Decades after Beatles fanatics spent their hard-earned cash buying bootleg albums in search of the Great Lost Beatles Track, the band finally allowed for the release of that three-volume Anthology series. The series confirmed that, with the exception of a few well-known alternate takes, The Beatles had nothing more to give. There was not a treasure-trove of cool, unreleased original tracks.
Fans of The Kinks and The Who have been treated to some cool rarities and demos over the years. Some believe Bruce Springsteen‘s unreleased tracks are as good as his released ones.
The Rolling Stones never faced this question. Each new album since Black and Blue contains tracks that were revived from some aborted recording session in Jamaica or the Bahamas, circa 1974. A hundred years from now they will still be able to release a new album of material culled from one of those late-night jam sessions. And don’t think they won’t.
With each new reissue of the back catalogs of Elvis Costello and David Bowie, new previously unreleased tracks emerge, most of which are of better-than-current-day-release quality of either artist. The other night, however, I was thinking about one major band with excellent studio chops that seems to have nothing more to give:
Led Zeppelin. I recall a posthumous collection of leftover recordings coming out in the year or two following John Bonham‘s death, but do any Zeppelin fans care about that album? Is it available in digital formats? The Led Zep catalog has been reissued at two or three times – and I’ve got a box set from an earlier reissue – but where are the previously unreleased bonus tracks from their vaults? Back in the day, did anyone ever collect Zeppelin bootlegs with studio outtakes?
What other bands surprise you for their seeming lack of leftover recordings for inclusion as bonus tracks on reissues?
Fat Morrison-era Doors is another band I’d like to see packaged with some outtakes, but maybe this is another case of a band having nothing more to give.
That Zep album is called Coda. From what I remember, Page pieced it together.
I think there is a wealth of R.E.M. material in the vaults, most of which has been used as B-sides and soundtrack/compilation recordings. A few years ago, during the Napster craze, I put together a three (!) disc set of R.E.M. odds n sods. (This is what I used Napster for: gathering rare and hard-to-find recordings to complete my OCD collecting bent.)
I’ve always been surprised at how Rhino handled The Monkees. For a fake band, they’ve been given a royal treatment. There’s tons of outtakes and alternates floating around out there.
The new Big Star set seems to have cleared the vaults as far as music is concerned, but I’m still waiting for more of that film footage. There’s also a supposed live film of the band performing live at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis. Who has this footage and why hasn’t it seen the light of day?
Dylan seems to be doing pretty well with his “bootleg series”.
TB
i guess Jimmy Page was just such a studio perfectionist that he either completed and released, or destroyed the masters of whatever he was working on.
Excellent point about The Monkees’ reissues trying to add credibility through the release of bonus tracks.
Yes, shawnkilroy, you’ve probably hit the nail on the head regarding Page’s perfectionism.
Pink Floyd are also notoriously unforthcoming with rarities, outtakes, etc.
as TB can attest, I am a massive bootleg collector. Most obtained through the internets over the past 10 years. I must agree with most of the general consensus. The Led Zep material has mostly been live recordings. I once owned a 10 disc bootleg of Zep outtakes, but that was just what they were.. outtakes of already released stuff. And, the sound quality was lousy. If I remember right, there was little to no ‘unreleased’ songs. I currently own a 10 disc Pink Floyd outtakes set. It has a great deal of ‘rareties’ such as one off releases. I don’t have it with me at work, but it does have a fair share of ‘unreleased’ songs. I’ll have to comment on it when I get home to pull it out.
As far a legit released recordings go.. the Dylan and Beatles stuff is gold. They’ve really dipped into the vaults. Some of the Monkees stuff is fantastic. The Elvis Costello releases are great, but not many are studio outtakes. A large portion of it collects his many b-sides or live performances. Still well done.
Coda kinda proved there was not much left. Even Hey Hey What Can I Do was a B-side for a reason. Eddie Van Halen claims that there are hundreds of hours of songs, but since he considers it a “song” before there are lyrics/vocals, these might just be jams / instrumentals with the potential to be songs.
I have a Rolling Stones boot that is all “unplugged” and has alt versions and a few rare songs. It would make a fantastic release.
Tom Petty has a 6-disc box set that has some cover songs, alt versions but overall not much left off the records either.
Cheap Trick’s box set had tons of unreleased songs, mostly better than what went on the records (stupid producers chose songs not written by the band to fill out Lps over songs that they did write), but not as good as any of their singles
On a side note, speaking of Dylan, I did pick up the new Christmas record. I got it because I was going to get it sooner or later anyway.
Ummm…That’s about all I can say. I can tell what he is going for: Some sort of classic 50s nostalgia, what with all the chorus singing and stuff. However, his voice is just not suited for this material. Old timey folk and blues stuff is one thing, but these songs were meant for crooners. Not Bob. I was hoping that he could pull it off. Instead, it’s unintentional comedy. Or maybe it is intentional. Either way, the joke wears thin very quickly.
