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Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time - 30 Years of the Divine Comedy

Started by Bad Ambassador, March 09, 2020, 01:38:01 PM

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purlieu

Yeah, the second disc of Juveneilia is Fanfare as well as the Timewatch and Europop EPs.

daf

Couple of changes for the Fin De Siecle album in the set -

Generation Sex : replaces Katie Puckrick's 'Jerry Springer' narration with what seems to be a clip from an Italian interview with an actress (I think this was the original intention as it was apparently on the promo version, but they couldn't get the rights sorted at the time). I like this - the repeated "amore" builds nicely up to the start of the singing.

The Certainty of Chance : replaces Neil quoting an English translation of a bit from La Dolce Vita by Fellini with (presumably) a clip of that same bit from the film. Not so keen on this, though I suppose it makes more sense if you're familiar with the film (which I'm not).

sutin

Quote from: purlieu on October 09, 2020, 12:33:24 PM
Yeah, the second disc of Juveneilia is Fanfare as well as the Timewatch and Europop EPs.

I thought that was a nice way to deal with that first record.

purlieu

First store I ordered from had to cancel my order because they didn't have enough stock.
Managed to find one more place to order from, only they've emailed to say "we've ordered it from our supplier and it will be here midweek", despite it being out of stock everywhere and the first run being out of print. I enquired and they said they can't actually guarantee they'll have it, despite my paying £125 on their website because they claimed to have it in stock.

I ordered this fucking thing five months ago.

daf

I'm thinking the signed & numbered* letter from Neil is exclusive to their website - so I'd get it from there if you can.

- - - - - - - - -
* #597

purlieu

My partner bought me one from eBay. Not massively bothered about the letter, I just wanted it when it was due after pre-ordering it five months before release. The second pressing from the official store won't be shipping for another month and after a really shit couple of weeks I could really just do with this to sink into! Thankfully the eBay one was only £10 more than the previous one I'd ordered.

It's just a brilliantly done box set. It looks beautiful, sounds amazing and there's just so much music. As a casual fan I'm excited that I've got so much to discover.

I see A Short Album About Love on vinyl is already heavily discounted at Recordstore.co.uk and on Amazon.


purlieu

Well, I won't be listening to the first disc of Juveneilia very often. It's quite fascinating, in that you can hear his songwriting gradually maturing, but 11 songs of a teenage boy and a tape recorder aren't something I'm going to listen to for fun. The early band demos as October are interesting, there's more than a touch of goth about them.

daf

Yes, it's a bit of a stinker - but interesting to hear some of the early versions of some of the songs.

I wish they had included that 1996 Radcliffe Live session version of Your Daddy's Car somewhere in the set - the Liberation arrangement is a bit of a weak lemon drink by comparison.

phantom_power

I had that on a tape and for a while that was the only version of the song I knew. It would have been good to hear again

Actually, it turns out that I have got it

daf

Luckily, they did release it as a B-side on the 'Becoming More Like Alfie' CD - so at least it's sort of preserved officially.

You can tell the band are a red-hot live proposition at this point, with Neil really cutting loose at the end - sounding absolutely glorious.

daf


Purple Toupee

Quote from: daf on October 15, 2020, 07:06:33 AM
Good interview with Neil here - explaining why some stuff was left off the box :
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/a-gentleman-of-a-certain-age-30-years-of-the-divine-comedy

Thanks for sharing that. My mum really likes The Divine Comedy but absolutely despises 'Too Young to Die', so good to hear our Neil feels the same way.

purlieu

Yeah, that's a nice article. I still think leaving off eleven original b-sides[nb]A few are included as demos and alternate versions, admittedly.[/nb] but including eleven songs of him and a tape recorder from before his voice broke is madness.

The Regeneration bonus disc was a fucking drag, which maybe doesn't surprise me, although it reveals that it's not just Godrich's hideous production job ruining the album: he really was writing some guff at that point. You can actually hear it in the b-sides of the previous album, plus 'Gin Soaked Boy', which are a lot more simplistic with very repetitive melodies, something he didn't do too much before then. Absent Friends is such a relief afterwards. Weird to think Regeneration is now the halfway point in his career!

