From left: Black Sabbath “Paranoid”, Prince “Sign O The Times”, Aretha Franklin “Aretha”, three top-notch deluxe reissues.
Remaster, repackage, remix, rerelease and resell. There’s gold still there to be had in them there old records
As the golden era of the album fades over the digitised horizon, replaced by Spotify playlists and online “drops” from music’s generation of digital natives, the treasures of rock’s age of antiquity are being fracked one last time to extract one last payday.
This is the age of the deluxe edition and anniversary reissue.
Records you’ve known and loved are being given a polish and retro-fitted with B-sides and studio outtakes, lost concert recordings and footage, tour program reprints, fan club cards, t-shirts and badges, all bundled up in a box of memories for you to luxuriate in.
These omnibus productions of nostalgia and retro zeitgeist can be a dangerous rabbit hole to slip down though.
I should know.
It dawned on me that my David Bowie obsession was reaching an unhealthy level when I realised I had five versions of his masterpiece “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars”.
Who needs five copies of any album? Well, me of course, and I bet I’m not alone.
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Maybe it’s a way to stay connected to the incalculable exhilaration you felt the first time you heard that record that tipped the world off its axis and forever changed the way you saw yourself and the world you wanted to live in.
Still, some of these reissues are more rewarding than others.
When the Go-Betweens issued their very first box set of remastered albums and lost tracks, “G is For Go-Betweens Volume 1”, I was, naturally, first in line for a copy.
It wasn’t only for those brilliant slices of Brisbane post-punk genius pressed into early albums like “Before Hollywood’ and “Spring Hill Fair”.
The late Grant McLennan (one half of the Go-Betweens’ song-writing team with Robert Forster) was a voracious reader. Those who purchased an early edition of the boxsets were also to be sent a book from the shelves of Grant’s personal library.
I treasure Grant’s copy of Robert Drewe’s classic Australian novel “The Shark Net” every bit as much as the records.
Not many reissues are going to offer such deeply personal gems as this, but if you are prepared to accept re-immersion therapy by diving head long into a deluxe edition/reissue of an old favourite, here’s a guide to a few things to consider putting on your Christmas list.
Prince – “Sign O The Times” (1987), Deluxe reissue
Before we enter the gates of Paisley Park, the question you need to ask yourself is – can there ever be too much “Sign Of The Times” (SOTT) in your life?
If like me, the answer is a huge “no”, then talk to your banker about re-mortgaging your house and sign up for the 13 LP deep-sea dive into Prince’s 1987 masterpiece.
After his global breakthrough with “Purple Rain” in 1984 and “Around The World in a Day” the following year, Prince’s second film “Under The Cherry Moon” was a puffy shirt car crash that almost undid him.
Saved by the mega-hit ‘Kiss” from the soundtrack album “Parade”, Prince was restless and looking for a reset. The result was the ambitious, sprawling double album with its epoch defining title track.
The reissue is stacked with gold from the Paisley Park vaults from the SOTT sessions. Like Bob Dylan, Prince was a contrarian, and much of his greatest work remained on the shelves, only to be discovered at a later date.
The live set included from the 1987 tour prompting the album is jaw-droppingly brilliant and worth the investment alone.
The reissue comes in other, more sane formats, each with their own treasures. Put simply, the man was a stone cold genius, and this is exhibit A.
Black Sabbath – “Paranoid” (1970), Super Deluxe
In the ‘60s it may have been swinging in London, but by the end of the decade, it was bleak in Birmingham.
Out of the Midlands doldrums emerged a band that started life as a progressive blues band but soon morphed into a sonic beast that gave the world the blueprint for heavy metal.
Black Sabbath’s second album “Paranoid” remains metal’s Magna Carta. Side one alone contains three of metal’s most treasured spells ‘War Pigs”, “Paranoid” and “Iron Man”.
The Super Deluxe set contains five LP’s, including a Quadradisc version mixed in stereo for audio geeks who want to freak their friends out all over again.
It’s the live albums heard here that take this set to the next level. Captured in action in Montreux, Switzerland and Brussels in Belgium in 1970, this is Sabbath ablaze, before the drugs, paranoia and ego saw them flame out.
This is the devil’s music being brewed for your pleasure all over again. Drink your fill.
Aretha Franklin – Aretha (1956-2015), Four CD box set
There was and only ever will be one queen of soul – Aretha Franklin.
Rhino Records, the original and still the best reissue label the world over, are set to release a career spanning a four CD, 81-track anthology of Aretha’s career, including 19 recordings that have previously been unreleased.
The journey begins with her first single from 1956 “Never Grow Old”, and winds its way through her remarkable career, culminating in her show-stopping rendition of Carole King’s “(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman” for the 38th Annual Kennedy Centre Honours in front of a rapturous audience that included then-Presidential couple, Barak and Michelle Obama.
Rhino are the masters of finding what even the most avid completist can’t, and they’ve hit a home run here, once again.
Here they’ve included alternate takes of “Chain Of Fools”, “Rock Steady” and “Spanish Harlem”; live recordings of “Baby I Love You” and “Don’t Play That Song”; and “Think” recorded for “The Blues Brothers” soundtrack.
After all that 2020 has thrown at you, wrapping yourself in Aretha’s soulful embrace is the least you deserve.
