Super Deluxe Editions/Reissues.

[NancyJohnson]

Long post.

 

Over the years I've bought into SDE collections; multi-CD/BluRay sets, 5.1/Atmos mixes.  My personal champions being pretty much all the Fleetwood Mac, XTC and Tears For Fears rerelease stuff; when done properly these sets can be superb.  The Deluxe/Expanded editions of UFO's Strangers In The Night and Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous are also top notch.

 

In the subject of Thin Lizzy, yesterday me and my wife were listening to the '1976' SDE; effectively an expanded double of Johnny The Fox and Jailbreak.  The question came up on the bonus content (live/outtakes/radio), my wife said something along the lines of, 'Where has all this material been for 50-odd years?  If you were 30 years old when these albums came out, you'd be nudging 80 now, or dead.  Who is this actually for?'

 

In my head, I'm trying to reconcile who these releases are actually for as well, how many units will actually be sold (is it a big moneymaker considering the work involved to get it released) and should the content have been released earlier.  Assuming Jailbreak had had an additional record of demos bundled in with it in 1976, would it have just watered down the original album?

 

I follow Steve Jansen (Japan) on X, once in a while he'll drop short clips of live recordings from early tours, quality wise these are studio quality and a country mile better than their official live album or the Budokan gig bundled in the recent Quiet Life boxset, but they're never going to get released.  There's an ever diminishing fanbase from that period and it pains me that we'll never hear these recordings in full.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love hearing all this stuff, but how much time after the original release is arguably too long, or is it all about keeping the fan base hungry for more?

 

 

[Mickeyboro]

No answers, just waffle.

 

As someone who more or less made a living from sleevenoting reissue CDs in the 80s, I have to approve of ‘creative repackaging’ on principle. Kept my mortgage paid, anyway.

 

It does seem as we are in the death throes of physical media that everything possible is bring wheeled out to make a last buck, just as superannuated rock stars are writing their autobiographies while they still draw breath/have an audience.

 

To address the question … I don’t think bands like Lizzy had time to think, and all

unreleased recordings tend to stay in record company vaults until rediscovered. Often forgotten about, sometimes even misfiled/labelled. The 70s rock audience now has disposable (pension?) income to revisit their carefree youth. 
 

So my answer would be (if I have one) the music biz are looking harder for ways to make money now streaming has taken away much of their sales base. Whether we buy what they come up with and the prices they charge are another matter!
 

Finally, I got the Lizzy Live and Dangerous multi-disc set, but sold it as I am too used to the definitive version and anything else just sounds wrong!
 

 

Edited October 5 by Mickeyboro

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Good topic . 
 

I remember back in the '80s when Hawkwind releaeec 2 12" eps , Sweet mistress of pain / Valium 10. The reviewer in sounds magazine actually questioned if those tracks were from the archives or new recordings at the time . 
 

The classic motorhead lineup are all dead , yet special deluxe editions of their stuff still gets churned out . 
 

Then of course there's Record Store Day . 
 

I have live and dangerous on CD and original album format . I don't  play it anymore , and tbf only like a couple of their classics anyway . 
 

I think if the artists make a ' labour of love ' ,and give the fans something actually worth adding to their collections then that's great .

The Celtic Frost Dance Macabre is just that . Plus the Steven Wilson remasters of Tangerine Drean recordings are great also .

As for Hawkwind , it is said that the original masters of their United Artists catalogue have been lost forever . Could be wrong , could be right . If so, is their Warrior On The Edge Of Time cd boxset artificially enhanced ?  The best thing imho is magnu with the 2 drummer intro . 

 

Trying to find space for all these reissues is another thing . 

 

I've decided on doing things differently with my collection of late ; I trimmed down the vinyl collection but will always purchase CDs .

