Entertainment For Lively Minds
Are pop records ever "worth the wait"?
Posted by David Hepworth on 21 November 2008 - 7:46am.
So, Guns N Roses are finally putting out "Chinese Democracy", 14 years after they started it. And Paul McCartney has got the newspapers all excited about the Beatles' unreleased psychedelic extravaganza "Carnival of Light" (even thought he did tell Mark Ellen about it eight years ago).
I can only think of one example of a track that an artist has finally released after a five-year gap that turned out to justify the fuss. That's "Blind Willie McTell" by Bob Dylan which was recorded in 1983 and not put out until 1991. Usually if an artist has sat on something it means that they're not too sure about it, generally with good reason. Any exceptions?
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Dylan
Difficult to think of one as good as Blind Willie McTell. Personally, I think Carnival Of Light sounds as if it would be interminable and utterly dispensable. I trust George Harrison, who I believe referred to it as "avant garde a clue".
Smile was worth the wait. I think it's better than Pet Sounds.
Smile...
When finally released, how much of it was from the original tapes that had been sat on a shelf and how much of it was newly recorded?
Smile
Was probably the biggest musical disappointment of my life, just awful self-indulgence. Made me think the heretical thought that maybe Brian Wilson needed the conservativeness of the other Beach Boys to reign him in a touch ('Er Brian, what about the odd tune eh?'), rather than the obsessive fan boys he was playing with who are clearly convinced everything every note he produces is genius.
Does anyone still listen to it?
I must admit to be being with
Alan Partridge on this one the best beach boys lp is "best of beach boys". pet sounds and the rest are ok but the hits are their best songs that's why they were hits.
No but the main problem for
No but the main problem for me is that Brian Wilson simply isn't as good a singer as Mike Love.
Mike Love not war
......
Brian great, Carl also superior to Love
Ever heard Pet Sounds ?
I still listen to the bootlegs.
The 'finished' version was completely sterile. I'm by NO means a fanboy, but there are such incredible moments in those sessions it blows me away every time. The version of 'Surf's Up' with just vocal and piano is heartbreakingly wonderful.
For me...
the appearance of Dylan's Up To Me on 'Biograph' was well worth the wait. A fabulous song...
McGuinn
Lovely song, though I do prefer Roger McGuinn's version.
Free as a Bird & Real Love
These don't really appear on the compilations do they?
Very excited at the time ... but, cards on the table, it was a bad idea and both songs are not much cop.
That's being kind...
they were shite.
Not helped...
...by the DREADFUL Jeff Lynne production. Of all the people George could have picked for his best mate during the 1980's, why the hell did he need to choose Jeff bloody Lynne.
A very capable musician, but as a producer he makes everything sound like Jeff Lynne.
Jeff Lynne's production style...
the treacle tart of sound.
Great video though
Springsteen
Some of the stuff on Tracks was fantastic. I'm particularly thinking of outtakes from The River. I find it almost unbelievable that Loose End(s) lay unreleased for a good 20 years. On the other hand, I didn't really need to know there were recordings not good enough to make Human Touch or Lucky Town, thanks all the same.
River out-takes
Funny you should say that, as I love the version of Stolen Car on Tracks. Superior to the version on The River.
I'd nominate
Harrison's acoustic version of 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' from Anthology 3 as being up there with both 'Blind Willie McTell' & 'Up To Me'.
Love Spreads
I'll never forget hearing this played on the radio for the first time after waiting 5 years to hear something from the Stone Roses. Bobby Gillespie called it "the greatest comeback single ever" and I'm inclined to agree.
I'd be tempted to call it...
"the greatest wholesale ransacking of Jimmy Page guitar riffs ever".
The Second Coming....
Hyped to the back of beyond. NME journalists stalking Ian Brown and Reni down in South Wales.
When it finally emerged - meh - it was "ok"....two superb Roses songs (Ten Storey Love Song & How Do You Sleep) some very good Zep pastiches (Love Spreads, Driving South) and some mediocre stuff and some shite (Daybreak)....
Underwhelming....
Pot/Kettle
Page can hardly complain, can he?
Love Spreads
Yes, this was a huge moment for me and I remember exactly where I was (home), what I was doing (lager & fag), who played it (Steve Lamaqc on R1) and when (7.33pm I think), the first time I heard it. It did not let me down. Yes it was basically a Jimi Hendrix song with John Bonham drums but boy did it rock.
The album was a disappointment cos it was an impossible act to follow. Still, 6 or 7 very very strong songs on there.
Is this an oxymoron
Part of pop music's charm and appeal is it's immediacy. Waiting ten years for the next ronnettes single is nonsense. There may be the odd rediscovered classic track, the northern soul song "do i love you" fro example. Apart from that if you have to wait more than 10 minutes it's not pop!
But if I knew that Phil Spector...
...was closeted in Gold Star producing a new Ronettes single, I'd be hugely excited (presuming this were still 1964 of course!)
I think pop's been
I think pop's been established and accepted for some time now as a proper art form, rather than as just disposable ephemera, therefore potentially worth waiting for. It's a bit of a paradox I guess - maybe at it's best when it is made in the spirit of here today gone tommorrow, yet we are used to celebrating it as classic and timeless and have come to think of it as something to take seriously. I suppose we distinguish between the album-based rock and single-based pop, but it's not that simple of course.
It was more the fact that pop
is of the moment when it was made, it is important and worth celebrating but needs to be heard fairly soon after it's made or sort of looses the point.
I dunno...
