Albums that were buried by their creators or label

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by lugnut2099, Oct 18, 2012.

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  1. [​IMG]

    (Poster version shown - note the "secret message" across the bottom!)
     
  2. DesertChaos

    DesertChaos Forum Resident

    I'm not entirely sure of the story behind it but there was an album called "No Fear" by singer-songwriter Abra Moore that had DJ copies issued (I found one in the used bin at one of the shops in L.A years ago) but then got pulled before release. I think many of the songs were re-done for the album she issued a couple years later?
     
  3. SoporJoe

    SoporJoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    British Columbia
    Sparks' soundtrack to Mai, The Psychic Girl. I love the songs that have leaked.
     
  4. Rocketdog

    Rocketdog Senior Member

    Location:
    ME, USA
    Don't know if this would apply, but I think it might.

    The Cult were originally going to release the album Peace, as their follow up to Love. In 1986, they booked time at Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, with producer Steve Brown (who had produced Love), and recorded over a dozen new songs, but were ultimately unhappy with the sounds produced. So, they went to New York with the idea that producer Rick Rubin could remix the first single, "Love Removal Machine". Rubin agreed to work with the band, but only if they rerecorded the song. Rubin eventually talked them into rerecording the entire album. The band's record company, Beggars Banquet, was displeased with this, as two months and £250,000 had already been spent on the record. However, after hearing the initial New York recording, Beggars Banquet agreed to proceed, and the new album, now titled Electric, came out in 1987.

    With the exception of the occasional track released as b-sides on singles here and there, most of what would have been the original Peace album would still sit on the shelves. However, the full album finally saw the light of day in 2000, as Disc 3 of the Rare Cult box set.


    A lot of times, there are also legal issues and record company interference involved in why a record doesn't get released (at least initially). Or only released in certain countries. For example...

    In 1998, the band Nada Surf was all set to release their sophomore album The Proximity Effect. However their record label - Elektra Records - thinking the album lacked a hit, had the band record many covers, including "Black & White" (The dBs) and "Why Are You So Mean To Me?" (Vitreous Humor), to use them as singles. Tired of the requirements of the A&R director, the band judged the album was complete and perfect as-is (even though Elektra even suggested the inclusion of an acoustic version of their debut hit "Popular"), and broke its contract. As a consequence, Elektra did not release the album in the US, and dropped the band while they were on a promotional tour in Europe, where the album did get a limited release.

    There were a few advance promotional copies of the album that got sent out to radio & retail in '98, and luckily, I have one of them. I had always thought that was it for the band, until I saw the album later turn up released independently by Nada Surf under their own, MarDev Records (named after Caws' grandmother), in August 2000. It had taken them that long to reacquire the rights, and be able to self release it.

    Another example is with the band Deep Blue Something. After the success of their debut album Home and single "Breakfast At Tiffany's" in 1995, they were all primed to begin work on their sophomore album titled Byzantium with a planned release in 1996. However, the band came into legal troubles with their former manager over the copyright of "Breakfast At Tiffany's" and their independently released album The 11th song. As a result, their label Interscope Records put Byzantium on hold and did not release it until 1998 and then only in Japan and some European countries. Deep Blue Something ultimately won the lawsuit many years later, but by not being able to release a follow up album timely enough in the US, lost all the momentum they had built. Half of Byzantium would later be issued, combined with newer material, as part of their self titled 2001 release on new label Azera Records, but it was to little avail.

    Some other bands aren't even that lucky. Many times a band will record a for one label, only to have massive shakeups occur at that record company, and find that all the people who were working with them were now gone. Meanwhile, the folks who replaced those execs have no interest in promoting or working with a band they didn't sign, and often, the bands felt the same way.

    Usually what happens in these case depends on who funded the making of the album, and other legalities of their contract. If it was the band themselves, then they usually retain control over the album, and can sometimes shop it somewhere else. However if the label funded the recording, it doesn't always work out so nice. Many times the label will purposely keep the album locked up, as they they don't want another label profiting off a potential hit album they could have had. The list of artist this has happened to is so long I can't even list them all - but one example I can think of is that it almost happened with Semisonic's debut The Great Divide (originally on Elektra, later released on MCA).
     
    rcsrich likes this.
  5. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    I think it was as simple a reason as the timing of the album's release; it would have come out at a period when bossa nova music wasn't selling.
     
  6. Rocketdog

    Rocketdog Senior Member

    Location:
    ME, USA
    One example I can think of was Spoon. They had signed to Elektra Records in 1998, and through Elektra, released A Series of Sneaks in May 1998. The album did not sell as well as the label had hoped, and merely four months after the release of Sneaks, Spoon's Elektra A&R man Ron Laffitte quit his job and that week, and the band was dropped from the label. The Elektra version quickly went out of print, and remained unreleased until 2002, when their current label Merge released it.

