Play it again, Bob- article on reissues from the times

For new sounds, old sounds and favourite sound discussion...

Moderators: sunny, BzaInSpace, runcible, spzretent

Post Reply
bunnyben
Known user
Posts: 2676
Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 8:49 pm
Location: inside aimless privacy

Play it again, Bob- article on reissues from the times

Post by bunnyben »

Bob Stanley
Last updated at 12:01AM, March 9 2012

Launching his new online column on album reissues, Bob Stanley of St Etienne explains how, defying industry gloom, demand for old gold has soared. Visit us online from Monday for his first column

For many years, reissued albums were seen as flotsam, nothing but budget material. Most major labels had their own cheapo imprint — Music For Pleasure, Ace Of Clubs, Golden Hour — whose wares could usually be found on a carousel in Woolworths. It was in pop’s nature to be ephemeral, and once a record — whether it was by Elvis, the Kinks or Shakin’ Stevens — dropped out of the charts, it ceased to be of much significance to the record label. There was always something newer, fresher, another Bowie, Bolan, Ant or Abba to make a mint from. Things in the digital age are very different. EMI’s value to Universal, should the takeover go ahead, is almost entirely in its back catalogue rather than its future potential.

It’s a long, long way from Elvis Presley’s The Sun Collection — a 17-track vinyl album released in 1975 to wide acclaim — to The Who’s enormous Quadrophenia super-deluxe set. The Seventies brought the birth of reissues as we know them today, compilations lovingly crafted by fans rather than 20 Greatest Hits jobs that lacked cohesion and, frequently, one or two of the artist’s actual greatest hits. It’s hard to believe that no one, for instance, thought to compile every Elvis Sun recording in one place for almost two decades; since The Sun Collection first appeared, RCA (now Sony/BMG) has issued them periodically with bells, whistles, and alternate takes, first on Sunrise (1999) then Elvis at Sun (2004), before the recordings became public domain. Now these precious recordings can be found, with artwork that looks like it was designed by Haribo, at all good petrol stations across Europe.

The reissue market is booming, with more labels seemingly trying their hand at excavating pop’s past than discovering its future. Amid the heavyweight vinyl at £24 a pop, and the spare bedroom-sized super-deluxe box, budget reissues do still exist, and can occasionally be very worthwhile. Julian Fernandez, senior product manager at Universal Music catalogue, says: “We did a two-CD Thin Lizzy set for the supermarkets. The consumer doesn’t see value in a single CD anymore — they just think of it as something given away with a newspaper — but they’ll buy a double CD for £5. So we were trying to lift value at the supermarket end, where we can make money by selling in volume. And it worked.” It sold an astonishing 80,000 copies.

Another compilation by Big Country, a group largely forgotten by the critics but still popular with Tesco customers, sold 40,000 copies. Not much compared with sales in the Eighties, but a huge number in the download era. Realising there was still an audience for the group, Fernandez then worked on a deluxe two-disc edition of Big Country’s 1983 album The Crossing as well as a £40 vinyl version — this included a signed certificate from surviving members of the band, plus the opportunity to get your name in the artwork. Deluxe, super-deluxe, one-off copies signed by the band as they take you out to dinner — this is the new world of reissues.

Why has catalogue suddenly become such a big deal for the major labels? It is largely because a well-crafted reissue is an artefact to cherish in an increasingly ephemeral age. Record buyers who would have bought half a dozen newly released CDs a month ten years ago will now check these artists out on Spotify or YouTube and spend their money on something they know they’ll still be listening to in ten years. Some might say the more heavyweight the reissue, the better: The Who’s recent Quadrophenia deluxe edition included a huge book, featuring a 17,000 word essay by Pete Townshend.

In cases like this, the music almost seems like an add-on. “The market’s gone towards the upper end — people want more discs, more photos, just more,” says Roger Armstrong of Ace Records, who have been in the reissue game for 30 years. “The Fame box (a compilation of the southern soul label that brought us Candi Staton) has sold amazingly well. It’s three CDs and it’s a high price, but we’re selling in numbers that could almost get you in the chart.”

The man who got the ball rolling in Britain, back in the mid Seventies, was Andrew Lauder. As a teenager he was working at United Artists, signing acts as varied as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Can and Dr Feelgood. “At the time, I was picking up a lot of Sixties beat singles from the Rock On stall on Golborne Road, and a lot of them ended up on The Beat Merchants.” This beautifully packaged double album, released in 1975, coincided with the pub rock boom. Old music and new music began feeding off each other: a reissue of Vince Taylor’s Brand New Cadillac on Chiswick — a forerunner to Ace — led to the Clash covering it.

