Less Is More: The Abridged Album Appreciation Thread"

What got me thinking is the later version of John Coltrane's The Believer that appears on the Black Pearls prestige 2-fer.

The original was cobbled together using tracks from a legendary Coltrane session and filled out with a couple recordings from the Ray Draper Quintet (featuring Coltrane).

The later version simply drops the 2 Draper tracks.


Any albums where you honestly prefer the abridged version, and why?

 

Madonna's "Erotica". The "clean" version drops this POS:

 

The U.S. version of the Beatles' Rubber Soul. It has 10 of the 14 songs fron the U.K. version plus two holdovers from the U.K. Help! ... and it works extremely well.

 

Suffered massive Blue Monday burnout, So having the original track list on compact disc and lp is kind of nice
New Order-Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983

 

Live at Leeds original album

 

Totally agree. I have been wondering if there is a thread devoted to "when more is not more." The original Leeds LP packs such a sonic wallop of greatness that I have recreated it from the 90s extended version on CD in my iTunes. Expanded editions of John Barleycorn Must Die are also inferior to the original (imho).

 

Ironically, (considering I started this thread) my introduction to Live At Leeds (and The Who in general) was the cd version. So, naturally I can't live without that Heaven and Hell opener, Amazing Journey/Sparks, and that beautiful segue into Tattoo.

Love a good self-thread crap.

 

Les Baxter's Le Sacre du Sauvage hangs together much better in its original 10" album form. Of the four tracks added when it was expanded to an album, only one of the four tracks is thematically related to the rest of the suite. Having said this, "Sophisticated Savage" is one of my favorite Les Baxter compositions ever, but it is best heard in another context.

 

I very much prefer the 'Highlights' version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. It cuts out a lot of the long passages that make the original version drag a bit in my opinion.

 

I think Highlights from "The Nutcracker" are more enjoyable than sprawling two disc sets.

 

Actually, the original 1964 release of The Believer only had three tracks: "The Believer," "Nakatini Serenade," and "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful." It was about 30 minutes long. The two Draper tracks ("Filidia" and "Paul's Pal" IIRC) were bonuses added to the OJC CD release in 1996. With very, very few exceptions, those 70s Prestige twofers reproduced the original albums exactly as they had been released in the first place. The Draper Quintet tracks were from a different album altogether, originally released in about 1960.

That being said, there was an edited version of that Draper LP issued in Europe in the early '60s. It was called Concentrated Coltrane, and it was a two-sided EP about 15 minutes in length. The first side deleted everything except Coltrane's solos, while the second side featured one complete track.




Prestige and Impulse, among other labels, released many condensed versions of their albums for the European and jukebox markets, but this was a sort of unusual example of that practice. Usually they just dropped several tracks.

 

Hah. Let me try that one. As one who grew up with the original vinyl, I just loved the expanded version from '95, despite a few pointless overdubs that had me scratching my head. Ironically, then I hated the Deluxe edition that mucked up the song order.

 

The version of Simple Minds' Sister Feelings Call included in the original twofer CD with Sons And Fascination ran a little long for early CDs, and so the label dropped League Of Nations (a minimalist jam that had originally been released as a throwaway B-Side for The American) and Sound In 70 Cities (the instrumental version of 70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall). Having loved the album from that twofer for years without knowledge of those tracks, when I finally heard the missing tracks I thought they were right to drop them as they messed up the flow and seemed unfinished, contributing to the 'outtakes album' image that Sister Feelings Call had compared to Sons And Fascination (which of course, was unfair, especially as its lead-off track Theme For Great Cities later became one of Simple Minds' signature tunes when picked up by club DJs).

 

Having heard the raw uncut Leeds performance, I agree with this, especially on My Gen where it was edited and cleaned up quite a bit, especially mixing out Daltry's obtrusive tambourine rattling during the Underture section. Also like the backwards crowd snippet during the intro on Magic Bus that replaces some less-than-stellar Townshend chord strumming.

 

I suppose the CD tracklist of The Cure Disintegration is considered canonical, since they have mostly used it as the basis for live renditions of the album.

Nevertheless I prefer the album without "Last Dance" and "Homesick". I kind of like the latter, but the former to me is the least interesting track on the whole. It also brings the album to a more digestible 60 minutes in length.

 

The expanded one cd LAL is great. The double disc deluxe isn't.

 

Well snap. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

I prefer the 6-CD set of Dylan's The Bootleg Series 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 over the unabridged 18-CD version.

 

I still have not gotten any edition of The Cutting Edge. Was thinking I might just get the 2-CD, but am not leaning to the 6. I have not been able to keep pace with the multi-CD Dylan releases the past several years.

 

"now" leaning to the 6 CD.