Topic: Albums of “reimagined” songs

[greenman]

You could argue besides rights issues these kind of releases fill the gap with the decline in importance of live albums.

Sticking with Floyd again the live half of Ummagumma feels more like a chance to rerecord a lot of their standards of that era like Careful With That Axe and Set The Controls with a much more expensive sound than the studio originals rather than just adding extended solos/jamming.

[TheMonk]

Isn't Jeff Lynne doing this with all the ELO stuff? Note-for-note cover versions, and then delete the originals from history because they're not 'good enough'?

Is he deleting the originals?

[gilbertharding]

I had that impression - but I might be wrong. Although I don't know which version of Mr Blue Sky Ken Bruce plays nowadays when he goes off for a shit after Popmaster - and I don't think you're supposed to.

[Brundle-Fly]

The Residents for their 25th anniversary reimagined some old material for an album called Our Finest Flowers but with the interesting device of blending two tracks together to create an original number. A sort of organic mash up. ie Blue Rosebuds and Smelly Tongues mutated into 'Blue Tongues'.

Momus rerecorded his favourite songs with quite different arrangements for the album, Slender Sherbert. A play on an old album title, 'Tender Pervert'

[purlieu]

Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells re-recording in 2003 is pretty grim, thinking about it. That was one of those "wanted to get it right" versions, despite it losing all the feeling of the original and sounding hideously digital and shiny. And also inexplicably splitting it into 17 tracks.

[buzby]

Didn't Roy Orbison rerecord some stuff in the 80's post-Blue Velvet? The Chi-Lites re-recorded "Oh Girl" in the 80's too and it lost some of the soul of the original. Was this a common thing in the 80's because of CDs, like they thought they needed new pristine versions of the songs for the exciting new format?

It was a common thing to do every time an artist moved to a different record label, especially in the US - they would record a new set of their hits to avoid any licencing issues for compilations.

In Orbison's case he signed to Virgin in the late 80s after the success of the 'Class Of '55' album and documentary and re-recorded his classic hits for the 'In Dreams - The Greatest Hits' compilation released in 1987. The following year he did the 'Roy Orbison and Friends - A Black And White Night' TV special and was involved with the Travelling Wilburys, and out of those collaborations he recorded a new album with Jeff Lynne called Mystery Girl, featuring contributions from Petty, Harrison, Costello and Bono which was completed just before his death and released posthumously in January 1989.

I had that impression - but I might be wrong. Although I don't know which version of Mr Blue Sky Ken Bruce plays nowadays when he goes off for a shit after Popmaster - and I don't think you're supposed to.

Lynne isn't deleting the originals - he re-recorded ELO's hits for 2012's Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, again on a new label (Italy-based prog label Frontiers Records, licenced from Lynne's own Big Trilby Records). EMI and Epic/CBS/Sony still own the rights to the original recordings (and are still re-issuing them), and that combined with his own vanity and wanting to cut out royalties to people involved on the originals probably were the main drivers.

At the same time he put out an album of covers called Long Wave Big Trilby, and when he recorded a new 'Jeff Lynne's ELO' album Alone In The Universe in 2015 it was also put out on Big Trilby in association with CBS/Sony in Europe and licenced to Sony and Warners for the rest of the world.

[Dr Rock]

New Light Through Old Windows
The album consists primarily of re-recordings of songs released on earlier Rea albums, as well as the new songs "Driving Home for Christmas" and "Working on It" (the latter of which gave him a rare U.S. chart single, peaking at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100,[2] and giving him his only #1 single on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart[3]). The re-recorded and released as single "On the Beach" gave him another rare US hit,

Does this count? I had a vague idea that Chris Rea had done this, probably the title of the album isn't too cryptic. I don't know how different sounding the re-recordings are as I don't like Chris Rea.

[boki]

The Residents for their 25th anniversary reimagined some old material for an album called Our Finest Flowers but with the interesting device of blending two tracks together to create an original number. A sort of organic mash up. ie Blue Rosebuds and Smelly Tongues mutated into 'Blue Tongues'.

Also, IIRC the 5.1 audio on their Icky Flix DVD is made up of bespoke re-recordings rather than just remixing the originals, but having never had a surround setup, I've not bothered with it.

I've been really diggin' Brown Sabbath, the Black Sabbath tribute side project of jazz-funk band Brownout.  Most of their covers are played pretty straight with horns and extra percussion thrown into the mix, but Iron Man gets more of a reinterpretation and I think is more memorable for it.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I know I'm always banging on about him, but John Cale did one of the few successful 're-imagining' albums a few years ago when he put out a re-recorded, re-arranged version of his Music For a New Society album called M:FANS.

probably the best re-imagining is the song 'If You Were Still Around'

1982 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muFjBdy-i74

2016 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1gS0Ap3-o

[lazyhour]

A good example of the sort of thing you're talking about done right, in my opinion, is the first volume of the Randy Newman Songbook. There are further volumes, I just learned, but the first one is the only one I have and the only one I've heard. It is wonderful. It actually replaced all the albums those songs originally appeared on for me. I must spend some time with Vols 2 & 3, now that I know that they are things in the world.