 

I received a ltd edition Jean michel jarre digipack cd yesterday . Inside the cover there's a sticker which I had to point my iPhone to for extra content . That was a pita to sort out . It takes me to a website called Zatap where I had to register it . 😮‍💨
 

 

[Cliff Edge]

 

I received a ltd edition Jean michel jarre digipack cd yesterday . Inside the cover there's a sticker which I had to point my iPhone to for extra content . That was a pita to sort out . It takes me to a website called Zatap where I had to register it . 😮‍💨
 

So now a bunch of other companies can send junk to your email address. 🙂

[12stringbassist]

The SuperDeluxe editions of some albums have been really welcome to me.

 

The recent Ultravox box sets have been a total delight.
The Be Bop Deluxe boxes were wonderful too.
The Who's Next / Lifehouse box, while overly-expensive, was certainly the way for a fan to get all of the related content.
XTC's reissues were of model of how to do it. A shame the videos have stopped.
 

The Thin Lizzy boxes I have - Vagabonds / 1976 / L&D / Rock legends - are all excellent. The demos in the 1976 box are pretty special, as is the live disc. The 2024 mixes of Jailbreak and Johnny The Fox use some guitar parts that were previously buried in the mix and a spoken word part that was abandoned in Emerald - that was a REAL surprise to hear. The demos as bonus content at the time of original release wouldn't have worked, as the band wanted us to hear record in only ONE way, how it was intended.

 

Elvis Costello's back catalogue is on its umpteenth expanded reissue now and it's too much to expect fans to keep buying it.

It pains me to say that Suede are guilty of putting out a slightly amended reissue of their back catalogue every few years. I wish they would stop it. If you can find the Edsel 3 disc sets, get those. They are definitive. They also try to get you to buy a special expanded edition of each new release with b-sides and live stuff added. A visible cash-grab.

 

Having been involved a little in the Slade reissues, I know exactly how difficult the process of unearthing and getting additional content approved as bonus content can be.

Edited October 5 by 12stringbassist

[Mykesbass]

4 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

The question came up on the bonus content (live/outtakes/radio), my wife said something along the lines of, 'Where has all this material been for 50-odd years?  If you were 30 years old when these albums came out, you'd be nudging 80 now, or dead.  Who is this actually for?'

 

 

As someone who, like @Mickeyboro, worked extensively for some years in the reissue world (we had the pleasure of working together on quite a few releases), I can give you a factual answer for the first question and an informed guess for the second.

 

These outtakes have been tied up in ownership rights. Anything a band recorded, even if it didn't get released was the property of the record company (often in perpetuity or for a long period). Live recording would also be subject to re-recording restrictions - so even if Thin Lizzy had left Vertigo their old contract would prohibit them from re-recording (in any form) any of their Vertigo recorded material. 

 

Major labels only became much more active on the reissue market late on, as it wasn't a big enough money spinner for them, allowing companies like the one I worked for to put out these tracks. Only once they saw the royalties that we were paying them (300.000 copies of an Alan Parsons Project compilation) did they start to take notice. 

 

That explains the 'where have they been'. The 'who buys this' is really down to a small but ardent fanbase and completists. One of the bands I worked closely with was Deep Purple. We could have sold a couple of thousand copies of a CD of Ritchie Blackmore farting in a jar. The fanbase is quickly contracting for the reason your wife points out, but there is a new generation of fan - look at some of the niche stuff that Record Store Day throws out every year! 

[AMV001]

21 hours ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

 

As for Hawkwind , it is said that the original masters of their United Artists catalogue have been lost forever

The recent 'Space Ritual' reissue is definitely a new mix from original multitracks. It is totally different from the original, not just a slightly tweaked version of it.

 

Whether it is better would be a wonderful discussion. I'm in two minds about it.

 

To answer the OP's question though, at least in the case of 'Space Ritual' the target market is exactly me- been listening to it for 40 years, now 60 years old and more then excited about a new version, enough to want both the CD version and the £100 box set.

[NancyJohnson]

I suppose another facit of the SDE thing is this shameless cash grabbing by the artistes.  Two bands.

 

Firstly, take Kiss (who are no strangers to merchandise and monetising their brand) and specifically the reissue of Destroyer.  Beth aside, I've always liked the album.  The SDE is expanded to four CDs and a Steven Wilson 5.1 mix on Blu-Ray.  I'm sure Gene Simmons could just hear the sound of cash registers ringing at $200 a pop; I'm pretty sure most of the content has been in circulation for years and that most fans would be more than happy to fork over £15/$20 for a standalone BluRay.