    Angry with Laffitte, who had promised to stick with the band, Spoon recorded a vindictive yet humorously-titled two-song concept single entitled "The Agony of Laffitte". They lamented their experience with the music business executive and questioned his motivations with the songs “The Agony of Laffitte" and "Laffitte Don’t Fail Me Now".
     
  7. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    We've seen plenty of other examples of this in this thread but it still seems crazy to me. Wouldn't they be better off to go ahead and sell the record anyway since it's already been pressed and printed and fully ready to go than to just recall and destroy it? Or was there some kind of tax write-off that made the latter option more profitable in the end?
     
  8. Frame313

    Frame313 Active Member

    Location:
    Dallas, Tx, USA
    I believe the 8 Track Museum, here in Dallas, has one of those as part of their collection.
     
  9. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Not quite-- Utopia were able to get off their contract, but Todd wasn't so lucky. His next album (TEPTAE) came out on Bearsville, and Albert Grossman wanted A Capella as well, which is why that album was held up for many months. Todd finally bought his way out so that one could come out on Warners. I think Bearsville ended about three years after Swing.
     
  10. Yannick

    Yannick Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cologne, Germany
    Shirley Manson recorded a solo album before the recent reunion of Garbage. Reportedly, Paul Buchanan (of The Blue Nile) was involved as a co-writer. The label (which one actually is it?) shelved it and the artist was let go. Who knows if she owns the masters and would one day like to release it?

    I sure enough would love to listen to it.
     
  11. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Wait… There's an 8-Track Museum?! Really? Cool!
     
  12. One_L

    One_L Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lower Left Coast
    Didn't Springsteen record Nebraska with a full band? I'm under the impression he decided to shelve that version and recorded the songs solo.
     
  13. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    Yes, they do, those bastards! :)
     
  14. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    No idea about the tax write-off, but the LP only made it as far as the test pressing phase. Only the 8-tracks were shipped, recalled and destroyed. What I can't figure out is, why was the 8-track version shipped and sold before the LPs were ever even pressed? Didn't they have a single targeted street date in mind for all versions, or were they released on separate dates back then?
     
  15. Frame313

    Frame313 Active Member

    Location:
    Dallas, Tx, USA
  16. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I agree. One of my personal favorite H&O albums. I have never understood their complete dismissal of the album.
     
    Octowen likes this.
  17. dino77

    dino77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    The Simple Minds album "Our Secrets Are the Same" was planned for a 1999 release by EMI, but was held up due to company mergers and after it leaked online it was shelved. It did eventually turn up on the Silver Box set.
     
  18. pig whisperer

    pig whisperer CD Member

    Location:
    Tokyo, Japan
    Bowie also removed (buried) "Too Dizzy" from later editions of Never Let Me Down.
     
  19. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    Didn't The Alan Parsons Project record an unreleasable album about chess (Sicilian Defence) to break their contract with Arista??
     
  20. elgreco

    elgreco Groove Meister

    Not so much buried by their creators or their label, but Mr. Mister's 4th album Pull was a victim of the changing times. It was recorded in 1989/1990, but didn't see the light of day until 2010. Mr. Mister was dropped by RCA after their third album album Go on failed to build on the momentum of the highly successfull Welcome to the real world album. They recorded and mixed that 4th album by themselves, but were unable to find a record deal, after which the groep disbanded.

    Though bad-sounding copies were all over the internet for years, I'm glad Richard Page decided to finally give it a proper release though his one Little Dume label. It's a fantastic album.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_(Mr._Mister_album)
     
    altaeria likes this.
  21. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    They Might Be Giants' "Superfueled Freaksickle", which was announced as a forthcoming release in 1997, but (according to Flansburgh) the band didn't want to 'flood the market' so soon after the release of "Then."

    It would've been a continuation of "Miscellaneous T" covering the Elektra b-sides - and thankfully, is easy enough to compile on your own!
     
  22. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    I'm sure this has been mentioned in the various preceding pages, but the Bee Gees' unfortunate "A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants" - a wonderful album (the last of their 'ballad years'), but both the Gibbs and Robert Stigwood considered it terrible.

    It may not have sold, given the band's massive slump at the time, but what a waste of brilliant material.
     
  23. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    Sacred Songs - Daryl Hall
    his label thought his musing with Robert Fripp too weird and would ruin his career

    they even limited the number of songs released that he sang on on Fripp's Exposure album

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  24. Lucidae

    Lucidae AAD

    Location:
    Australia
    Renaissance's first couple albums with the original lineup weren't acknowledged by the second lineup.
     
  25. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Mentioned a while ago. I took in the whole thread at once so I don't remember the page but it was mentioned and ruminated on pages ago.

    Ed
     
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