Thank you so much for alerting me to this! Just listened to all 3 volumes on Spotify and it's brilliant. Just Randy and a piano. Love that man.

[Brundle-Fly]

Thrillington is an interesting one. McCartney was always so ahead of the game with innovation.

[Brundle-Fly]

Also, IIRC the 5.1 audio on their Icky Flix DVD is made up of bespoke re-recordings rather than just remixing the originals, but having never had a surround setup, I've not bothered with it.

Yeah, I've got that. It's good.They did the same DVD treatment for 1980's The Commercial Album

[a duncandisorderly]

Lynne isn't deleting the originals - he re-recorded ELO's hits for 2012's Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, again on a new label (Italy-based prog label Frontiers Records, licenced from Lynne's own Big Trilby Records). EMI and Epic/CBS/Sony still own the rights to the original recordings (and are still re-issuing them), and that combined with his own vanity and wanting to cut out royalties to people involved on the originals probably were the main drivers.

one would be forgiven for getting the impression from the BBC docco a few years back, that it was the perfectionist in him driving this process, rather than the skinflint...

[popcorn]

Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells re-recording in 2003 is pretty grim, thinking about it. That was one of those "wanted to get it right" versions, despite it losing all the feeling of the original and sounding hideously digital and shiny. And also inexplicably splitting it into 17 tracks.

I remember the fake VST bass guitar on that. Shocking.

[hummingofevil]

Along with many other things in life I think Will Oldham wins at this. He rerecorded his earlier Palace/Palace Music/Palace Brothers stuff with a band of Nashville old timer session musicians to shift them from lo-fi folk songs into classic country belters under his later Bonnie Prince Billy moniker. In most cases both versions are ace but I love that record.

Palace Music version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhqAfSzFDgs

Bonnie Prince Billy version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTE0loFhqg

Also, not sure if it count's for this thread but R.Stevie Moore's The Beatles covers are an absolute joy. This is the best by a mile IMFHO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcyXTxGW1s

[buzby]

one would be forgiven for getting the impression from the BBC docco a few years back, that it was the perfectionist in him driving this process, rather than the skinflint...

The consensus from fans at the time was that the new versions were averagely-played and recorded and badly mastered facsimiles compared to the originals that had been made as an opportunity to undercut Sony for licencing deals
Original version of Mr. Blue Sky (from the 1987 'All Over The World' compilation)
2012 re-recording
Original version of Don't Bring Me Down from Discovery
2012 re-recording

The 2012 re-recording of Mr Blue Sky is probably the best effort from that album - all the other re-recordings are noticably inferior to the originals.

[Gavin M]

I recommend Anne Dudley plays The Art of Noise, just her on the piano with a few percussive effects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zosfxUy4ADo

A very interesting record that shows that even without the wizardry of Horn etc., these are very well-crafted songs in their own right.

[Jockice]

one would be forgiven for getting the impression from the BBC docco a few years back, that it was the perfectionist in him driving this process, rather than the skinflint...

I really don't know how anyone can listen to Mr Blue Sky and think: 'Hmm, maybe I could improve on that.'

It's another song for my acclaimed 'if you don't like this you don't actually like pop music' thread.

[purlieu]

I remember the fake VST bass guitar on that. Shocking.

I sometimes wonder what the hell he was thinking, how he could possibly imagine it sounded better than the original. But then I remember he followed it up with an album featuring Eurotrance recorded in Fruityloops. In 2005. A bleaker period than his '80s output.

[TheMonk]

At the time he put out an album of covers called Long Wave Big Trilby, and when he recorded a new 'Jeff Lynne's ELO' album Alone In The Universe in 2015 it was also put out on Big Trilby in association with CBS/Sony in Europe and licenced to Sony and Warners for the rest of the world.

I’m so disappointed googling for more info that the covers album is called “Long Wave” and not “Long Wave Big Trilby” which is a great name for a Jeff Lynne album. Shame.

[The Culture Bunker]

With Squeeze's Spot The Difference, the main purpose of recording duplicates was for licensing reasons, with Universal supposedly being in a position to pay them nothing for their hits.  To their credit, they didn't push it much as a greatest hits album (or very hard at all, as it came and went quickly) and there was a great effort made to track down original synthesizers, amplifiers and... Paul Carrack, so it could be as authentic as possible.  I can definitely hear the differences, but I suspect the non-discerning ear wouldn't.

Of course, as soon as the album was released, one of the songs they didn't re-record, 1989's If It's Love, ended up being used in some US tv ad.  Wonder if that was a 'fuck you' from Universal's team.

Funnily enough, Squeeze had sort-of done this previously, redubbing parts of 'Tempted', including (I think) the lead vocal, for the soundtrack of Reality Bites. Strangely enough, the credits list four (!) guitar players.

[Natnar]

I remember Chris Rea did this a bit back in the 90's, isn't it just a way to divert money away from your old record company back towards yourself?

Suzanne Vega re-recorded quite a bit of her back catalogue for her 4 "Close Up" albums a few years ago just so she could earn better royalties off her songs than the original recordings made for her.