 

Next up, Queen.  These guys have warehouses full of money and now they're undertaking a huge reissue programme.  The newly entitled SDE of 'Queen 1' drops next month (just in time for Christmas); newly expanded to six CDs (most of the content freely available, but there's a karaoke version) and a vinyl copy, yours for £150.00.  £150.00.  Madness, but people will still buy it.

 

Look, I know people will say, 'Well, you don't need to buy them,' and in truth, I won't be buying them.  I just find the whole milking the fan base a bit abhorrent.  The SDEs I've mentioned above were £25-30 tops, not £150-200.

[gjones]

Why would an artist of record company spend the time and money remastering an album, or a live recording when minute quantities will be sold - unless it's done of the cheap.  Music in the form of records or CDs is not worth producing in quantity these days, due to the fact that nobody buys any of it - people don't even bother paying to download music anymore 

 

Many long established artists don't even bother recording new albums, as they can't make any money from them and their audiences only want to hear the old hits when they play live.

 

Sad days for music lovers.

[BigRedX]

For the bands I like, IMO there is a reason why most of the out-takes and other unreleased tracks were unreleased at the time, and that's because they weren't very good!

 

I think it's fine if the bonus tracks on an album are non-album singles, B-sides and 12" mixes from the same era, in fact that's exactly what I want. What I don't want is half-baked demos, badly performed and recorded "live" tracks, or songs that at the time weren't considered good enough to even be included on the middle of side two of the album.

 

I can't think of any previously unreleased track by any of my favourite bands that have given me sufficient listening pleasure to warrant their inclusion on a re-issue version of the album.

 

I also can't see the point of new mixes that supposedly take advantage of new listening set-ups, with maybe the exception of the handful of albums from the 70s that were mixed for quadrophonic. Almost everything else was recorded with the intention of being mixed in stereo at best, and for many albums recorded in the 60s the mono mix was the the main one that had time and effort taken on it, whilst the stereo version was dashed off in a couple of hours afterwards. Most domestic listening environments are barely good enough to do justice to a stereo mix let alone anything with more channels.

[NancyJohnson]

14 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

For the bands I like, IMO there is a reason why most of the out-takes and other unreleased tracks were unreleased at the time, and that's because they weren't very good!

 

I think it's fine if the bonus tracks on an album are non-album singles, B-sides and 12" mixes from the same era, in fact that's exactly what I want. What I don't want is half-baked demos, badly performed and recorded "live" tracks, or songs that at the time weren't considered good enough to even be included on the middle of side two of the album.

 

I can't think of any previously unreleased track by any of my favourite bands that have given me sufficient listening pleasure to warrant their inclusion on a re-issue version of the album.

 

I also can't see the point of new mixes that supposedly take advantage of new listening set-ups, with maybe the exception of the handful of albums from the 70s that were mixed for quadrophonic. Almost everything else was recorded with the intention of being mixed in stereo at best, and for many albums recorded in the 60s the mono mix was the the main one that had time and effort taken on it, whilst the stereo version was dashed off in a couple of hours afterwards. Most domestic listening environments are barely good enough to do justice to a stereo mix let alone anything with more channels.

 

While I'd agree with most of your points, the surround mixes I've got are just glorious.  It's not like the stereo mixes are dumped.

 

By way of example, XTC's Skylarking SDE from 2016, which cost under £20.00.  You're getting (thank you Wikipedia):

1. 2016 5.1 mix – same running order as 2016 stereo mix

2. 2016 instrumental mix – same running order as 2016 stereo mix

3. 2001 stereo remaster – same running order as original vinyl (includes bonus tracks "Dear God" and "Extrovert")

4. 2010 corrected polarity remaster – same running order as 2016 stereo mix (minus bonus tracks)

5. Album in demo and work tape form – same running order as 2016 stereo mix (minus bonus tracks)

6. 30+ demos/early version/WiP versions.