...I could think of hundreds of singles that still sound as fresh and worth celebrating as the day they were made
But
it can be both considered of it's time and yet appreciated now as a work of art - assuming an example that was made years ago and is only now being made available for public consumption - regardless of whether it's a pop single not intended to last, or a track that was to have been a rock album track by an artist with 'longevity'. It could happen, even though it may be a rare event.
Bowie
I suppose Let it Be Me, and Who Can I Be Now on the Young Americans Ryko release of 1990 were good, but I don't really think I got that excited about them.
Agree with the Blind Willie McTell one though. Priceless work of genius.
Second Coming
I agree overall the album was underwhelming but the sheer excitement I felt at the time (I was 16) was amazing. Still it did spawn a good joke in Shaun of the Dead!
Basement Tapes
Everyone thought that was worth waiting for didn't they? Much was recorded in sixties, released 1975, some already bootlegged beforehand and widely known about.
“Psychedelic extravaganza”, my arse
You just know that “Carnival Of Light”, should it ever emerge, will be as limp as a soggy sock. Macca - God bless him, of course - is just trying to plug his Fireman album by pressing into service, for the umpteenth time, that “hey, I was really like ... out there” line of spin.
I tend to agree...
If CoL was any good, he'd have released it long ago - either to accompany Anthology, Wingspan or even Many Years From Now.
Macca has been pushing this 'I was the avant-garde one' for years now. Maybe he really was; after all he was single and living in town when John was on St George's Hill with Cynthia but that just reinforces the fact that CoL can't be any good or he'd have let it out already.
I suspect the *idea* of CoL, and what it signifies, is of more importance to Macca than the contents of the piece itself
just one slight thing in fairness to macca.
I tire of the endless 'hey, i did weirdness too' schtick constantly trotted out by Sir Thumbsaloft, but with regards to the lack of release of CoL, I think the reasoning was (around the time of Anthology 2) that it was too long to shove onto a 2 disc set. If the punters could only get 150 or so minutes of music, then taking up 10% of that with avant garde noodling was just a bit much; George Harrison I think was vehemently against it being on purely for that reason. It's not that they've not wanted to release it on quality grounds, but rather there's never been a proper medium on which to properly release it.
If it was stuck onto another rarities album, you'd feel shortchanged. It'll probably make it onto the re-mastered album bonus tracks disc(s) in the near future, and we'll all have a good whinge about the fact that around the time CoL was done, they had so much OTHER good stuff that should be on the bonus disc instead!
Yes it was worth the wait...
The Dan's "Two Against Nature" (or 2VN as some are moved to call it). Up there with the best of the other Dan albums, and way beyond the offerings of most other groups.
"Everything Must Go"? - Not so much...
Jimi Hendrix and
First Rays of the New Rising Sun...
OK, it's pickings from War Heroes, Cry of Love and all those other Douglas necrophili-isms (sic), but I think it qualifies.
Chinese Democracy
Am I alone at being seriously irritated by the title of "GnR"s long awaited album - its crass but I bet they think its very clever.
No doubt they'll be releasing the follow-up
The Good Manners Of Parisian Waiters in 2025. Rick Rubin producing.
Crass? Guns N' Roses?!
Shurely shome mishtake...
Kate Bush's 'Aerial'
WELL worth the wait.
Although I was under the impression that Bush didn't 'sit on' loads of songs for years - thought I read that she simply took time off to raise her son then, er, got back to it.
Great shout...
her masterpiece.
But that was just..
...a long time between releases, so doesn't really count.
Weren't Beatles fans
Weren't Beatles fans salivating over "What's the New Mary Jane" as a great unreleased track (at least until it came out.).
Come to think of it, the Jethro Tull box set (20 years of..) had the "Chateau D'Isaster tapes" on it, which were deemed unreleasable at the time, but OK for issue 20 years later. They're ace, if you like that "Thick as a Brick" sort of thing.
The Beatles Anthology (1CD)
What annoys me is that all the good songs from 6 discs of The Beatles Anthology would have fitted quite comfortably on a single CD; a double if they were feeling indulgent. That's why I'm not at all interested in hearing Carnival Of Light. I'm dreading a combination of Revolution 9 and 12 Bar Original. Frankly, just because it's unreleased and by The Beatles is no longer good enough.
Fuzzy Warbles
I have to say Andy Partridges Fuzzy Warbles included many tracks that were rejected from XTC albums but were absolutely fantastic and should have been included on the albums at the time plus his songs rejected for James And The Giant Peach.
And I would just like to defend Jeff Lynnes production on Free As A Bird which I thought was good considering what he had to work with as Johns vocal.
Oh and a shout for Afterglow by Crowded House great songs rejected for Crowded House albums
Recurring Dream
Is my favourite Crowded House song and bizarrely only appeared as a B side and on the aforementioned Afterglow album. Yet they put rubbish like Chocolate Cake on their albums.
The Blue Nile's Hats
if ever there was an album worth waiting for (and many people thought The Blue Nile might never make another record)...Hats has to be it. Truly sublime.
Very true
But then they went and blew it by making us wait even longer for the MOR blandfest that was Peace at Last...
Radiohead's In/Rainbows
...had a pretty long gestation with several false starts including hauling back in Nigel Godrich for production. Even ignoring the free-ish download scenario, I would say that the wait was justified.
It's all relative
The Jam - six studio albums and nine non-album singles in six years. Every one (apart from possibly This Is The Modern World) worth the wait and every one not a second too soon for this teenager.
The Smiths
Agree with your comments about the Jam, The Smiths also didn't waste any time. Four albums (not counting compilations) and nine singles not released on albums all between May 83 and Sep 87. They were the "right place right time" band for me as I was 12-16 years old at the time. Still love them to this day.