[buzby]

I’m so disappointed googling for more info that the covers album is called “Long Wave” and not “Long Wave Big Trilby” which is a great name for a Jeff Lynne album. Shame.

Sorry, an 'on' fell out in an edit and by the time I noticed it was too late to fix it!

New Order have a bit of a history with this too, though the re-recordings are usually for artistic reasons (or Bernard's perfectionism) than for any commercial gain. It started with their first single Ceremony, which was initially recorded in March 1981 when they were a three-piece and issued in a green and gold sleeve. Later that year Gillian joined the band, and Ceremony was re-recorded in September as a four piece and issued in a blue and white sleeve and this became the 'default' version of the song for compilations (the two releases also had slightly different takes of the B-side In A Lonely Place, but these both dated to the original March recording session).

As mentioned in the recent 'Best Compilations' thread, they re-recorded Temptation and Confusion for Substance in 1987, supposedly because by then John Robie had taught Bernard about singing in the right key for his voice so they redid them in the way they were played live at the time.
Temptation (1982 12")
1987 re-recording
Confusion (1983 12", co-written and produced by Arthur Baker)
1987 re-recording
(I actually prefer the 1987 version of Confusion - the original is too slow)
Temptation then got re-recorded again in 1998 for use in the Manchester Commonweath Games handover ceremony in 1998. It was eventually released on the Retro boxset in 2002

Bernard also recorded a new vocal take for the Blue Monday 88 remix, but John Potoker and Quincy Jones didn't like it, so they used the original. However when the 'The Best Of...' compilation and 'Rest of...' remix albums were being put together in 1994/95 (which also saw new versions of 1963 and Low Life cast-off Let's Go being recorded), new remixes of Blue Monday were commissioned, and some of these ended up using the 1988 vocal take (and portions of the vocal from the demo for the aborted Sunkist ad, which were recorded at the same session).

[boki]

I really don't know how anyone can listen to Mr Blue Sky and think: 'Hmm, maybe I could improve on that.'

In terms of performance and recording, he clearly nailed it at the first attempt, but arrangement-wise, I'd ditch the vocoder and the fucking choral bits, but that's just my own personal pop prejudice (p³, if you will).

[Bennett Brauer]

Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells re-recording in 2003 is pretty grim, thinking about it. That was one of those "wanted to get it right" versions, despite it losing all the feeling of the original and sounding hideously digital and shiny. And also inexplicably splitting it into 17 tracks.

Agreed. And since we're talking of Cleese elsewhere, I don't like his irritable version of the Stanshall role. I presume it's exactly the way Oldfield wanted it though.

[mrClaypole]

Didnt David Van Day when he tried to steal Bucks Fizz re record all of their tracks in order to steal future royalties from the rest of the original group?.
I remember something from that Trouble at the top documentary from years ago.
On a much more serious note. Aren't Kraftwerk guilty of this also what with the new versions of their classic albums?.

[buzby]

On a much more serious note. Aren't Kraftwerk guilty of this also what with the new versions of their classic albums?.

Kraftwerk haven't re-recorded their albums. They have done a couple of recent live albums featuring performances of their classic tracks (Minimum-Maximum and 3-D) and remastered their entire post-1974 catalogue for 2009's Der Katalog boxset. The closest they came to re-recording was The Mix in 1991, an album of remixes they made after transferring their multitracks into their Synclavier Direct-To-Disk system.

[kngen]

Suzanne Vega re-recorded quite a bit of her back catalogue for her 4 "Close Up" albums a few years ago just so she could earn better royalties off her songs than the original recordings made for her.

I did not know this! I'd been saying for a while that her debut really suffers from stock 80s AOR production, so I need to investigate further.

[hummingofevil]

Kraftwerk haven't re-recorded their albums. They have done a couple of recent live albums featuring performances of their classic tracks (Minimum-Maximum and 3-D) and remastered their entire post-1974 catalogue for 2009's Der Katalog boxset. The closest they came to re-recording was The Mix in 1991, an album of remixes they made after transferring their multitracks into their Synclavier Direct-To-Disk system.

Im not sure I agree with this*. It’s a fine line with Kraftwerk but I always considered the Minima / 3-D / The Catalogue versions as reworking not just live versions. I suppose the actual tracks on The Catalogue are from the live shows but given how much of the source material was reprogrammed for their 2004 comeback and then packaged up into each album for The Catalogue it certainly feels like re-recorded versions.

*I’m disagree with Busby on a point of fact. About to get arse handed to me. :)

[mrClaypole]

Kraftwerk haven't re-recorded their albums. They have done a couple of recent live albums featuring performances of their classic tracks (Minimum-Maximum and 3-D) and remastered their entire post-1974 catalogue for 2009's Der Katalog boxset. The closest they came to re-recording was The Mix in 1991, an album of remixes they made after transferring their multitracks into their Synclavier Direct-To-Disk system.

I disagree,  Ralf has continued with the well worn tactic of writing out previous members of the band. To me the 3d project is a way of erasing Florian from the history. I do like some of the rerecords but only from the point of view that ive heard the originals hundreds of times before. But I have noticed I'm hankering for the original albums again