 

There's also a second deluxe reissue that includes a 2024 Dolby Atmos mix on a CD/BR two disc set.  £21.00, not £150.00.

 

This is how you do this.

 

[prowla]

I like the hi-res re-releases, since I've got a decent streaming system.

The Beatles Giles Martin remasters are rather good too.

Some bands, particularly Black Sabbath could do with a proper rethink of their earlier stuff, as the mix on some is pretty awful.

[NancyJohnson]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

I like the hi-res re-releases, since I've got a decent streaming system.

The Beatles Giles Martin remasters are rather good too.

Some bands, particularly Black Sabbath could do with a proper rethink of their earlier stuff, as the mix on some is pretty awful.

 

I tend to rip everything to FLAC and the Blu-ray content to MKV and then to MP4 with Dolby/DTS pass-through.  Any stereo stuff off the Blu-Rays gets converted to FLAC with Foobar.

 

All this sits on a NAS and just gets squirted into our surround system via Plex.

 

 

[AMV001]

3 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

I tend to rip everything to FLAC and the Blu-ray content to MKV and then to MP4 with Dolby/DTS pass-through.  Any stereo stuff off the Blu-Rays gets converted to FLAC with Foobar.

 

All this sits on a NAS and just gets squirted into our surround system via Plex.

 

 

Have you just made all that up?

[NancyJohnson]

13 minutes ago, AMV001 said:

Have you just made all that up?

 

Nope!  All real.  Honest.

[prowla]

20 minutes ago, AMV001 said:

Have you just made all that up?

I'm ashamed to say I understood it. 🙂

I use EAC to rip CDs to FLAC and DVD Audio Extractor to rip DVDs to FLAC in either 24 bit 96 or 128 kHz; they reside in VMs on my Linux PC.

I've currently got that PC running Kodi as my share, but I'm in the process of replacing the defunct innards of a Naim Unitiserve with a more up to date Mini-ITX mobo to act as a share/ripper.

My main HiFi is a Naim NDX streamer via a Hi-Line interconnect into olive 82/Supercap pre-amp and 250 power-amp, and Linn Kaber speakers; I also plan to get an XPS2 for the NDX, as my CDS's XPS won't drive the NDX.

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

A few other thoughts .. Living in a small flat with stereo seperates still , I stick with stereo recordings .

I do have a few albums with 5.1 included with my purchase for example Jean micheljarre aero . That's a strange release, if ever there was one . A dvd/ cd 5.1 + strereo pack . 
 

Metallica have been releasing all their albums ( gradually ) in box sets . The thing is, they haven't recorded enough to justify box sets imho . Very lazy in the studio for most of their existence . I did purchase the Ride the lightning box set . However, I'm fed up with them now , and managed to sell it for the same price I paid . I never opened the box .  They too are now in the kiss money making conglomerate game .  I don't need stencils , vhs tapes or patches . 
 

With Black sabbath I decided to get the cd remasters with the packaging being exactly the same as the vinyl albeit miniaturised .

master of Reality . Bill ward does sound like he is playing on buckets and cardboard boxes imho. 
 

With Rush , I have the cheap remastered CDs . I did get a couple of their latest cd remadters but I gave up , as they fill up the content with cleaned up bootlegs and stuff I'm already familiar with . Btw, the recordings of presto and roll the bones will always be light .

i will get the counterparts vinyl when that gets reissued again . 

[prowla]

38 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

A few other thoughts .. Living in a small flat with stereo seperates still , I stick with stereo recordings .

I do have a few albums with 5.1 included with my purchase for example Jean micheljarre aero . That's a strange release, if ever there was one . A dvd/ cd 5.1 + strereo pack . 
 

Metallica have been releasing all their albums ( gradually ) in box sets . The thing is, they haven't recorded enough to justify box sets imho . Very lazy in the studio for most of their existence . I did purchase the Ride the lightning box set . However, I'm fed up with them now , and managed to sell it for the same price I paid . I never opened the box .  They too are now in the kiss money making conglomerate game .  I don't need stencils , vhs tapes or patches . 
 

