I was very excited to read one my favorite phrases in the world of rock used in The Big Dipper news release: “Lost Album.” Is there anything as exciting as a “Lost Album?!” Better than a reunion album, because it suggests a band in its heyday.
I only own, what I consider, two Lost Albums and both exceeded expectations. The Lost Album then is more rare and magnificent than the Bicentennial.
Now I understand that we can quibble about what constitutes an actual Lost Album although I’m pretty certain that we could all agree that The Velvet Underground’s VU was indeed a lost album and one filled with great many treasures.
We might argue that Brian Wilson’s Smile wasn’t a true “Lost Album,” but when you have so few true ones, I count this one and was thrilled with it as well.
(I know some people have issues with “Heroes & Villains” but damned if all I can find is what’s right about it.)
So I’m looking for some education here. Was Smile the original Lost Album? Are there others? Ones that have been released? Ones that haven’t? Good ones, bad ones… Please share your knowledge so that we may all benefit.
The first example that came to mind for me was that Fiona Apple album from a few years ago, with Jon Brion producing, that was scrapped and then re-recorded with some hip-hop producer doing most of the tracks over. The unreleased Brion version was pretty good. Townsman Berlyant shared the tracks with some of us over the old list.
Good point about the Lost Album holding more promise than the Reunion Album!
I should just wait and let the big Jimi fans give the correct details but wasn’t News Days Of The Rising Sun (or whatever the exact title was) a holy grail?
That and Smile and some Doors thing were included in a sci-fi novel called Glimpses by Lewis Shiner about some guy who could go back in time and be there at the recording of all these “lost albums”
I’ve got the “lost” 2nd album by The Last, it’s really good, totally delivers on the promise of LA Explosion. I’m not sure why it was never officially released.
Wasn’t the Kinks’ “Four Respected Gentlemen” a Great Lost Kinks Album — that was then released, in pieces, on a weird 70s mini-comp called “The Great Lost Kinks Album”?
Prince’s “Black Album” is a Great Lost Album that should have stayed lost.
Does “Lifehouse” — eventually issued, kind of, as “Who’s Next” — count?
They put out First Rays of the New Rising Sun about ten years ago as the pseudo-official version of the lost Hendrix album. I’m a big fan of “Drifting” and “Earth Blues”, which both ended up on that and had been on bootlegs and those other releases they put out with some modern musicians overdubbing parts.
I read that Shiner book around the same time. If I remember right, the three lost albums that fit into the plot are First Rays, Smile and Celebration of the Lizard. I wish there was a bigger market for weird books about time traveling and music history, so they’d publish my novel about me, Skunk Baxter and Ted Nugent traveling back to The Battle of Zama. Some day, some day.
Not a lost album, but one of the big “lost” things still out there in music that I was reminded of yesterday with the McCartney as a cult artist and Revolution 9 in the Last Man Standing threads: they’ve yet to put out “Carnival of Light”, McCartney’s pre-Revolution 9 tape experiment. Supposedly, he wanted to finally put it out on the Anthologies, but either Harrison or Martin was against it. I’m sure it’s a mess, but I’d love to hear the damn thing anyway.
HVB,,
I was just thinking of The Black Album this morning, in regards to the Last Band Standing thread. Did His Royal Purple Badness ever do a song like Bob George again? I can’t think of one…
Wow — a piece of Beatles ephemera I’d never heard about! For those of you as curious as me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Of_Light
Hell they put out two versions of that Hendrix album, neither one I think of as definitive.
First came Voodoo Soup, then 2 years later after the Hendrix family got control of his music they released First Rays.
Neither one is definitive. Both sequences lack a little spark, I think I prefer the Voodoo Soup running order, yet, First Rays has the more complete tracklisting.
McCartney’s references to “Carnival of Light” are part of his now lifelong “I could have had Yoko first” campaign.
Yeah, Voodoo Soup was one of the ones put out with the overdubs by new musicians. There was also South Saturn Delta, which I think was put out by the Hendrix family in tandem with First Rays and had some of the other tracks that had been on Voodoo Soup without the overdubs, and assorted other leftovers.
I don’t think either Voodoo Soup or First Rays ended up sounding like a “real” album, for whatever reason. Definitely agree that Voodoo Soup’s running order felt much better, since the actual Experience albums probably do point to something like “The New Rising Sun” as a likely album opener. First Rays is probably better overall just for having “Earth Blues” – when people talk about what his new direction was to have been, that’s what I sort of imagine, halfway between something like “House Burning Down” and something new. “Pali Gap” is another “missing” one that ended up on both Soup and South Saturn Delta that I really like.
How about all those alleged Neil Young albums that came to naught: Chrome Dreams, Homegrown. Wasn’t Old Ways originally comprised of completely different sessions?
