
      It’s not exactly rare either and you might be able to get a used copy at Oxfam for less than a pound.

      1. Yes, I meant why always promote greatest hits 1 rather than 2 and 3? The greatest hits 1 is permanently In the amazon charts and in supermarkets.

    2. I hadn’t noticed the typo on the Numan. It’s apparently on both version of the Deluxe Edition (tall and short book) based on pics on Discogs but not the vinyl. Don’t know about the regular CD.

      Regarding Queen, for me they started losing what I liked about them with The Game.

  22. I’m a big Queen fan, since 1974 to be exact. I try to buy as much of their “special editions” as I can afford. But like the Bowie limited editions (not including the shameful rip-off of Brilliant Live Adventures) I can’t afford to pay mega-money on ebay for the 40th anniversary versions of their albums. And even if I had seen this on time I wouldn’t throw my money away on this heap of crap. Cassettes? Really? CDs? No mention of a vinyl release of any description? Coupled with over £90 plus fees for a ticket to see them and Adam Lambert in Belfast, this is me well and truly finished with them. John Deacon is right to stay well away.

    1. I think this Vol 1 got a ltd red vinyl reissue only 2-3 years ago for HMV’s ‘Vinyl Day’ annual Saturday event, with Vol 2 getting the same treatment in blue vinyl for the same event in 2020. Maybe they thought they’d covered vinyl for this particular record for a while, I genuinely don’t know. Cassettes is a bit… well, I’d be a tad disappointed if I were a really big Queen devotee.

  23. The description of the Queen signed bundle was a bit misleading. It stated it contained a Great Hits CD signed by Brian and Roger whereas in fact it is a separate insert that is signed. And judging from the mockup picture it is not even an insert containing the album artwork.

  24. That Queen promotion is one of the worst I’ve seen. Nobody needs four copies of the same cassette, in addition to the same album on CD (which they probably already have if they want it). It’s just manufacturing stuff nobody needs. Wasteful.

  25. But, come on, who is going to admit it here that they grabbed the Queen signed CD and coloured cassette option, or would have if they could have been quick enough?

    1. Yep – I went for the bundle. I wanted something autographed. I’ll keep the CD and signed insert but the rest of the tat will end up on Ebay. As will many others I expect. Somebody will want them but I won’t expect to get much

  26. Re limiting sales to the UK only – Years & Years recently announced a CD single of new track Starstruck with the standard version, 2 remixes (one featuring Kylie Minogue) and an acoustic version, great value at £2.99 – I tried to order and was informed it was UK only and could not be sent to my country (Australia). Very disappointing

  27. When I got my copy of Bang I couldn’t believe the tracks had been moved around and the last one dropped. Why on earth would you do that?. At least I have my original pressing which is correct.
    Sloppy checking to get the name on the spine wrong but I can forgive that.
    And lastly does anyone know what has happened to Egyptology. Is it coming out or isn’t it?

    1. They were trying to stop it becoming a 2LP set, I think. Egyptology is coming. Not sure when. I think they are still working out the track listing..

      1. Thanks Paul. The track listing was worked out when it was released and I hope we don’t end up with a single LP with 3 tracks missing. I would rather we had the album across three sides and half a dozen b sides on side four.

  28. Looking forward to the Blondie set, if they do it ‘right’ (and the price is not extortionate).

    But whereas some companies get things right (see recent Lennon and Who reissues as how to go about putting something together that is almost wholly well-received), others appear clueless.

    Which brings me to the Queen GH ‘celebration’. It’s pathetic. But what I’m completely baffled by is why anyone would think this is ok? Anyone who reads the comments and feedback on this site (and other sites) will surely have a more than adequate sense of what fans want, and what pisses them off. It’s not rocket science, is it!

    Yet we continue to get crap like this. An album you already own, in a ‘slipcase’ and the same album put on cassette in four different colours of plastic case. Why do we still get stuff like this? I can only assume it’s because they worked out that enough fans of some acts will but ANYTHING (presumably in orders to keep their collection going). Collecting can be nice, of course, but starting to feel as though the companies are taking some folk for a ride.

    1. i am quite surprised there are no rules around multiple formats chart wise these days. There used to be limits on versions I am sure. The recent examples of Queen, Duran, Kylie etc are all about maxing that first week of sales and are causing extreme mental stress issues in collectors if they miss a version. Ok, you don’t have to buy them of course but I do feel for hardcore collectors. And I am sure you can make a tidy living from the markup, should you choose to spend your time subscribing to collectible artists’ feeds.

  29. Great site – on the subject of proofreaders, I wish the Lennon team had employed one for the POB release. As superb as the release is, there are typo errors on most pages which is a real shame for this great SDE. Let’s hope they also employ a proofreader for the next Lennon release!

  30. Regarding World Party: is there any chance that corrected sleeves will be produced?
    Beside that faults the mastering and pressing quality of these reissues is top notch.

  32. By the way, the reason why the rumoured 5-disc set of Queen’s “The Miracle” didn’t happen, is because Brian May said “No”.