For me, the benchmark for reissues was set by Lauder’s own Edsel label. It set standards at the turn of the Eighties with excellent mastering, inserts, photos and extensive sleevenotes. Legendary Sixties groups such as the Action (produced by George Martin) and the Creation (who inspired Alan McGee to start his label of the same name) had their works collated on Edsel for the first time, rescuing them from the hardcore collectors’ market. These reissues were an education. “The major labels didn’t care back then,” recalls Lauder. “We could license the Byrds’ catalogue off Sony, release Younger than Yesterday on Edsel, it was easy.”

The majors certainly care a lot more now. It’s almost inconceivable that Sony could have let such a significant part of their heritage go out on a licence for a mere £2,000 — and this was in 1986 when, if anyone at the label had been paying attention, they’d have noticed that the Byrds were the most influential and namechecked Sixties band on the burgeoning indie scene.

As recently as 2004, Universal felt Sandy Denny’s back catalogue was of minority interest and let the tiny Fledgling label release the 5 CD Boxful of Treasures. Six years later, Universal put together an incredible 19-disc Sandy Denny boxed set, and pressed 3,000 copies, retailing at £180. They must have worried that they may have gone too far in lavishly repackaging one of their more enigmatic signings. Instead, the box sold out in the blink of an eye. It’s already fetching upwards of £800 on eBay — or if you’re feeling flush you can click “buy it now” and part with £1,500.

Which brings us to the thorny subject of limited editions. The second-hand market is buoyant, with genuinely rare items by name acts going for ever-increasing sums if they are in mint condition. Over the years, groups such as White Stripes have deliberately manufactured rarities, but they have initially sold them at a regular price. The Pet Shop Boys’ Yes album, on the other hand, was released as an ultra-limited set of 12in singles for an eye-watering £300. That’s what you’d pay for a trio of immaculate, five decades-old Beatles albums.

It seems a little bit like cheating.

The strange, and rather deceptive, practice of 180g vinyl reissues is also problematic. In short, heavy vinyl doesn’t necessarily improve sound quality. The reason that an original 1961 Blue Note album will excite a jazz aficionado is because it was cut with deep grooves, on a scientifically perfect, valve-driven lathe. Records that have deep-cut grooves will sound richer and fuller, but most new heavyweight albums are taken from a digital source, and will sound exactly the same as albums cut on thin vinyl. They’ll just cost more.

Trunk Records started at the turn of the century with the first release of the Wicker Man soundtrack. Since then, Jonny Trunk has scoured vaults for his eclectic catalogue: an impressive collection of obscure jazz, electronica and film soundtracks ranges from Basil Kirchin’s near impenetrable Quantum to the music from The Clangers. He regards 180g vinyl as “just a novelty”, and is happy pressing his limited editions on regular vinyl, while the CDs remain in print permanently. “It’s a busy buoyant market, but the poor consumer is spoilt for choice,” he says. “Quirky albums that were only rereleased ten years ago, like Serge Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson, are coming around again, this time on triple vinyl.”

Still, the appetite is there; fans want more. The breadth of reissues available covers all bases, ready for newcomers who may have heard an “acid folk” obscurity by Linda Perhacs on YouTube, or a Northern Soul cut on a cat food advert, as well as the heavyweight releases by big names. The 2010 deluxe reissue of the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street went to No 1 in the UK album chart, 38 years after it first came out. The past is still a largely untapped market.

Five of the best reissues

THE COMPLETE MOTOWN SINGLES 1967 (Motown) An ongoing series that has now reached 1971, these 7in sized sets come with a vinyl single (Gladys Knight’s I Heard it Through the Grapevine in this instance) and a lavish book of facts and anecdotes.

DIFFERENT CLASS (deluxe edition) by Pulp (Island) The best album of 1995 now comes with a bonus disc of B-sides (Mile End, Ansaphone) and demos (We Can Dance Again) that are nearly as good as the main event.

ON VINE STREET: THE EARLY SONGS OF RANDY NEWMAN (Ace) Songs he wrote for the likes of Gene Pitney (Nobody Needs Your Love) and Alan Price (Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear), compiled with Ace’s usual attention to detail.

JUST ANOTHER DIAMOND DAY by Vashti Bunyan (Spinney) Now on vinyl and CD, this obscure, gentle folk gem sold in the hundreds when it first came out in 1970. Since its reissue there has been a second Vashti album, and even a documentary.

THE SMILE SESSIONS by the Beach Boys (EMI) CDs, vinyl, a hardback book — everything but the bumper sticker made this legendary unreleased material worth the 40-year wait. Almost.
'raging and weeping are left on the early road
now each in his holy hill
the glittering and hurting days are alomst done
then let us compare mythologies
i have learned my elaborate lie
of soaring crosses and poisened thorns'
Post Reply