TB
Prince is notorious for having about five million unreleased tracks in his “vault.” Trouble is, whenever he releases something previously rejected by his label, it frequently sucks. I reckon you could probably put together a whiz-bang series of Prince “bootleg” albums, if Prince himself would just get the hell out of the way.
I think Zeppelin recorded songs that were essentially written for the band before the session started. I think a lot of bands are like that. Since The Stones created the Mobile Recording Unit, they could just hook it up at Mick’s house, or Keith’s house and just run tape and every idea, burp or fart gets recorded. This makes for an amazing amount of “songs” available to fans.
There’s still tons and tons of Stones songs that are unreleased officially, because of the way they record. They’ve got songs that get resurrected from older sessions (I know Mr. Mod says “every album since Black and Blue,” but that’s not really true), and they’ve got an amazing number of things that actually sound finished that they didn’t release for some reason or another.
Stones fans have long wished the band would compete with their legacy and release the older stuff from the vaults. Every new contract yields new “remasters” and none of them ever contain things like Hillside Blues, Fiji Jim or Highway Child. On occasion something slips by, like an extra couple of minutes of jamming on Slave on Virgin’s release of Tattoo You, but never the stuff we know exists in the vaults.
How is that Big Star box? It’s expensive – is it worth it?
The Big Star box is certainly worth it. One of the best releases of the year.
TB
I was reading a bit about what’s actually left unreleased on the Beatles’ end – mostly just the big ones like Carnival of Light and the maybe-doesn’t-exist 27 minute Helter Skelter – and read about something I’ve never heard: the Beatles doing a demo of Harrison’s “Let It Down”.
It’s apparently not all that great, but even more than the other McCartney and All Things Must Pass-bound songs they took a shot at that I have heard, “Let It Down” seems so far out of what they would have done in the band setting that I really want to hear it.
Elvis Presley is another artist whose vault gets mined. There’s an official label called Follow That Dream Records that releases a lot of “collector’s stuff”, which is mostly concert recordings, but there’s a fair number of studio outtakes. There has also been plenty of studio outtakes released via RCA for the past 25 yrs. or so,
Does anyone mine their own vault more than Andy Partridge? And with almost no merit to boot.
Amazing that the Stones have come this far without an archival release. Not even some great live show from ’72 or anything.
That Stones’ unearthed track “Get Yourself Together” (didn’t Chalfen point our way there once?) has been my recent “hit” in my imaginary pop world, as well as that crazy 11-minute “Revolution” edit from the Beatles. Funny that I’m still finding new “hits” from the leaky vaults. (I’m also into that 26 minute cut from Prince, “The War”).
The recent double Aretha on Atlantic rarities showed her to be surprisingly under-mined. I’d imagine a studio hound like Curtis Mayfield must have a album’s worth of unreleased stuff out there, his SUPERFLY demos and the ones from the CURTIS lp were worthwhile.
“Amazing that the Stones have come this far without an archival release. Not even some great live show from ’72 or anything.”
Well this will be coming out in a couple of weeks:
http://www.amazon.com/Ya-Yas-Rolling-Stones-Concert-Anniversary/dp/tracks/B002NOAF9W/ref=dp_tracks_all_2#disc_3
Also, another artist that has been mining his vault is Robyn Hitchcock. I guess his latest Yep Roc reissues have more unreleased stuff than the ’95 Rhino reissues.
The Follow That Dream stuff are basically official bootlegs. They are import titles. Lately, they’ve been releasing double sets of original Elvis studio records, which are sort similar to the deluxe editions. They are packaged in a case similar to the old EPs. That means the artwork is nice and big. They’ve also done those horrible soundtrakcs from the 60s in addition to live shows. The live shows are tedious, but the rest are a collector’s dream. They’ve done a couple of “audio books.” The biggest problem: The pricetag. They ain’t cheap. But if you like Elvis Is Back (and I do), then the FTD set is the one to get.
It’s a wonder that Sir Paul hasn’t overhauled his catalogue. Lord knows, there’s probably plenty of outtakes and B-sides to fill out some archival releases. I know most of his back catalogue is available in those import “McCartney collection.” The essential Lennon stuff has been reissued. Ditto for George. Seems like that Dirty Mac would have jumped on this one, too. Maybe he’s waiting for the hype surrounding the Beatles stuff to die down before he makes us dip into our pocketbooks again. Oooo, I can’t wait to the sonic upgrade to London Town and Back to the Egg!
TB
What kind of rock controversy would there be if we learned that Partridge had been faking all these XTC demos and outtakes? That they’ve all actually been new recordings of the old songs, carefully doctored to make it sound like they’re demos?
I can’t wait to the sonic upgrade to London Town and Back to the Egg!
Back to the Egg does not need a sonic upgrade. London Town needs both a sonic upgrade and a content upgrade.
I thought Wingspan was the remastered Wings collection…but give Sir Paul a year or so for the Beatles remasters hype to wear down and I’m sure the solo stuff will get a remastering
What about the Police? I got the “Message in a box” which is all their albums plus random tidbits, and aside from a few somewhat interesting things, it seems clear that all the best stuff was on their proper albums.