With Black sabbath I decided to get the cd remasters with the packaging being exactly the same as the vinyl albeit miniaturised .

master of Reality . Bill ward does sound like he is playing on buckets and cardboard boxes imho. 
 

With Rush , I have the cheap remastered CDs . I did get a couple of their latest cd remadters but I gave up , as they fill up the content with cleaned up bootlegs and stuff I'm already familiar with . Btw, the recordings of presto and roll the bones will always be light .

i will get the counterparts vinyl when that gets reissued again . 

I’ve got loads of the mini-LP CDs. 
Moving Pictures and Clockwork Angels are especially good ones.

Sabbath CDs are not so great.  

[Lozz196]

I’ve only got 2 reissues of music that I already had, Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols and Appetite for Destruction by Guns N Roses. Each are mastered differently to the originals, more bass, and re Appetite better separation of the guitars, Izzy left Slash right. 

[BigRedX]

I own two boxed set re-issues with "bonus" tracks.

 

The first is The Pretty Things "complete" boxed set, although it doesn't include the last two albums as they were released after this came out. The Pretty Things released a lot of music that never made it onto any of their albums, so for the most parts the bonus tracks are a neat way of collecting together all the recordings from a a particular era around the album into one place. Unfortunately there has also been some mission creep and there are some live recordings and alternative mixes of a few tracks. None of these add anything to my listening enjoyment, and one set in particular turned out to be very disappointing. When the band recorded their third album "Emotions" the record label insisted on adding various horn and string parts to the songs in order make them sound more "contemporary". The band always said they hated these, and therefore the re-issue includes mixes of the songs with out the additions, which I suspect most fans were looking forward to hearing. Unfortunately IMO the difference is less pronounced than I was expecting and the overall effect is that I'm listening to demos rather than the finished article. Maybe it's because I've spent 25-30 years listening to the versions with the additions, that for the most part without them they sound "wrong".

 

The other is "Electrogenesis" by Vice-Versa (who went on to become ABC). This is a four disc (on vinyl only) boxed set collecting together all the recordings they made from 1978 to 1980. While it collects together all thirteen songs that were officially released including those on the almost impossible to get "Aspects" cassette album (which is the main reason why I bought this), the rest of the collection is multiple alternative recordings of these songs with only 3 songs that were never released before in any form and none of which are particularly good, and once again I find that the versions I like the most are those I have spent 40+ years becoming familiar with.

[meterman]

I'd probably get the 6 CD Teardrop Explodes set, or maybe some of the XTC / Dukes Of Stratosphear reissues but the prices are bonkers now. Plus the Teardrops box set was full of printing errors, doubled pages, incorrect track orders etc. Don't know if they did a second run and fixed everything but I'd only find a secondhand copy now anyway.
 

As for the Véronique Sanson (or ex- Mrs Stephen Stills as most non French folk might know her) box set, yes it might be 25 CDs housed in a piano shaped box or whatever but I'm only interested in the 1970's stuff with Willie Weeks and Leland Sklar and Mo Foster on it and the early publishers demos. Not paying €500 just to get those. Even if they chucked in some nudie photos and her mobile number as well, 500 notes aren't coming out of my bank account for them. 

[NancyJohnson]

On 06/10/2024 at 17:08, prowla said:

I'm ashamed to say I understood it. 🙂

I use EAC to rip CDs to FLAC and DVD Audio Extractor to rip DVDs to FLAC in either 24 bit 96 or 128 kHz; they reside in VMs on my Linux PC.

I've currently got that PC running Kodi as my share, but I'm in the process of replacing the defunct innards of a Naim Unitiserve with a more up to date Mini-ITX mobo to act as a share/ripper.

My main HiFi is a Naim NDX streamer via a Hi-Line interconnect into olive 82/Supercap pre-amp and 250 power-amp, and Linn Kaber speakers; I also plan to get an XPS2 for the NDX, as my CDS's XPS won't drive the NDX.

 

So easy...