Homegrown is pretty good. Saturnismine burned me a boot of it a year or two ago.
It doesn’t sound like any of these pre-date Smile. Did the concept of the great Lost Album start with the non-release of Smile?
Chinese Democracy
That one’s not lost, Kpex, just “in the works.” Have faith!
Or maybe the first appearance of the term was the Kinks one that Hrrundi mentioned. If you Google “great lost album” you get this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Lost_Kinks_Album
Considering that Smile was abandoned shortly after albums, as their own creations, came of age, it’s hard to believe that there would have been an earlier “lost” one. I don’t know, did Buddy Holly have an album, per se, in the works when his plane went down?
There’s the still unreleased original version of Beefheart’s Bat Chain Puller, which is apparently somehow tied up in the Zappa estate.
The news last week is that we are finally going to get that long overdue My Bloody Valentine album, and another new album by them afterwards some time next year. Excuse me for being skeptical, and I don’t see how these could fail to be disappointing.
Neil Young’s archival box set(s) also qualify as future holy grails.
Mozart’s Requiem. They brought some studio hacks in to finish that one up, too.
The 3-CD reissue of the Kinks VGPS included the original ‘lost’ sequencing, which included songs like Mr Songbird that ended up on the Great Lost Kinks album.
Hasn’t the Neiler given up on the whole box set anthology concept in favor of one-off archival things like that really quite wonderful LIVE AT MASSEY HALL disc from last year?
Does Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg, the original “lost” version of The Clash’s Combat Rock, count?
Or what about Commercial Zone, the early version of PiL’s This is What You Want…?
One of my favorite lost albums is Brian Wilson’s Sweet Insanity, though I can’t imagine too many people on here would agree or would’ve even heard it for that matter. It’s like the 1990 version of Love You.
I’ve not heard Sweet Insanity, but didn’t Fritz post a few tracks a couple of years ago?
I do have Adult Child and it’s pretty bad.
On a side note, after hearing Johnny Carson off of Love You on the radio a few weeks ago, I have gotten a new appreciation for that particular/peculiar album.
I’m surprised that you don’t like Adult Child given that you like Love You (one of my favorite Beach Boys albums, incidentally). I’ve always viewed them as very similar in light of the fact that they’re both Brian-dominated and recorded around the same time. Thus, given his state of mind at the time, the content is quite similar. To be completely honest, I love the sheer freakiness/creepiness of some of it, esp. the long version of “Hey Little Tomboy” and “Lines”. Like Love You, it also some less humorous and more touching/romantic material like “Still I Dream of It”. I’m also a sucker for the Al-sung version of The Drifters’ “On Broadway”, for whatever reason.
So yeah, you should definitely revisit it. Do you have the version that’s on the same boot CD as Landlocked or a vinyl version? Just curious. I think the songs are the same, but the order may be different, though I have to check when I get home.
Oh and yeah a few tracks from Sweet Insanity were put up, but not by hrrundi. Instead, cjdawson put them up on the old list. He put up a duet with Bob Dylan called “The Spirit of Rock and Roll” and a faux-rap song called “Smart Girls”. The latter is so bad it’s good IMO. Most of the rest of that album, however, is quite different and quite good IMO.
This is from Neil current official website:
I like “Water Builds Up” from SWEET INSANITY but I thought the rest was pretty dreadful. I’m a major Brain fan but I haven’t liked much since the self-titled LP at all. Including that trumped up SMILE thing that had everyone panties in a bunch.
Surprised no one has mentioned John Fogerty’s 1976 aborted Asylum record HOODOO. An old roommate owned on cassette and i thought it was pretty good, although I haven’t heard it in years.
To bring an album over from Last Man Standing… How much could we consider Sister Lovers a Holy Grail? It was hard to find until 1992; Before then, it came out in quasi-legal versions with differing track listings; and no one really knows what Chilton was getting at, what he intended the final album to be (if he had any such intentions).
I thought of the Kinks album too, but there’s other good ones out there.
Prince and the Revolution’s last work ‘Dream Factory’. Share’s some tracks with ‘Sign of the Times’ but keeps the original band’s parts, and I prefer it to the latter.
Candy Butchers’ eponymous 1996 album, unreleased due to the label collapsing. It’s available online in various places, and is enjoyable stuff, if you like that kind of guitar pop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g24Dk7JSgaE
Shakespear’s Sister 1996 album #3 was refused release by London Records. It was finally released in 2004, long after anyone would care, but it’s good, glammy fun.
I’d forgotten all about Commercial Zone! I used to scout out an copy of that bootleg that would not interfere with my small budget for other actitivites in those days. I finally heard a track or two and was not impressed.
Oh, Split Enz finally released 1978’s legendary ‘Rootin Tootin Luton Tapes’ as a 2CD collection last year.