On the whole, though, there's a lot to love here. Some great b-sides, some interesting off-cuts, some daft demos. The liner notes are an utter delight, to no surprise at all.

Phil_A

Ha, I'd never heard Too Young To Die before, it sounds like Against All odds!

DrGreggles


purlieu

Victory for the Comic Muse is the best bonus disc so far, partially helped by the amount of original material - nine b-sides! - but also containing none of the same-arrangement-but-less-polished home demos, and the high recording quality of the home recordings meaning they stand up almost as well as the album tracks. It's a disc I can see myself listening to regularly, unlike some of the earlier ones which will I'll pop on occasionally but will probably mostly use to pick and choose b-sides and notable demos.

daf

Blog post listing what's missing from the box :
http://giggingforever.blogspot.com/2020/10/whats-missing-from-divine-comedys-new.html

Filling in one of the gaps, I managed to score a copy of the Swallows & Amazons piano demos last weekend - which happily slots neatly in the gatefold of Bang Goes the Nighthood (I think that's when they were recorded).

purlieu

It was indeed, although obviously it came with the deluxe Office Politics. The gatefold sleeve of which is pretty much identical to the new deluxe one.

Thanks for that blog link, it includes a couple of compilation tracks not on my own. So that makes 128 missing tracks, plus eight full live / instrumental / bonus discs. Dear me, Neil, not very comprehensive, was it?

daf

Christ, this stuff is gold! *

The chorus to 'Billy Bird' has me welling up for some reason - I think it's the harpsichord tipping me over the edge!

- - - - - - - - - -
(all the albums after 'Fin de Siècle' are new to me)

purlieu

Quote from: daf on October 17, 2020, 08:37:50 PM
- - - - - - - - - -
(all the albums after 'Fin de Siècle' are new to me)

Regeneration must have been a shock!

You've got some right treats though. Absent Friends, Bang Goes the Knighthood and Office Politics are among his best.

daf

Quote from: purlieu on October 18, 2020, 12:47:34 PM
Regeneration must have been a shock!

Ha ha! Was a bit.

Historians will note that my pile of Divine Comedy CDs stops abruptly after two copies of the 'Love What You Do' CD single - which I really liked - and the B-side 'Get Me To A Monastery' even more so - I think that should have been on the album!

No idea why I didn't get round to the album. I think 2001 was roughly when I got sucked off down a pre-Rock & Roll rabbit hole - in search of fresh sounds to tickle my jaded occiput - so that might account for it.

Actually, it was more of a shock to find that the orchestras were back - I somehow missed that meeting!

purlieu

The return of the orchestra - and in such bombastic form - on Absent Friends was such a relief, especially as Neil had disbanded TDC a year or so before. There was a horrible feeling that such a wonderful project had ended on an uncharacteristic 'aiming for Radiohead and ending up closer to Travis' diversion that didn't thrill too many fans.
I'm always stuck between Promenade and Absent Friends as my favourite, and part of the latter might be simply because it was so utterly, definitively 'not Regeneration'.

DrGreggles

Regeneration is probably my least favourite TDC album, but I do love Love What You Do.

purlieu

I'm hoping when the next album comes out, there'll be an initial 2CD deluxe edition containing a bonus disc of all his home-recorded electronic instrumentals. Some of them scattered throughout this box are brilliant.

purlieu


Dusty Substance


Listening to Casanova this morning for the first time in forever and found myself wondering how, between "Oh go on, you know you want to" on track one, and "No means yes" on track two, Hannon hasn't been cancelled.

Captain Z

Those tracks just refer to Mrs Doyle and the sarcastic priest in Father Ted.

purlieu

Quote from: Dusty Substance on January 26, 2021, 02:56:42 PM
Listening to Casanova this morning for the first time in forever and found myself wondering how, between "Oh go on, you know you want to" on track one, and "No means yes" on track two, Hannon hasn't been cancelled.
He references this in the liner notes, saying how they're intended as humorous, but in hindsight they're very questionable and wouldn't be considered acceptable now.

phantom_power

The first one is him playing the louche lothario and the second is sarcastic and self-critical. There would be nothing wrong with either line for anyone who understands context and intent