    1. Good – finally common sense kicked it – the worst album of the whole catalogue. I even prefer Hot Space over that. “I Want It All” and nothing else. “Kashoggi’s Ship” came back to interest recently with the “death” of Jamal Kashoggi (Nephew of Adnan Kashoggi, the arms dealer and item of interest in the aforementioned song). Other than that it is a record best to be forgotten, however, I know that I am probably in the minority here. Peace.

      1. To each his own. Major Queen fan here and I love The Miracle.” “I Want it All” and “Scandal” are great tracks, also a big fan of “Miracle,” “Invisible Man,” “My Baby Does Me,” Breakthru,” and “Was it All Worth It.” “Khashoggi’s Ship” sucks IMO. I would have really liked a 5 disc Miracle – Hot Space? No.

  33. Great news regarding the Blondie box set; hopefully it contains loads of unreleased stuff because I have the first six albums with the bonus tracks already….BUT…. I will still get it anyway. Like I got the Stevie Wonder one a few years back, or the Human League one, or the Donna Summer one etc.

  34. Queen’s Greatest Hits – Just how many times can this thing be re-released?

    It’s probably still got some way to go before it catches up with Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album on that front.

    1. Interesting you ask that. I wondered the same thing and did some research to try to find all of the major releases and re-releases and re-re-releases of the album with the UK track listing and this is what I found:

      1) Original release on vinyl and cassette from 1981
      2) First CD release in 1986
      3) 1992 Double CD “Gold Collection” release with GH II
      4) 1994 UK Remaster (also the first US release of the UK track listing with Hollywood’s issuing of the Gold Collection double disc set.
      5) 2000 CD-ROM “Interactive Songbook” that had the tracks and taught you how to play various instruments for each song.
      6) A 2001 remaster as part of The Platinum Collection
      7) 2004 US “We Will Rock You” release (this is the edition that included a couple of “On Fire” preview tracks and the single mix of “I’m In Love With My Car)
      8) 2011 remaster (also included in the 2011 “Platinum Collection” re-release)
      9) 2013 Japanese SACD release
      10) 2016 2 LP reissue
      11) 2018 US/Canadian 2 LP release on double red vinyl
      12) 2019 UK 2 LP release on double red vinyl
      13) 2018/2019 2 LP re-releases as part of the Queen Collections in Italy, the UK and Japan
      14) 2020 2 LP (1 red & 1 white) release in the US at Walmart
      15) 2020 2 ruby red LP rerelease at Target in the US.
      16) 2021 40th Anniversary CD release with slipcover.
      17) 2021 40th Anniversary standard edition cassette and limited edition colored cassettes.

      So, that makes 17 major times this album has been released, teh of those re-releases being in the last ten years alone!

  35. That Queen release reeks of missed opportunity doesn’t it ? I’ll probably get it because, don’t laugh, I don’t have the album, and have never owned it ! I’ve got everything else including the Studio Collection vinyl box, the big Rainbow box and the News of The World box, but I’m not a big fan of greatest hits albums by anyone and only have about 4 in total ! Shame there’s no new-old Queen coming out. That’s what I’d really like. I’ve recently finished picking up the 12”s they put out with extended mixes or remixes on. Had hung back from buying those in the hope they might appear on a CD but I’m fed up of waiting for that hence scouring ebay for the originals. Now I can make up my own compilation of mixes on – don’t laugh again – minidisk :)
    Come on Brian. Open up the vaults. We know it’s got goodies in there :)

  36. There indeed but for grace and a bit of luck go you and I, Paul! :-) You say they should ’employ the services a proof-reader’. There’s a missing word there… and, despite what MS Word’s spellchecker would have you believe, ‘proofreader’ has no hyphen (Oxford English Dictionary). I can only apologise for coming across as a smart-a**e (with a hyphen) – academic proofreading is my day job (not sure about the hyphen there, TBH…). Just a bit of fun – keep up the good work!

    1. You got me. But hey, I’m not charging you £25 to read this post and I know it can be updated at any point. Unlike the World Party gatefold vinyl album.

      1. Indeed so! I’d be the first to admit to moments of inexplicable brain fog in things I’ve written and had published myself – possibly the worst being one single reference to British jazz saxophone legend Tubby Hayes as ‘trumpeter Tubby Hayes…’ in a book I wrote on another jazzman. It doesn’t matter that I’d referred to his saxophonery (might just have invented a word there) several times elsewhere in the same book – jazz buffs could still come away thinking ‘This fellow knows nothing!’ Possibly the worst example of label negligence, though, in terms of proofing, in my own experience, was a vintage Gordon Giltrap live performance released by a small label in the early 2000s, with me hired to provide the booklet essay. I interviewed Gordon, wrote the essay and sent it to the label, with a couple of ‘notes-to-label’ in square brackets here and there asking them to double-check certain details… Amazingly, the thing appeared as-sent in the booklet. Literally no one had bothered to read it.

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